Photo by David Kanigan, Pexels
In late July, my grandson, Tristan, and I rode Amtrak along the Connecticut shoreline from NYC to Mystic. We spoke of many things as we settled into the rhythm of the train: his career plans in the city, the friends he’d made, shared memories from his childhood. Companioning us along the way were flickering glimpses of Long Island Sound: its sandy beaches, marshy inlets, sailboats, mansions, and cottages. I shared with him a sing-song phrase that first sang in my memory when I was half his age.
We were moving from Connecticut to upstate New York for a year, so that my father could pick up extended hours and extra pay. Packed into the Buick were my parents, seven children, a picnic lunch, and enough pillows, blankets, and clothing to safely package this precious cargo in an age before seat belts. Filled with a sense of adventure, but also with a bit of apprehension, I sat in the driver’s side backseat as we drove along old US-1, straining to catch every glimpse of shoreline before the beaches I loved were behind us. A singular refrain bubbled up and I began to sing to myself, “Blue and white, blue and white; all of Connecticut is blue and white.”
Tristan smiled at my memory as we noted that what had changed was us, not the view. Compressing that many years into a singular shared experience confounds thinking and provokes imagination. And, yes, it makes me smile.
This was probably my first remembered experience of the personality of place. The blue and the white, the sunshine dancing on water, these created in me a memory strong enough to lure me like Lorelei, a memory strong enough that it could seem real even to someone who was not first there.
Theologian Karl Rahner once said, the first task of a Christian is to be aware. In 1993, Kahleen Norris wrote DAKOTA: A Spiritual Geography. I picked it up for the subtitle and for the concept—that geography has a spirituality, that place has something to speak to us about our souls, aboutits soul. In Norris' case, it was the stark and strong simplicity of the northern Dakota plains, living in the shadow of a Benedictine monastery. It stripped her faith down to bare bones and rebuilt it from the inside out.
One of the tenants of monastic life isstabilitas or stability of place, meaning that the monks and nuns vow to live out their obedience to God in this one place. Stabilitas corrects any notion of some other, more ideal place where everything is better than where we now are. I remember a time when I most certainly felt that my current place was a horrible mistake. A wise friend kindly spoke to me her own truth, “I have found that wherever I am is where I’m supposed to be.” Something shifted in me. I needed to take seriously that possibility for myself. What if I really paid attention to where I am, if not forever, at least for now?
It is a kind of spiritual discipline, this paying attention to place. Douglas E. Christie,The Blue Sapphire of the Mind, extends the discipline to embrace all that place includes. “To give conscious attention fully and deeply to a place, an animal, a tree, or a river opens one to relationship and intimacy, to seeing not an object but an other, seeing it as part of a larger whole to which we both belong.” We become aware of both a seen and an unseen world, a world that merges identities in much the way that mystics describe their union with God. Theologians and naturalists are discovering they speak a similar language in these days of eco-spiritualty. A God who spun all things into being fascinates us into relationship with all of creation.
Christie, a Seattle native, gives us an example of such contemplation being put into words with this poem by Denise Levertov, who moved to the Pacific Northwest at age 66.
Settling
I was welcomed here—clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn,
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree,
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
tinted apricot as she looked west,
Tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
forever rising and setting.
Now I am given
a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry,
a grey both heavy and chill. I've boasted I would not care,
I'm London-born. And I won't. I'll dig in,
into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen.
Like Levertov, I have found that the personality of place pulls me into relationship. I have lived most of my adult life in this same mystical place where we keep company in summer with tinted mountain, dancing water, and neighboring eagles.
Photo by AhmadReza Pishnamazi, Pexels
It is also a place where autumn eventually and relentlessly rolls in on steely, low clouds. These can only be met with our own resolve of steel. We hunker down, put on the kettle, and give way to interior pursuit. Our souls feed on the bounty of summer's remembered glory as surely as the garden yieIds harvest for our table. And close attention introduces us to new micro-wonders of lichen, silent snowfall, and the soft percussion of rain.
"The practice of attention requires commitment and courage...the place will not reveal itself all at once, but must be lived into in humility and openness, must become subject to a deep and abiding regard" (Christie). Children seem to know this intuitively, naturally. How many hours of childhood have we wasted in joyous abandon, hours that are often distilled into a singular moment of indelible, enduring memory? There is a bird whose song I know, though not its species, that when I hear its call, I am once again a child standing alone at the edge of the woods, wearing my red jacket, shielding my eyes against the slanting sunlight as a feathered shadow flickers among the branches.
I choose to name such numinous moments holy. The nearness of God leans in, is felt upon my cheek. Or perhaps, I am the one who has been moved. It is a kind of merging. And I am changed by it.
In this time of clear and gold late summer, this time of opening autumn, may I persuade you to pay attention to the place where you find yourself to be? May you, too, find yourself fascinated into relationship with creation and Creator.
A Look Ahead...
Fresh packaging this year for our annual Advent Retreat, ONCE UPON A TIME IN A TOWN CALLED NAZARETH. I will be offering a series of three 2-hour Zoom sessions on Wednesdays in December. I am delighted to be partnering with RETREAT, REFLECT, RENEW, an on-line and in-person retreat ministry, that offers a variety of resources for spiritual growth and community faith-sharing.
SESSION ONE (Wed, Dec 4th, 9-11 am PST)
We sets the scene. The place, Nazareth, the Galilean home of a young Jewish girl. The time, 2000 years ago, 12 hours, B.C., the night before the angel Gabriel is sent to "Miriam." With story, song, and the Jewish prayers of Shabbat, we prepare our own imagination or the in-breading of the divine into human existence
SESSION TWO (Wed, Dec 11th, 9-11 am PST)
The Annunciation event comes alive as we experience images of the Annunciation created by artists through the centuries. Conversation and reflection follow as we consider how the encounter with an angel informs our own call to gestate and give birth to the holy. The invitation is ours in te week ahead to use at-home prompts giving o own expression go the annunciation using whatever modality is ours: art, poetry, movement, etc.
SESSION THREE (Wed, Dec 18th 9-11 am PST)
A time for theological reflection as we ponder the idea that God's choice to become human and Mary's yes change all things. We close our time together with the reflective, sensual prayer of Havdalah, the ending ritual of Shabbat. Enriched by our tie together, we turn our hearts toward the season of Advent and the coming Christ-event of Christmas. Amen. May it be so.
Two options will be offered: The Wednesday morning live, online option and/or a recorded at-your-own-pace version. Registration open soon. SCIBBLES will provide a link, or sign up for the Retreat Reflect Renew newsletter: RETREAT REFLECT RENEW
Recommended for You...
I've heard from some of you that you are enjoying following Cari's adventures along the Camino Santiago--I know I am!. Here's that link again, if you care to join Cari on the Camino
Sadly, Dr. Stephan Harding of Deep Time Walk died earlier this month. This might be a good time to give a listen to his podcast that recreates geological time in over an imagined 4.6 kilometer walk where each step represents one million years. Here's the link, Deep Time Walk
Responses from Readers...
Thank you, as always, my friend, for your ruminations on receiving. And thank you for reminding me of the work of Steve Garnass-Holmes. I used to read his work nearly every week, but it's been awhile. I need to add his site to my list to check periodically.
- Blessings, Chris
Thank you for this enriching and thoughtful reflection. Christ is my friend in joy. The beautiful seashore with the sugar sand beaches we just experience at Lincoln City, the meditative effects of my garden, long walks, and entertaining friends and family. He is also my friend and comforter when I experience profound grief, anger or frustration. My job is to ALWAYS remember he is at my side to give me guidance and comfort. I am blessed! - Elizabeth
Kenosis - I love learning these theological terms and pondering their meaning. Thank you. - Dorothy
Contact Kathleen
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