For weeks now, I have been witnessing a resurrection. This is no spectacle bursting forth in a blast of life and color, but a quiet emergence emanating slowly from muddy ground and matted leaves.
The first shoots of the early wildflower Spring Beauty pierce the leaf cover.
It is the experience of spring granted to those of us who have endured a northern winter and eagerly watch for the first signs of seasonal change. They are everywhere and nowhere. A first glance at the landscape reveals nothing but brown matter, a tangle of bare branches. Then a sharp whistle from the Tufted Titmouse signals it is time to take another, deeper look. Yes, there is something to see. In the woods, wisps of foliage mark the start of what will become drifts of petite Spring Beauty blooms under the trees. In the garden, tips of Daffodil leaves poke upward through the mulch, and here and there, early blooming miniature Irises form the first drops of color.
A miniature Iris is a welcome sight in an otherwise drab garden.
A Great-horned Owl peers from a nest used by the same species last year.
Other harbingers are returning buzzards soaring overhead as they “kettle” on favorable winds, a Great-horned Owl occupying a nest deeper in the woods, and the appearance near the bird feeders of a Fox Sparrow, an early bird heralding the start of spring migration. Each day seems to bring more evidence: a butterfly flitting past and coming to rest on a patch of tree bark, buds popping out of the stumps of an elderberry bush, followed by the furry catkins on the Pussy Willow, and the cry of “FEE-bee, FEE-bee” as an Eastern Phoebe arrives.
Once this phenomenon starts, it seems there is no holding back. Almost overnight, Daffodil and Spring Beauty buds unfold and pop into sprays of blooms, a band of Kinglets makes an entrance, the sighting of a Gray Catbird is reported at a nearby marsh, and spring’s calendar reminds us to start watching for the next wildflowers – Dutchman’s Breeches, Swamp Buttercup, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Admittedly, these beginnings of spring may seem lacking in excitement or even interest to those who, in this digital age, require big, splashy visual displays and the stimulation of quick changes. Truly, it is the rare visitor to our little landscape who appreciates these incipient stages of spring and can savor a first bloom or a sprinkling of green surfacing from under the dull leaf cover.
Hence it was with great delight a few days ago that I escorted two budding naturalists and their mother through a section of the woods and observed their enjoyment in being shown one of the first Spring Beauty blooms. Although it was a cloudy, windy, cold day and the bloom was closed, these sisters, ages 3 and 5, were visibly elated at the sight and even more so when, after walking a little farther, they found a Spring Cress bloom on their own. Their “Look, here’s another one!” moment was nothing short of exquisite.
I feel that same joy of discovery every spring as I watch for a resurrection that is promised, but not assured until fully revealed. In the interim, each shoot of green, each small bud gives me faith in what I hope for and evidence for what cannot yet be seen.
After consulting our state guide to butterflies and skippers, I’m calling this an Eastern Comma butterfly.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1.
“I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. If he can keep us hearing radios, gossip, conversation, or even sermons, he is happy. But he will not allow quietness.”
Jim Elliot wrote this in a letter to his family in 1948 when television was still in an experimental phase and the idea of people carrying hand-held computers in their pockets was the stuff of science fiction.
Although he didn’t face the same kinds of daily assaults on personal peace that we do, Elliot was keenly aware of threats to the quiet he knew he needed. He was attempting to discern where God was calling him to serve as a missionary and he wanted to be able to hear the still, small voice that would direct him.
Elliot’s journals and letters – excerpted in Shadow of the Almighty, the biography his widow, Elisabeth, wrote – tell how he refrained from most social activities during his years at a Christian college that he might keep focused on prayer, study, and reading. His writings are filled with references to both the Bible and literature and they reveal the mind of someone who could drink deeply of the riches of this world but who was centered on his goal and willing to limit his life to essentials that he might reach it. For instance, although he was drawn to Elisabeth, a fellow student, and confessed his love for her before her graduation, he made clear that his work among primitive peoples might require him to remain single. Indeed, it was several years before he discerned that God was giving him the go-ahead to marry her.
During these days when coronavirus restrictions and other circumstances have altered and limited our lives markedly from just a year ago, Jim Elliot’s full and purposeful life stands out as a template for what is truly essential.
Amid the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, there was much talk of how people were returning to fundamentals. As we spent more time at home, parents were supposedly growing closer to their children and families were recognizing the benefits of scaled-back schedules. People seemingly were looking at their lives with an eye to what mattered most, sorting through activities, possessions, and relationships to determine what was really essential.
As the first weeks of restrictions have stretched into a year, however, those noble aims have faded. Many of us are simply weary of the new routine that has been imposed on us and are longing for what used to be. Some have tried to snatch a little of what remains by booking a vacation or undertaking a remodeling project. Other hopeful souls are soldiering on toward the day when they anticipate things returning to “normal.” Yet, that day looms farther and farther away as we are warned of new strains of the virus and told that even with vaccinations, masking will be required well into 2022. Whatever peace we might have experienced during those first days of sheltering in has, for many, evaporated into irritation.
Meanwhile, we are spending more time than ever on devices and screens where we chat with each other, attend classes, shop, work, and access entertainment. In this state of constant connection and stimulation, we are trying to make sense of what has happened, not through quiet reflection, but by plunging into the technology that did not go into lockdown and continues to swirl about us as we click on the latest links that shout “Read” and “Watch.”
It is no surprise then that many of us are on edge, annoyed, and even angry, whether interacting on social media or navigating the aisles of a store. Into all of this, I have heard the voice of Jim Elliot, who died when he was just 28, speaking quietly but firmly as he responded to the challenges of the culture in which he lived.
I suspect that if Elliot were around today he would be engaging in his own form of social distancing, detaching from many of the things we have come to consider essential. He would be the friend who wasn’t on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, who still carried a flip phone — if he had a cell phone at all — and drove an old car. What mattered to him was his mission and what it was going to take to get there. Anything not essential to that purpose was superfluous.
Even so, Elliot was far from dull. His journals reveal a life imbued with delight, particularly when he observed the natural world around him, and he was known for being something of a prankster. It is almost as if by letting go of nonessentials, he was able to enjoy the essentials more profoundly.
Ultimately, his laser focus on the mission field took him to the jungles of Ecuador, where he labored for nearly four years before he and four companions, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully, were killed by seven of the very men they had hoped to reach with the message of their faith. It was a death for which Elliot was prepared – for the Auca/Waodani tribe was known to have killed interlopers – but it was a price he was willing to pay. Well before he died, he wrote, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Elliot’s life speaks loudly in this day when we are suffering the loss of what used to be and struggling to live without it. We can’t know for certain how Jim Elliot would have responded to similar circumstances. But because he was practiced at living with essentials, I think he might have minimized the kinds of losses we are experiencing and forged ahead with the work he believed he was called to do. First, though, he would have made space in his days for quiet.
In the letter to his family excerpted above, Elliot continued, “Satan is quite aware of the power of silence. The voice of God, though persistent, is soft . . . Let us resist the devil in this by avoiding noise as much as we can, purposefully seeking to spend time alone, facing ourselves in the Word.”
More than ever, with all that has happened in the last year, this is a time to be quiet, to consider what has happened to us individually and corporately, and how we will use what freedom we still have to live. St. Teresa of Avila once said, “ . . . We sometimes refuse what the Lord gives us, even though the gift might be the best one possible.” In that vein, it may be that this season, though not something any of us desired, is just what is needed for such a time as this.
Photos of book cover and Jim Eliot and Pete Fleming used with permission of the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation, where more information about the life and legacy of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot can be found.
When I started this blog, living a more serene life was largely a choice involving a move to a more rural area and other intentional lifestyle changes. But thanks to the coronavirus and the imposition of stay-at-home orders, it looks like we’re all QuietKeepers now.
Although I’ve heard many positive reactions from people who are finding some enjoyment in more scaled-down lives, there have been plenty of negative ones related to boredom, isolation, and depression setting in. In offering my thoughts here, I should be clear that my own immersion into quietude has not been free of struggle and at times a longing for more activity and interaction with others. This was especially true at first when I missed my former proximity to an interstate highway along with the stimulation of the newsroom where I had spent most of my career. But even after I had mostly adjusted and began to write this blog, another change presented new challenges.
December sunset
For the last five years, my husband and I have had to limit our travel to attend to his elderly parents, both of whom have since died – the last in December. During that season of caregiving, as we were experiencing a mode of “sheltering in,” most of our friends and other family members were vacationing and “enjoying life,” often sharing with us their photos, experiences, plans, and delights.
As this pattern continued, my husband often said, “If we don’t learn anything from this and we don’t make changes in our lives as a result, then we will have lost an opportunity.” Those words helped me eventually to stop yearning for the way things used to be and get on with what needed to be done, staying alert to what I could draw from the experience. Although it still could be difficult watching friends and family breeze through lives that seemed ruled by fun, I found that by cooperating with my circumstances and duties, I began to change.
Now that restricted movement and enforced isolation are upon all of us, I can say that, although I haven’t welcomed these new circumstances, I was at least somewhat prepared for them by what I had gleaned from the last few years.
As I pondered my own situation during that period, I recalled something a woman who had known many a lean season once told me about how she sought to “live large,” even in reduced circumstances. Because she had an eye for beauty and was determined to make room in her life for it, she had a way of making a simple meal seem elegant in the way she prepared and served it. In her hands, a modest home or wardrobe could appear stylish because of a few well-chosen accents. Her way was inspiring, not because she filled her life with stuff and activity, but because she created space for what was truly valuable to her and so lived with an attitude of abundance.
I began to think about ways to follow her lead interiorly in the midst of boundaries that had been pulled in, plans that had been postponed, and dreams that were starting to fade. And so I no longer lived for the day when I would be free to do this or that, but chose to look for and enjoy what was already around me. Sometimes, it would be something as simple as allowing a constellation in the night sky to illuminate the inner darkness that awakened me in the wee hours. Or, letting the song and sight of a Dickcissel cheer me on a spring walk. In winter, while traversing a desolate landscape, I could feel heartened by a Northern Harrier coursing over a field in its hunt for food. And, at the close of a day filled with missteps and mishaps, I could sense that all was well for the moment in a sunset of brilliant color infused by light.
Dickcissel singing
Then, I read this in Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe: “ . . . even in the most unfavorable outward circumstances we possess within ourselves a space of freedom that nobody can take away . . . without this discovery we will always be restricted in some way, and will never taste true happiness.”
Philippe offers as “a witness for our times” Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz in 1943. In the diary she began keeping when the Nazis were systematically stripping Jews in the Netherlands of their exterior freedoms, Hillesum could write of “enjoying the broad sweep of the sky at the edge of the city, breathing in the fresh, unrationed air.” While acknowledging the reality of persecution and its effects, she insisted, “They can’t do anything to us, they really can’t. They can harass us, they can rob us of our material goods, of our freedom of movement, but we ourselves forfeit our greatest assets by our misguided compliance. By our feelings of being persecuted, humiliated, oppressed. By our own hatred.” Because Hillesum believed she had the power to determine her reactions to her circumstances, she could say, “I find life beautiful, and I feel free. The sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head.”
For Philippe – as for Hillesum – God is the source and guarantee of the inner freedom we all can possess if we learn to let it unfold. “. . . Then, even though many things may well cause us to suffer,” Philippe writes, “nothing will really be able to oppress or crush us.”
This is clearly a difficult time in our nation and our world and many are suffering from even more than limitations on our freedom. But during these days, I’d like to think that we will not just get through them, as one state official suggested, by “snuggling up to Netflix,” but that we will seize the opportunity to “live large” amid the restrictions and find true freedom within them. If we do that, perhaps when and if this period of sheltering-in ends, we will have discovered a new way to live – one that reflects what truly matters.
“There are seasons when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength than to act.”
— Margaret Bottome
As students head back to classes on campuses around the country, I have been thinking about the school our family has been enrolled in for the last few years. It’s one we didn’t choose to attend and the curriculum is a bit erratic.
I call it the School of Being, because it describes what we are learning about one of our family members who has dementia.
Although like most people in our culture, we want to “do” something in the face of any suffering or loss, in this instance we are finding that often our greatest act of kindness is to “be” with Pops.
Sometimes, he requires action: a shave, help in the bathroom, his glasses cleaned, or hearing aid located. But the focus when we visit him in the memory-care unit where he now lives cannot be on these acts. It has to be on him and where he happens to be at the moment.
Early in this journey with dementia, someone told us, “You have to enter their world.” And so we do.
That usually means a simple and cheerful greeting and then waiting for a signal. Often, we simply pass through the looking glass with him and see what he is seeing, hear what he is hearing, ponder with him what he is thinking. This can involve answering the same question multiple times as if we are responding for the first time. Or, it can mean summoning our imaginations and indulging in flights of fancy and even a bit of nonsensical speech, the kind we use with little children.
Frequently, Pops reveals a kind of idee fixe that sets the tone for our time with him. It could be “Where’s Mom?” meaning his deceased mother or his very-much-alive wife, or maybe both because he’s mixed them up in his head. Or, if we find him just waking up, we might be treated to some spirited, repetitive commentary on how well he had been sleeping.
One day, while seated at a table in the dining room, he lasered in on several chairs in the next room, saying he was going to sit in one. He remained where he was, however, continuing to talk about his plan to get up and relocate. We encouraged him, reviewed the choices of chairs, and which seats were available, all without any action on his part. Finally, the locus moved to a woman who was sitting – and sleeping – in one of the chairs, so we talked about her and the various aspects of her state of slumber. “She’s really snoozing.” “I think she’s catching some flies.” “Yep, she’s out like a light.”
Another day, Pops told me he had been on an airplane the night before. I learned that he and his wife had been separated so that each was on a different plane. “I bet you didn’t like that,” I said, to which he replied, “No, I didn’t!” And so we were off, chatting about this as if it had really happened, because for him, it had. Whatever the source or reason, it didn’t matter. He was where he was and I was right there with him.
At still other times, Pops becomes agitated if there is too much activity around him or if he sees that we are conversing with an aide, another resident, or visitor, and we are reminded once again of the importance of being with him and being present to him.
So it is that we are all learning new lessons in this school that has no vacation or seasonal breaks. “Being” is not easy to master in our action-oriented, instant-response world, one in which all our minds are racing toward doing something. It requires slowing down, stilling our thoughts, and, in our encounters, trying to sense where the other person is before we speak or act.
For my part, I’m discovering that I’m still too absorbed in a jumble of thoughts when alone and too quick to jump in and share my own opinions, stories, or ideas when with another. Typically, my own experience or state of mind springs to the fore when someone is talking and, instead of listening, I plunge in with advice or a “that’s just like when” comparison. Or worse, I don’t listen at all.
Being with someone whose cognitive functions are compromised is forcing me to stop, look, and listen because I’m clearly on unfamiliar ground and need to find my way.
As a creature of our active and materialistic society, I am learning from someone whose life has been reduced to the essentials that the most important gift I can give is a quiet and receptive presence, one that waits to see where the other person is and then remains there for a while. Sometimes that means saying nothing and just being there, and accepting that it is enough. The late Fulton J. Sheen once said, “The world’s greatest need is . . . someone who will realize that the real worth is achieved not so much by activity, as by silence.” I think Pops would agree.
From the time I was a small child growing up in a religion rich with liturgical smells and bells, church had been a place where I experienced a sense of God. There, the scent of incense lingering in the air consoled and the candle that flickered day and night in a red glass lamp served as a soothing sign of the divine presence.
All that was altered, however, with the death of my parents. Church suddenly became a place of sad memories: of pushing my mother’s wheelchair in and then struggling to get her to the basement bathroom mid-service. Or of beginning to notice how gray my father’s skin was looking against that of others beside him as his condition worsened.
Brunera, top, and Woodland Phlox in bloom.
After my parents died within a year and a half of each other, I wasn’t angry at God, but church was simply not the place of peace it had been for me in other seasons. I continued going there in this extended state of grief and spiritual numbness, knowing that it was important to maintain a connection to my faith at such a time, but I was surprised to find more tangible comfort in a new place: my garden.
I had been something of a gardener since marriage eight years earlier had brought with it an acre of unwieldy property peppered with huge pine trees and assorted nooks and crannies that seemed to be begging for attention. But now, I started to attack the dirt with new energy. One day, I noticed that a gentle peace I had not felt for months would settle upon me as I weeded, dug, and watered.
I began to go back for more. Over time, I would not only sense a comforting presence in the garden, but through the growing cycle, I would glean practical spiritual lessons from tending a troublesome plant or discovering the dangers of admitting invasive varieties into my space.
A male Indigo Bunting, known to sing all day.
I eventually recovered a sense of peace while being in church as memories from that difficult period of loss healed. But I have continued to find solace in the garden, as I know many gardeners do. Perhaps it is because the act of working with our hands frees our minds to listen to a voice that speaks in whispers, in “the kiss of the sun” and “song of the birds,” as Dorothy Frances Gurney says so nicely in the above excerpt from her longer poem, “God’s Garden.” I discovered Gurney’s lines on a decorative plaque as I was venturing into gardening and warmed to them immediately. The words come home to me again and again as I take in bird song and bask in the sun, pausing to consider the richness of my surroundings.
I sometimes think of deceased family members who were gardeners – my husband’s Uncle Bill, to whom my patch of Bee Balm stands in silent tribute; my paternal grandmother, who planted snap dragons with her vegetables, and my father, who left me two precious garden tools from his years of growing a small patch of onions, peppers, tomatoes, and garlic, likely as a holdover from the Great Depression. I understand better now what drew all of them to the dirt and why they seemed so contented when they were communing with the growing cycle.
Bee Balm, introduced to me by my husband’s Uncle Bill and a favorite of hummingbirds.
Although the words Gurney wrote about gardening were inspired by a very proper English garden at Penshurst Place in Kent, and my own garden is decidedly on the wild side, their sentiments speak to me whether I am reflecting on the beauty of things in bloom or cultivating their home.
Recently, a friend who was surveying my garden when it was much in need of a spring cleaning asked, “Do you ever just get to sit and enjoy this, or are you always working on it?” I do have time to rest on the front porch or stroll through and gaze at the fruits of my labors, but I also am much at peace while planting and pulling weeds. There are exceptions, of course, like when I’m being buzzed by a deer fly or mosquito, dig into a colony of ants, or pick the most humid day of the year for mulching. But on most of the grand days of the growing season, those are mere distractions in what to me is still a refuge, a place where I listen and God speaks.
QuietKeepers 