Tag: Outdoors

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, Being resilient, Birds, Blessings, Creation, Creator, Faithful Living, Forest, God, Great horned owl, Hardiness, Having hope about the future, Heartwarming, Hope, joy, Kindred Spirits, Lessons from the Wilderness, Living Faithfully, Losing yourself in nature, Meeting at the Post Office, Nature, Peace, Perseverence, Praise, Prayer, Silence, Sounds, Spring, Springtime in your sweatshirt, sweatshirt, The sounds of nature, weeds

On the Lookout in My Sweatshirt

This Side of the River

Here in the north, we await spring alongside our longsuffering tree companions. Yesterday we had a typical spring bluster curving the stoic trees into the posture of an elderly man bent stiffly forward at the hip. Branches swayed in frank petition for their leaves to come soon. Soon Lord!

It seems we need a greening of the soul.”

The daffodils and forsythia are drunkenly painting the town yellow in defiance of lingering snowflakes. At the post office, there’s a fellow in shorts, a woman in winter boots and scarf, two suntanned folks joyfully reuniting after a long winter in the south, and a tuneful whistling coming from the sorting room. All this color and joy under the dark and foreboding old mural of a sinking Ann Arbor car ferry. And yet, the post office is family of sorts, with a seeping warmth in the face of the chilled grayness outside-this is spring in our little town up north.

Yes, spring in the north is for reunions, and color explosions, leaves and grass and blooming bulbs. But mostly, for me, spring is for birds and sweatshirts. Oh, how I love sweatshirt weather in the north. I can sit in my SOTD (sweatshirt of the day) on the deck and watch the birds for hours.

The wood thrush has returned, shyly showing off his speckled vest, singing like a busker at eventide. I would toss you a dollar if you could use it Mr. Thrush. May you be blessed with a lovely brood to add to the forest choir.“

It will only be days before the grosbeak, ovenbird, and vireo are here to join you, while the ruffed grouse beats his drum to lure in a mate. Yes, it is a blissfully happy time here in my sweatshirt, here at the place where dune and forest meet.

Just don’t blink; things quickly change this time of year. Yesterday’s drab unremarkable goldfinch is shockingly yellow this morning. The grass greened up within hours of rain, and the weeds are already out there laughing at me. They adore their effect on my futile thinking. Beware weeds-I have a new tool for rooting you out like a secret buried sin.  

Yes, sweat-shirted and shivering I wait and watch, glad of the trees’ nakedness that I might see the birds better. Soon, all will gratefully hide behinds the leaves’ green screen. I am keen to glimpse a flash of red, the vivid scarlet of the tanager, the royal velvet head of the woodpecker, and its pterodactyl-like pileated cousin already hammering away at a dying ash down the lane. I listen for new songs and the whir of the hummingbird, and thrill to awake before dawn to the insistent hoots of the resident great horned owl calling its newly-fledged owlets to a freshly-killed banquet.

Wait. Ugh. That’s a gritty word that makes me impatient all winter long.”

Watch. A word for thinkers and worshipers and those who hope. Listen. A word to hush me up and be still because there are other voices I need to hear. Spring up north is a signal to be on the lookout. To still the soul enough to hear what God has to tell me. To enfold the unfolding flora into my heart of stone. To laugh at the squirrel’s chase, the weeds’ taunts, and to wrap myself up in my sweatshirt to step out, arms wide, heart a-warming, and thank God for this time of year.

Thanks for reading along!

Julie A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

Jpraywalton.writing@gmail.com

Click on the FOLLOW link to receive future posts in your email. It helps a lot to show potential publishers that a writer actually has a following 🙂

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

adventure, Anishinaabek, beauty, black bear in Michigan, Creation, Do all bears hibernate?, Faithful Living, Forest, God, going against one's instincts, Hardiness, Lake Michigan, Lessons from the Wilderness, Living Faithfully, National Parks, Nature, Seasons, taking risks, The Legend of Sleeping Bear, Tracks, vigil, What does it mean to go against one's nature?, when time stands still, Why do bears hibernate?, wisdom

The Bear who wasn’t Sleepy

This Side of the River

We live in lower Michigan not too far south of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. https://www.nps.gov/slbe/index.htm The Sleeping Bear is a 400’ silken sand dune famous for its shimmering white presence in the afternoon sun and glorious lake views of the two Manitou Islands. People love to run down it to Lake Michigan. The climb back up-not so much.  Anishinaabe (Ottawa/Ojibwe) legend has it that a mother bear and her two cubs fled a great famine in Wisconsin by swimming across Lake Michigan. When Mother Bear reached shore, she turned to watch her cubs founder and drown in the waves. The great dune marks the Mother Bear’s place of vigil, and each cub one of the Manitou Islands.   https://www.nps.gov/slbe/learn/kidsyouth/the-story-of-sleeping-bear.htm

And Mother Bear sleeps on. As a child here, the legend did not much resonate with me because we never had any bears in our forests. That has changed in the last several years. Mamas, cubs, and boars are now routinely spotted, and their tracks are common. Here in the northwest tip of the county, we’ve had a large boar by the name of Buttons roaming from cottage to cottage for about four years. Buttons is, most definitely NOT a sleeping bear. Around here, we like to joke about the bear who isn’t sleepy! He has a regular site visit schedule, meandering from bird feeder to bird feeder, from trash can to trash can. He may be upwards of 400 pounds. Just last month he tore through the screen on our cousins’ porch trying to get at a trash bag.

A bear that doesn’t hibernate? Is that normal? Doesn’t it go against what bears are supposed to do?  Our friend Alan, a retired DNR game warden says that hibernation is less a deep sleep than a nap, and that “boars, in particular, are not powered by the maternal instincts that drive pregnant sows to ground, often resisting slumber as long as there is ample forage- an unprotected garbage bag rings a bigtime dinner bell in a bear’s little brain. So does a well-stocked bird feeder that is within reach.”  https://summerassembly.org/stories

Still, I find myself ruminating on what makes anyone go against their better instincts. Why do we go against our own nature sometimes to take risks, to do something totally out of character, to fly in the face of everything that’s been done before?“

In my late thirties I left a good, fulfilling, and secure job to accept a temporary two-year post as a college professor. People thought I had lost my mind. But for me, there was an inner nudge, a very small, still voice saying, “Go ahead and try it out-you will like it!” And I never looked back, having jumped impulsively with both feet into an unsecure and unsure situation. I was the bear who refused to sleep.

Now, sometimes we need the respite and the dormancy. We need to give ourselves permission to enter a temporary torpor that we might recover from a particularly stressful season in life. The pandemic was a hibernation of sorts, where entire populations joined the turtle, frog, skunk, and groundhog in a metaphorical winter of forced inactivity. But now, maybe it’s time to rise up, snuffle around for some goodies, and get busy not sleeping-more like the energetic chickadee and the lumbering Buttons the bear than the sleeping bees and bats. Happy lumbering!

Thanks for reading along! If you click on the BLUE FOLLOW button (top and bottom of site) you will automatically receive blog posts by email. I truly wish for my writing to be easily and freely accessible for any who can use the encouragement. 

J.A.P. Walton, Ph.D. 

Send me a note at jpraywalton.writing.com

Buttons the bear
adventure, Affirmation, August, Autumn, beauty, Birds, Creation, Faithful Living, joy, Lessons from the Wilderness, Nature, Peace, Pilgrimage, Praise, River, Seasons, Sounds, Uncategorized, wisdom, worry

To Everything There is a Season

This Side of the River

August is drawing to a close. Here at the bluff, life is slowing down; the need to cram as many summer activities as one soul can bear is over.

It’s time to think about slowing down.

I adore all that August brings, starting with the garden. Luscious ripe tomatoes and scores of green beans, and afternoons of canning and freezing put me in step with the squirrel storing up for winter. There’s a returned hush outside-the Queen Anne’s lace nodding and napping in the afternoon lull, while the goldenrod and dune grasses sway to an onshore breeze. The tourists have gone home, there’s food on the grocery store shelves once again, and the locals are letting out a long, collective sigh of literal relief.

Salmon are running up the river mouths, and fisherman line the riverbanks like people at a parade.  Still, August brings an unhurried feel, an almost welcome lonesomeness, marked most starkly by the early departure of the migrant birds. The grosbeaks and buntings are already gone, while the hummingbirds stuff themselves in readiness.

Sumac has lit its fiery torches as the sun has finally wearied of its northward travels.

Evening comes earlier, dishing up a delightful coolness that sends me rummaging for socks and sweatshirt. It’s nearly time for bowls of chili and fresh apple pie.

When I was teaching, the beauty and delight of August was always overshadowed by a gnawing, almost unholy anxiety. “Days are short, gotta get ready.”  Hurry, scurry, worry. It was sometimes a circus, unsettling, nerve-fraying. Stressful.  What a shame that we lose the slow glow of August in slavery to an academic calendar.

But now, looking to nature, I can appreciate that the seasons bring a calming rhythm to life we’d do well to mimic. To everything there is a season. A time to vacation, and a time to work. A time to sit with friends and share a sunset, and a time to pray alone. A time to bathe in creation, and a time to create. A time to get ready, and a time to fly. A time to renew, and a time to rise up refreshed.

August never lasts, and the September calendar fills up fast. Take a moment to thank God for the last days of summer.

Even the earth will rest. See if you can’t too.

Thanks for reading along.

~J.A.P. Walton