Be Where You Are
3 Ps on Sabbath: A Poem, A Pondering, A Practice
A Poem: When I Am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
You can find “When I Am Among the Trees” in Mary Oliver’s remarkable collection Devotions.
A Pondering: Be Where You Are
The summer after I graduated from high school, I spent a glorious week camping and hiking through the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York with a bunch of high schoolers and college students from my youth group. We found a huge grassy field surrounded by trees to make our base camp. Like the Israelites in the wilderness encircling the tabernacle, we pitched a few dozen tents surrounding a food tent—our tabernacle—where we gathered daily to encounter God’s love made edible and tangible in food and fellowship.
Hiking is one of my life’s happy places, and we hiked every day. One particular hike has been living rent-free in my soul ever since. We chose to hike as a whole group on this day, forming a meandering, intermittent line of singles and pairs, oscillating between silence and conversation as we wound our way through field and forest, ascending and descending hills, pausing together for snacks and breath-breaks, none of us thinking about where we were going, simply trusting those ahead of us to stay true to the path, which guided us onward toward the summit.
Around two-thirds of the way to the top, we fell into a walking rhythm, and silence fell upon us. As our calves and thighs began to burn and our eyes fixed on the path before our feet, we each got lost in our thoughts as we pushed ourselves toward the goal of reaching the end of the trail.
And then someone far ahead, near the front of the line, shouted: “Everybody stop and look up!!” As if shocked out of a trance, we all stopped and raised our eyes. We had wandered into a birch tree forest. We were surrounded by thousands of tall, brilliant white thin trunks with myriad patches of dark scratches, and hundreds of dangling bark flaps hanging open like tiny windows into another world. The sun was breaking through the sparse canopy in hundreds of beams of the warmest light, which gently dappled the forest floor.
In an instant our entire group went from being lost in thought to found in place, from distant from to intimate with “the hope of ourselves” as we stopped hurrying toward our conclusion and opened our eyes to the stunning beauty around us. All it took was one person slowing down, looking up, noticing, and inviting the rest of us to notice with them.
I have thought back on that glimpse of glory in the birch forest hundreds of times over the past 25 or so years since. I shutter to think of the gift I would have lost if I had never looked up, had been so lost in my thoughts and so intent on hurrying toward the goal that I forgot to bear witness to where I was.
Dallas Willard famously said that “hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.” We are so accustomed to walking through our lives hurrying towards a goal, staring at our feet, lost in thought, that we often forget to be present where we are.
Every week, the Sabbath is like that person at the front of the line shouting: “Everybody stop and look up! There’s something beautiful here you’re missing in your rush to get to the top! Slow down and appreciate the beauty enveloping you along the way.”
Like the trees, the Sabbath calls to us, saying: “Stay awhile.”
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
A Sabbath Practice: Walk Slowly and Bow Often
Each of the four key words in this line from Mary Oliver’s poem can be a practice to inhabit on your Sabbath.
Walk. Movement gets us out of our heads and back into our bodies. Of course, as my story illustrates, it’s also possible to get lost in our heads while walking! So intentional movement—it could be walking, yoga, running, dancing, even breathing exercises—that reconnects us to the present moment and to our bodies is something to make space for on your Sabbath day (and something to carry with you throughout the week!).
Slowly. We do so many things so quickly and unconsciously throughout the day. Pick one activity you do every day—driving to the store/work, brushing your teeth, walking between meetings, putting on your clothes—and intentionally do it slowly. Breathe intentionally. Be present. What do you notice as your body moves slowly? Pay attention to the people you pass (or who pass you) along the way. Notice how much life you tend to miss when you rush around on auto-pilot.
Bow. As you move slowly, orient your eyes toward wonder and gratitude. Cultivate an inner reverence for each person and each part of creation you pass. If you’re outside, notice the uniqueness of the bark on each tree, the colors of the flowers in the garden, the myriad shades of grey and white in each cloud, the miracle of wings that enables the insect buzzing around you to fly. Move through the space in a way that honors the dignity of all you see, whether human or more-than-human.
Often. How quickly we forget what the Sabbath teaches and revert back to rushing and distracting. We need to remember often if we’re going to remember at all. Every week the Sabbath reminds us to reconnect with our bodies, to slow down, to be present, and acknowledge the dignity of all God created. But once a week isn’t enough to counter the inertia of the culture of speed and productivity and distraction we’re immersed in 24/7, which functions best when we are “so distant from the hope of ourselves.” We need to schedule “walking slowly and bowing often” into our days, every day. Consider scheduling 3 minutes of silent presence “among the trees”—whether in a forest or standing next to a single tree—into your schedule today. And tomorrow. And the next day. And see what happens.
