Since returning from our Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area adventure eight days ago, I had been unpacking the experience, listening (at least, I thought I was), trying to discern what to tell you. I wanted to write about something beyond paddling, wind, and water. Each day I asked the heavens for a thread of an idea. If one was offered, I missed it. Until today. A single thread showed up in not one but two devotional readings. (Okay, one was a New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks, “The Man Who Found His Inner Depths” but it was a tribute to Frederick Buechner who died this week.) Thank you!
In Rachel Hackenberg’s UCC devotional called “Ashamed,” the author spoke of how “being listened to without judgment allowed me to be everything I loathed myself for being but didn’t let others see…” For an hour, a friend simply listened as she wept. From that, Rachel began to trust that healing awaited even her. That's nothing like my topic but the word listening jumped off the screen as I read. This is it! Brooks’ piece (next week, I'll offer a reflection on some of Buechner’s words) accented that awareness.
As we paddled onto Lake One our first morning, I was struck by the near-palpable silence. The lake was calm. We were surrounded by nature’s beauty. Besides a variety of trees and undergrowth on all sides, we had already seen a large snapping turtle sunning itself on a log and countless smaller painted turtles on rocks that jutted from the water. An eagle flew just ahead of us as if beckoning. I felt awed. That evening, the quiet seemed so intense that my tinnitus (a symptom of the Lyme) grew to gigantic proportion. Listening can be hard, even painful, at times but it’s still a gift.
After nine days listening to my friend’s actions and silences, I know them more truly. I know myself better too. A few days in, it came to me as we paddled – epiphanies always came while paddling – I’m strong! Having spent so much time sitting and lying around the last two years, I’ve lost muscle mass, only some of which I’ve regained. Yet there we were – doing this amazing thing – venturing through a wilderness with only a map and a compass. And as we paddled for hours each day and carried everything across and over portages from one lake to another, I could feel my strength return.
Another day, another lake, another awareness. A sense of “all-right-ness.” Although these last years have been hard, I don’t need to fret. In the wilderness, I found I was capable. During the weeks before the trip, I had feared I was taking on too much, too soon but my limitations weren’t what I had believed. I did all I had to do. Even now, I have unplumbed depths. Reflecting further, I realize that it was only because my mind was clear of all save how to keep paddling through eighteen-inch swells that I could hear this message.
Let me again express the hope that through the sharing of my experiences and learnings, you might come to know yourself more fully as well. We each have unplumbed depths. Through all the stuff that life sets in our path, our ability to continue putting one foot in front of the other, to get out of bed each morning, or to speak our truth and to go on from there, resides in our willingness to allow God as Spirit to empower us. To fill us and to use what is then in us for our own, and for the world’s, best good. This is our best superpower. After the isolation of pandemic, we may have forgotten. Let the reminder sink in. Even when you’re the solitary figure, fearful and empty, you need never strive alone.
Pathogens still inhabit every part of my body but while I work to eliminate their threat I’m also less consumed by it than I was before the trip. The world offers many things about which to worry (and pray) and yet, for now, I remain centered. I have breathed in a sense of rebirth on viewing lush green hillsides that only eleven years ago seemed a fire-blackened wasteland. Having heard that inner voice, I am uplifted, converted by a fresh sense that
All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well. (Julian of Norwich)
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Thank you for sharing....beautiful!
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