Category: Outervention

beauty, Being resilient, Blessings, Campfire's glow, Campfires, Creation, Darkness, Faithful Living, Having hope about the future, how nature heals, joy, Lessons from the Wilderness, Light, Losing yourself in nature, Outervention, Sitting around the campfire, sunrise, the vicissitudes of life, Watching the campfire, When the sunrise lights the clouds

The Light from Under

This Side of the River

The sun rose above a cold and hushed forest this morning, making the high clouds blush with anticipation. To the east, the trees’ backdrop was all crimson and fire, while to the west the underbelly of the sky was lit in rosy pastels. A gull floated high above the bluff shaded as pink as a flamingo. The browsing doe’s brown winter coat was tinged a dusky magenta.

I have always enjoyed the effects of things being lit up from below. This is nowhere more observable than around a campfire on a very dark night. As people lean forward to warm their hands, their faces take on a softened shimmer, mesmerized by the flick and spark of the burning wood. We are used to turning our faces toward the sun to momentarily appreciate its balm and warmth, but a campfire’s burning coals smooth out wrinkles of anxiety, bathing the heart in calming thought like

a reflection within a reflection. 

Light from above leaves sharp shadows. Light from below melds with shadow to soften the outlines. Life is like that sometimes. An unanticipated threat looms suddenly, glaringly lit by a fearful realization: an unexpected bill we cannot pay, a pink slip at work, an unwelcome, gut-wrenching diagnosis. The light is coldly enlightening-there is trouble afoot, and the shadows are long and dark. 

Making a nighttime fire in the fireplace or the backyard fire pit brings a different perspective. The light softly cracks the darkness, the flames invite us to quell our panic, to murmur with the nattering coals into the warm light’s crevices – not to forget our troubles, but to see them in a light less stark. Illumined, yes. But without the anxious shadows, warming our souls in the fire’s rhythms of flare and ember. I’ve never seen a more beautiful face than one watching a campfire, meditatively strengthening with faith and resolve to face the shadows and overcome them.

________

Thanks for the time you take to read my wandering mind. After seeing today’s magnificent sunrise, I decided to try a writing exercise on why I adore the softening effects of under-lighting. It isn’t easy to describe!

J.A.P.Walton, Ph.D.

Feel free to comment here or send an email: jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com

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Being LIFTED

This Side of the River

We find ourselves in the French Alps this month for our daughter’s much-anticipated wedding. The views from our rented condo are spectacular in this little ski resort town that reminds me of my childhood days spent at Rocky Mountain National Park. Rugged, snow-capped peaks at every turn, the serenade of the swift mountain streams, the hikers, the bikers, the dog-walkers and kayakers. All of it a delightful community focused on the outdoors of God’s grand and hospitable design.

These Alps have known their battles. Forged by tectonic plate uplift of immeasurable force, it is an area of high mountain tarns, and long valley cow-pastures. Here, during WWII, the Germans and Italians raced into France to lay hold of the lush farms and productive mines. 

When I was here two years ago, our daughter took unwell following a series of seemingly unrelated health challenges. Thank God for the persistence of the French doctors who found previously unknown factors that, perhaps compounded by a Covid vaccine, suddenly and decisively and dramaticallycoalesced into a life-threatening situation. Our daughter was laid low overnight. But now, she is again strong, and fit, and glowing like a bride-to-be should. We are so very thankful.

What better place than these mountains to be knocked low, and then given the grace of time and medicine to heal, stealing oneself against the tectonic forces in life that unexpectedly smack one down, but then turn to LIFT back up? I am reminded, here, of Psalm 121: “I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth…The LORD who will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore… He will not let your foot be moved, and he who keeps you will not slumber.” (Order mine).

I have been giving much thought of late to the grace inherent inthe word LIFT. Such a hopeful word, is it not?

We lift another’s spirits. We lift them in prayer. We lift the downhearted and weary when we step in to help. A smile. A hand. A kind word. Such a LIFT to others.

We are here to celebrate so many good things. May you too, in times of deep challenge and worry and stress and fear be able to look up, and know that help is there. That you WILL BE LIFTED when you most desperately need it. That a celebration awaits.

Thanks for reading along. Please click on the FOLLOW button the receive regular posts in the email.

J.A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

Jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com

beauty, Being resilient, Blessings, Creation, Creator, Faithful Living, Forest, God, Hardiness, Having hope about the future, Lessons from the Wilderness, Life's Storms, Living Faithfully, Nature, Outervention, Perseverence, Praise, rabbits, Religion, Storms, The forest and the dune, The sounds of nature, The squirrel and the rabbit, The still small voice of God, Things that are true, Threats from above, virtue, What nature can teach us, When God speaks, wilderness, wisdom

When the Rabbit Runs

This Side of the River

I have been working on a list of things I know to be true no matter what my feelings might otherwise dictate. It is an interesting list I think, and one that will continue to grow. For example, the first item on the list is that all storms pass, and rough waters eventually become calm. I know in my heart that is true even though being in the middle of one of life’s storms often feels interminable and frightening.  Another is that a pleasant demeanor is always worth more than you feel it costs you.  And yet another: most unkindness is rooted in and motivated by fear.

But the one that captures my imagination today is the truth that you should look up when the rabbit runs.“

Here at the bluff, the rabbits inhabit the margins between dune grass and forest edge. They are a sniffly little band, out in the dark devouring my carefully cultivated vegetation when there’s an entire forest of food at their disposal. But the forest hides the bobcat, and the bobcat has babies to feed. 

Out in the openness of the dune, the rabbit is most vulnerable to overhead threats. The red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks silently prowl the perimeter, then brashly dive right over the open space. Any living thing small enough to claw and suffocate-chipmunk, mouse, squirrel, bird, rabbit- is in their sights. Just the other day, a rabbit was hunkered under the bird feeder nosing around for spare seed when one of the resident bald eagles soared past. Though the eagle was not hunting, the sight and shadow of the large wings sent the rabbit panicking into cover of spruce.

Look up when the rabbit runs.”

The same holds true in our own lives, when surrounding threats make the heart skip a beat, when the instinct to run and hide overrules any other thought. Yet most of our threats don’t require flight, but head-on confrontation; they need a deep, thoughtful look, because they are rarely overt, but rather insidious, unobserved, often ignored. What do I mean? I mean we should think about the things that soar unnoticed overhead, things that threaten our well-being, things like too much time spent on frivolities like scrolling numbly through social media. Or too much raunchy music or humor or television that infiltrates our spirit with ideas that are not noble, or worthy of our brain power. Or the surprising anger that blackly rises up out of our hearts when another driver annoys us. Or the vitriol we spew when someone with an opposing viewpoint speaks out.

These are threats to our life precisely because we never recognize them until they have their claws around us, squeezing and suffocating the life right out of us. They cause us to sow discord, to angrily participate in cynical or enraged dispute rather than welcoming a civil discussion.  We mock others instead of honoring the very humanity we cherish in ourselves. Why can’t we instead concentrate on things that are noble and of good repute? What is so hard about keeping the ugly and sinister at bay while embracing whatever is lovely, and upright, admirable, and praiseworthy? I wish I knew. 

What I do know for certain is that God’s creation in nature is balm to the suffocating soul. This is where wisdom teaches patient and quiet observation, and where we will learn and observe all kinds of things that are worthy of praise. The opossum may not be comely, may even remind us of a rat, but it voraciously eats the ticks that make us and our pets sick. That scary little spider dines on roaches and mosquitos-the best pest control money can’t buy. The blue jay may mock and scold, but it also blares out a danger warning like a tornado siren. 

 Yes, the truth is that wisdom and insight are treasures worth seeking, and that the ant and bee are good mentors.”

Stop listening to the culture’s banalities. God’s nature is almost always more beautiful than human nature. Maybe a walk in the rain is a good idea. Maybe getting down to observe what’s going on in the grass will yield a bit of wisdom. Maybe setting aside your phone for a few hours is a worthwhile rebellion. Maybe you can learn the ways of the rabbit, to look up when it runs. You might just glimpse a magnificent eagle.

Thanks for reading along. Photo credit: Pixaby 051123

J.A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com

beauty, Blessings, Creation, Creator, Faithful Living, Hope, joy, Lessons from the Wilderness, Outervention, Pilgrimage, Prayer, Silence, Sounds, The sounds of nature, The still small voice of God, When God speaks, Winter Water Sports

A Rare and Precious Nothing

This Side of the River

It is unusually still at the bluff this morning, as if the trees and waves are playing Red Light-Green Light, stuck in a frozen, statuesque posture. We had a similar day last week after a powdery snow. Walking up the wooded section of dune through the stilled maple , oak and hemlock, we stopped to listen. And other than the blood pulsing past my ears, there was complete silence. No cars on the distant highway. Not a whisper of breeze in the tree boughs. No timid chips from a bird. No jet skis ripping up the day on the water below. 

A rare and precious nothing.

Our regular lives are noisy. So many things clamor and clang for our attention that we thrust our earbuds in deep in a futile attempt to choose our own noise. We are so accustomed to the noise that real silence is often uncomfortable. And yet, Scripture tells us that God often speaks into silence. If you can believe that, then a life without silence might be one that thrusts God aside, forgoing his presence and wisdom.

Out in the silent snowy forest, I began to think about the times nature is silent. The noise is there, but it is tiny, inaudible to us. I think of mama mouse in her cozy nest of mewing pups. Of the mole busily tunneling beneath my feet. The turtle suspended in the pond with just its nostrils showing. The pinecone and milkweed pod splitting open to disperse seed. The stars making their way across the night sky. The blink of eyes watching silently for a meal; the bobcat and the sharp shinned hawk, the owl and the snake-each patiently, moodily, warily silent.

All of nature speaks without words in a lyrical, melodic fashion with an unuttered language our plodding words cannot describe or comprehend. The rose, for example, nods silently; its sound is beauty and fragrance and silkiness. We know that the trees communicate, yet we hear nothing.

It’s said silence is golden. So why is it so hard for us to be silent? Why must our own thoughts and endless chatter fill the void? In my teaching I was fond of throwing out questions that required thought, massage, analysis, and synthesis. It took a while for students to learn that those would end up being the same questions on an exam. Students were so busy sounding out answers, waving their hands in the air to put voice to the answer, that they never thought to write down the question in their notes. And I refrained from rewarding the “bunny rabbit” responders, because they wanted to answer without the harder work of deep thought in silent rumination. I would ask them to think a little longer. To sit in the quiet with a quieted mind. To marinate on the question. That was where the learning would take place.

We can all learn from the quiet. The questions are where to find it and how to patiently sit in it? How to still the voices in our heads? How grasp the truth that God speaks into the silence?

My prayer for you today is to find a quiet spot where you can stop talking long enough to listen to the silence, blanketed in the comfort of a rare and precious nothing, for that is where you will learn the most about yourself, your world, and God.

Thanks you so very much for reading. My goal is to be hospitable to my readers, giving them ideas and words that delight and challenge. If you want, you can click on the blue FOLLOW button to receive blog posts in your email. Feel free to drop me a note at the email below.

~J.A.P. Walton, PhD

jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com

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Are Your Feet on the Right Road?

This Side of the River

As a publishing company launch team reviewer, I have been reading a colleague’s forthcoming book about Saint Augustine . [1]  It has been the most important read of my life so far, and I hope you will read it!  Why? Because it returns me, yet again, to the wisdom of Augustine, a 4thcentury bishop, whose young life was stained with aggressive ambition, relentless restlessness, and sordid living. All he wanted from life was the freedom to be, to go, to escape. Repeat.

We leave in a few days for Lake Superior. The brothers will canoe while I keep camp (in the RV). I have too great a respect for the Ojibwes’ gichi-gami to contemplate 2 weeks on its unpredictably stormy deeps. But, with Augustine ringing in my ears, it puts me in the mindset of trying to understand human restlessness.

Lately, an outdoor sporting goods company called Backcountry has been running Instagram ads about burnout, beseeching people to get outside every day, to take long weekends in Nature,

to answer chronic workplace stress with big seasonal doses of “outervention.”  [2]

Even Augustine wrote about burnout, about the vanity of the chase (so did Solomon for that matter in Ecclesiastes). And you will find all kinds of advice to get out and “GO” in the works of Thoreau, Emerson, Muir, Abbey, Leopold, Dillard, and other nature writers.

Their collective point? Humans are restless, and Nature is the balm.  But, none of this deals with the fact that escapism only delays the inevitable.  That our love of the road, of its freedoms, and that the destination is usually vague and indefinable.  Think of the way people dream about throwing off the shackles of work to take to the open road:  retiring young enough to travel; taking a year off to see the world; developing a bucket list.  Always, the focus is on escaping one’s present circumstances, and none of us is immune. And almost always, the goal is to master and revere creation rather than to revere the master Creator.

Augustine would argue most vehemently against our propensity to flee, particularly when the destination is not well-understood. 

The truth that is buried in our subconscious is that this earth is not our home. That nature is not our mother- it neither cares for us nor nurtures us in tender protection-it simply is. That death is the final outpost.

So, where is our real home? Augustine would encourage you to think long and deep about this;

that all the roads we desire on earth will lead to nowhere; that the only true road is the one that leads us home to God.

Christians believe this road is the way of Christ’s gospel, and it’s not a vacation, but a vocation-a lifelong endeavor to be about God’s work.

Feeling the burn of your workaday world? Dreaming of the beaches in Jamaica, the Grand Canyon’s wide-open arms, or sightseeing in Europe?  All wonderful things, to be sure.  But none of them set your feet on the right road.

As you prepare to enter winter through the colorful gates of autumn, I pray you can find some time to sort out why you feel so restless, and Who it is that can lead you to the road of peace. And, paddle on, even when it’s into the wind in rough waters.

~J.A.P. Walton

[1]Smith. James K.A.  On the Road with Saint Augustine. Brazos Press. Available October 1, 2019.  #OTRWithAugustine.  More info available at See more about Jamie’s book here:

[2  Backcountry Info