We are in the second year of drought at the bluff, having come full circle from the high and destructive Lake Michigan waters of 2020 to lower levels which now grace us with an expansive beach. We happily embrace the protective nature of lower water, allowing the bluffs up and down this stretch of coast an opportunity to reach repose, a breath of time to quell the worries up top about losing homes into the lake.
Nature is like that, with its highs and lows, its unpredictability and fickleness.
And yet, much of nature IS predictable: seasons turning, tides that rise and fall on schedule, sunrise and sunset, baby robins in the spruce each June. The weeds will still poke their pesky way into the garden, the deer will eat the black eyed susans, and the toads will hang out underneath the bird bath.
Even so, nature is also filled with unwelcome surprises. No wonder we become watchful and wary, scanning for potential threats. The roller coaster of worry is real; one year you are flooded and caving in, and the next joyfully traipsing upon wide, sandy, pristine beaches.
Chaos tamed for a time by calm.
Likewise, the human experience runs an emotional gamut; carefree days can turn on a dime by a swift and surprising threat. A cancer diagnosis. A silent and devastating stroke. A deathly ill child. Life goes from calm back to chaos and we are caught frightfully unaware.
At least we don’t get eaten in the real sense. In the rest of the animal world, there is constant peril from predators. Truth is, everything must kill to eat; the food chain is merciless in its hierarchy. Once, at our old home at Trout Creek, I was delighting in a male cardinal at the bird feeder in the middle of winter. His cheery, cherry mantle was lovely against the frosty snow. Without warning, a blur of steel blue swept down from above and grabbed the unsuspecting cardinal in a flurry of red fluff. A hungry sharp shinned hawk, an accipiter (a bird that eats other birds) was now somewhere nearby squeezing the life out of that wretchedly beautiful, shapely, lovely cardinal. All that was left were red feathers strewn across the snow. Delight into mourning in a flash.
Gain, loss. Hardy, sickly. Peace, fright. Life, death. We live into it, learning along the way that this is often how life works. We cruise along when things are good then, without warning, we find ourselves on our knees in sobs and suffocation and despair. We aren’t alone in this cycle. Fear and despair and mourning accompany the goose who loses its lifelong mate; the nesting wood duck forced to flee a marauding raccoon with an appetite for eggs; the trees bulldozed for yet another development; the doe who watches the bobcat steal her fawn.
Is there any good to come of it? I believe there is.
Our own crises awaken a buried sense of mortality when our blithe notion of timelessness evolves to a new understanding and esteem for the value and brevity of life.
It often helps us turn back to God our Creator for help, comfort, and mercy. In the animal world, life goes on. New chicks are born. Survivors of the floods stand against next year’s droughts. The dust of death and the ash of mourning are followed by the songs and sun of a new day; mourning slips into morning.
And that is what IS predictable. We will fall and we will rise up. Life’s vicissitudes will flatten us with fear then extend hands of help and hope in the form of neighbor and Creator. If you are in a season of despair, take courage. The nature of nature is to help you back up to heal and stand against the next thing that would steal your peace. Be assured. The rains end the drought, and the tide always turns.
Thanks for reading along.
J.A.P. Walton, Ph.D.
jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com
Image by Tom Ferguson from Pixabay
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This Side of the River 