“ Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
(Luke 11:9)
(Luke 11:9)
We have had some very breezy days recently, and at times gusts have swept through the trees with an abandonment and expressive freedom that roused memories of wild winds along the western edge of things rather than the purely here and now enjoyment of their atmospheric laughter and chatter-filled combing of branches and boughs. Everything is relative of course; one person’s steady breeze is another’s violent wind, and vice versa.
Leaves and twigs lie scattered everywhere, with tender young shoots wrenched into the limp beginnings of gradual decay and disintegration. Only when the wind has died away completely have I been able to fully bring my mind back to the present, to my own garden, and to the familiar trees within and beyond it. When they have been stirring more gently, memories of the excited but exquisite stillness and peace found within gales and storms on the Mayo coast have slipped out of mind, but the reminders of those far off Canadian forests have not ceased.
I have found myself watching the movement of branches and the fascinating flexing and bending of the tree trunks themselves; something I had seen but barely thought about before. Once fully seen, and watched and dwelt upon, the amount of movement is quite remarkable at times, and in the midst of the violent sounding passage of air through their full leafed canopies it is strangely comforting. It is all part of the trees’ survival technique; in fact it is very much part of being a tree. Without it most of them would have been uprooted, split or shattered long before reaching the splendour of maturity. But in my watching I have been searching for something I want to see again. It is something that captivated me and registered at a very deep level within me. It is an essential part of what Canada has sent home with me, and is also one of the subtle ways in which those mountains and forests beckon me to return.
Whenever the wind blows, wherever I see tall trees, and every night as I drift toward sleep and find myself standing amid those silent giants, looking heavenward once more, I am caressed and blessed with the memory of a fascination which I would have missed had I not already been looking long and deep into the distant treetops above me. I have failed to find it since returning home quite simply because it is not here. It is only as memory that I have the experience running through me every day.
It is the reason for my more concentrated watching: it is the swaying back and forth of trees in the wind.
Leaves and twigs lie scattered everywhere, with tender young shoots wrenched into the limp beginnings of gradual decay and disintegration. Only when the wind has died away completely have I been able to fully bring my mind back to the present, to my own garden, and to the familiar trees within and beyond it. When they have been stirring more gently, memories of the excited but exquisite stillness and peace found within gales and storms on the Mayo coast have slipped out of mind, but the reminders of those far off Canadian forests have not ceased.
I have found myself watching the movement of branches and the fascinating flexing and bending of the tree trunks themselves; something I had seen but barely thought about before. Once fully seen, and watched and dwelt upon, the amount of movement is quite remarkable at times, and in the midst of the violent sounding passage of air through their full leafed canopies it is strangely comforting. It is all part of the trees’ survival technique; in fact it is very much part of being a tree. Without it most of them would have been uprooted, split or shattered long before reaching the splendour of maturity. But in my watching I have been searching for something I want to see again. It is something that captivated me and registered at a very deep level within me. It is an essential part of what Canada has sent home with me, and is also one of the subtle ways in which those mountains and forests beckon me to return.
Whenever the wind blows, wherever I see tall trees, and every night as I drift toward sleep and find myself standing amid those silent giants, looking heavenward once more, I am caressed and blessed with the memory of a fascination which I would have missed had I not already been looking long and deep into the distant treetops above me. I have failed to find it since returning home quite simply because it is not here. It is only as memory that I have the experience running through me every day.
It is the reason for my more concentrated watching: it is the swaying back and forth of trees in the wind.
So ordinary? So obvious? So unremarkable? No.
It could so easily have remained unnoticed because it was not what I had expected. Hindsight has reduced the surprise and provided the logical explanation, but it was only through looking up for long enough that their rhythm was seen at all. Everything in me expected a certain speed of movement if the wind was having any such effect, or no apparent movement if the trees were somehow sheltered by each other, but they were moving, and the amount of sway was considerable. My sense of wonder resulted from the seemingly out of step speed with which they moved from side to side. It was so beautifully relaxed and slow, with a noticeable delay at the end of each flexing of the trunk. Knowing that these trees were more than double the height of any I was used to seeing had not prepared me for the spellbound feeling that their movement conjured within me. Here was nature’s own poetry being pencilled against the sky, and it was not long before Thoreau’s famous words began to blend into the experience:
‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ (Walden. Henry David Thoreau).
I fell further into unison with the unheard beat to which they matched their praise, and gradually got left further behind – in all things. My feelings of being filled to the brim were regenerated; I was recharged and reawakened: life flowed around me and through me, and the flame within my heart burned a little more brightly. I could have lingered there for a long, long time.
It could so easily have remained unnoticed because it was not what I had expected. Hindsight has reduced the surprise and provided the logical explanation, but it was only through looking up for long enough that their rhythm was seen at all. Everything in me expected a certain speed of movement if the wind was having any such effect, or no apparent movement if the trees were somehow sheltered by each other, but they were moving, and the amount of sway was considerable. My sense of wonder resulted from the seemingly out of step speed with which they moved from side to side. It was so beautifully relaxed and slow, with a noticeable delay at the end of each flexing of the trunk. Knowing that these trees were more than double the height of any I was used to seeing had not prepared me for the spellbound feeling that their movement conjured within me. Here was nature’s own poetry being pencilled against the sky, and it was not long before Thoreau’s famous words began to blend into the experience:
‘If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.’ (Walden. Henry David Thoreau).
I fell further into unison with the unheard beat to which they matched their praise, and gradually got left further behind – in all things. My feelings of being filled to the brim were regenerated; I was recharged and reawakened: life flowed around me and through me, and the flame within my heart burned a little more brightly. I could have lingered there for a long, long time.
In wind and rain, and in the stillness, may I always find time to stand in awe with You, my God.
You have stilled me and calmed me. I am full to the brim Lord.
In that one experience of the simplicity which is the pulse within all things, I revisited many of the markers placed beside my path. I did not consciously turn to look back; I had no wish, nor any need, to recall or give thought to the places, the people, or the events that had played a part in bringing me to this day, to this point in my journey and my life. But I was swiftly carried, as it were, past them all; the strangers who had arrived in my life at the very moments they were needed: God’s provision: disciples who had responded to whatever prompting they may have received; and the places to which I had been drawn ... and back to that empty Irish beach, in lashing winds and in silence and stillness. The separateness of these things is becoming less clear. It is being replaced by a new awareness of all such touches, words, moments, prayers and emotions being strands woven inseparably into the same tapestry. And the tapestry, in all its apparent complexity, is at once an expression of the simplicity of God’s communication with us, and a pointer to the tangles we create by holding on to the separate strands as we move through this life. Perplexity is born of complexity. We make simplicity complicated; we turn harmony into discord; we shred truth into unrecognizable fragments – more separate strands – and remain unconcerned when they are blown away like chaff on the breeze.
All our asking is for one single gift. All our searching is but one single quest. All our knocking is on one single door. Our whole journey is but one single step. Our whole life is a call for one single response.
Serenity is born of simplicity. It is as that slow rhythmical movement of towering trees in the wind. It is a mutual awareness: God’s awareness of us and our awareness of God’s Presence - ‘The man and his wife heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day …’ (Genesis 3:8)
He is there, but we so often have no eyes with which to see. He calls us but we lack the ears to hear. But then, when something heightens our receptivity, like Mary Magdalene, our grief, our loneliness, our searching and our longing bring us closer to Him, and we hear Him: He calls us by name. In that moment we know Him for who He is. “Mary!” ... “Master!” (John 20:16)
It was that call and response that drifted in time with the treetops high above me. In the one pause His utterance of my name, and then the slow swing to the opposite extreme where, in that motionless calm, He waits for a response ... and then, with my breath and the wind sighing as one, “Master!” ... “ My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
The one gift, the one quest, the single step and our total response, are all wrapped in the folds of that intimate recognition of each other. They too are etched in the skies by trees moving between the touch of God’s two hands: – everything, but everything, is contained within and between those two points.
“Follow me.”
... and a single word from the heart: ...
“Yes!”
