The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life
and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives
with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
and I am free.
– by Wendell Berry
Late one night, just this week, I received tragic news from a friend who lives far away. Mark was away and the children were all asleep, and all of a sudden time swirled and I wouldn’t have been able to speak even if there had been someone to talk to. The tragedy doesn’t impact us directly, but it has struck our precious friends like a brutal blow and I could feel the reverberations from across the sea. I was unable to be anything other than wild in those moments where I tried to make sense of what I had just heard. Not frantic with rage or confusion or grief, but wild like the creatures in the poem above, who find peace in a world that is not controllable or safe. Some things will never make sense this side of eternity and what do we do with ourselves when they don’t?
Sometimes, behaving wilder is our saving grace. So long as we keep ‘managing’ and ‘making a plan’ and ‘burying the hurt’ we keep delaying the inevitable fall out. Surely there is a less careful way to go about things, a way more primal, less contrived? Finding moonlit dew to sip on, sleeping on moss and sweet herbs, walking barefoot through the sand, closing our eyes as we sniff a rose. Lying beside a hedge long enough for the creatures within to think you are part of the landscape, and then watching them scurry and burrow and stop to clean their little faces, blinking right at you. Standing on top of a mountain, windswept and utterly dusted, polished clean and free from every entangling concern. Slipping into a cool, glassy lake and swimming until spent, or floating face to the sky as the silver ripples hold you up and the light plants little brown kisses all over your forehead and nose. “I come into the presence of still water.”
I’ve told you how the cold felt extra cold to me this past winter, and now the fierce October sun has been a soothing balm to my cool blood and icy bones, a warm tender hand resting on my chest. I have not turned worshipper of sun, moon and stars, but I worship the One who made them and have become increasingly aware that His healing is more available than I ever knew. Wholeness does not come from boxes of tablets and injections and expensive appointments with busy physicians who do not know the day of our birth or our favourite food or the dreams hidden away in our hearts. Modern medicine has it’s place, of course, but when calamity strikes or hopes are dashed or bodies and minds ail, all of nature stands to attention to minister to God’s people.
My children and I meet up with a group of ladies and their children once a week. We sing together, pray together, read together, eat together, create together, play together and find ourselves in pursuit of all that is good, true and beautiful. We have been reading about and discussing ‘awe’ and have recognised the power of experiencing awe, as individuals and as a group. A research paper (Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner) concluded that “awe helps bind us to others, motivating us to act in collaborative ways that enable strong groups and cohesive communities.” Without any scientific evidence, however, I think we could all agree that when we have experiences that move us to tears of joy and amazement, when we gasp or the hairs on our skin stand straight in delight, our capacity for generosity, outward focus and general well-being is enhanced. Experiencing awe feels good and we want others to experience it too.
We are living in efficient times. Efficient but exhausting and awe-deprived. Two hundred years ago we would have found ourselves tending the earth, treasuring seeds, watching the sun, witnessing the shadows of night, forced to work and rest as the seasons and light of day dictated. We would have sung and danced and recited poetry with those in our community, work done and no technology to call us away from the very relationships that are so key to our well-being. Connectedness to nature and others was surely a natural by-product of pre-industrial living. Nowadays, we are going quickly. We can work all night by artificial light, and delay sleep with coffee and energy drinks. Our screens are always available and we think we can behave like robots without regrets. Our natural rhythms are at the mercy of a machine of humanity that believes we are advancing. But when last did we experience awe, our minds exploding with the delight of what we have just seen? We are going at an impressive pace but usually have to slow down to see, notice and experience awe.
It’s imperative that we do if we are going to benefit from the available healing powers of the natural world we find ourselves in. The ancient philosophers spoke of everything being made of fire, water, earth and air in varying combinations. We know now that it’s more complicated than that, but all of creation is surely made up of substances that carry the very sound waves of the creator who spoke them into being in the beginning. Could it be that an early morning walk through swirling mist will result in nothing less than a sense of being spoken to by the One who breathed that mist right out of His mouth? The flowers in the field sing a song of being clothed in glory, I’m sure we would hear it if we just tuned in. Every calf let out of its stall into the meadow cannot help but kick and frolic and bleat it’s agreement that all is well. Oceans roar and skies thunder and winds whisper in the trees. They are not just there to worship the Creator if we decide not to, they are there as His voice, His hands, His heart, His embrace. Alternative medicine for people in need. Awe-inducing tonic for weary souls who need to be bound to others in a time when isolation and self-preservation is a very real threat to a globe of people who were designed to exist in harmony together. “Come into the peace of wild things” dear friends.
Psalm 19 v 1-6
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Leave a Reply