Last week I had my first session with a spiritual director—a term I’d never even heard until a few months ago, but one that continued to bubble up until I sought one out. During the session, I was asked how or when I notice God’s presence in my life, and after some hesitation, I said that I am most aware of God’s presence in nature. Most people, I think, feel something when they are in nature. They sense something larger than the self, a mystery in the natural world, even if it’s not something they attribute to the Divine. When I’m in nature, I am aware of the mystery of life. How it continues to press forward in its cyclical rhythms, despite our efforts to thwart it. I am aware of the intricacy of the world around me—its beauty and balance, its harmony and order. Our bodies physically react to being in nature: our breathing slows, we find peace in the stillness around us.
As our world whirls faster than ever before, the art of noticing is something I am intentionally practicing. I notice the shape of clouds with my kids, the colors and textures of flowers in our yard, the legs on a millipede. I notice my breathing, whether or not I am holding tension in my shoulders or jaw, which emotions are threatening overwhelm. I notice my preschooler’s articulate, meandering explanations, the blonde hair that falls in his face, how nimble his fingers have become, the freckles that have suddenly appeared across the bridge of his nose. I notice my toddler’s creative grammar, the pucker of his lips when he sleeps, the lengthening of his legs as he climbs, the precision of his little hands as he cuts grass with a pair of dull scissors. I notice God’s presence in the warmth of the sun, the gentle power of the wind, the strength of a tree standing tall. I am learning—slowly, slowly—how a life and a soul can be formed by noticing these small, everyday things.
In his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson writes: “There is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. Religion in our time has been captured by a tourist mindset… We go to see a new personality, to hear a new truth, to get a new experience and so somehow to expand our otherwise humdrum life.” This tendency is just as prevalent in wider culture as it is in the church—we are all shackled by this constant nagging for some ephemeral more. We’ve been conditioned to desire novelty, heightened by social media, but novelty doesn’t sustain us. Perhaps the art of noticing is a small resistance in itself. It’s an admission that I have grown tired of trying to find my purpose—if a specific purpose ever existed at all. That I have grown weary of pursuing the American dream, weary of a world that continually asks its citizens to stretch themselves thinner. I want to find contentment where I am—to notice the beauty of what is here before me, now. I wonder what I might notice, if I have eyes open to see?
It might seem like a sudden shift in tone, but as I drafted and revised this newsletter, I learned of two new shootings this week—one in Missouri, one in New York, and I just can’t leave those stories unmentioned. In both instances, young adults drove to the wrong address and were subsequently shot. A teenager went to pick up his younger siblings from a friend’s house and was shot in the forehead and arm after ringing the doorbell. He ran on foot to three separate houses before anyone helped him. A group of college-aged kids visiting friends pulled into the wrong driveway, and shots were fired at the car as the driver turned around, fatally wounding a twenty-year-old girl. This comes on the heels of two mass shootings, and it’s only April. I can’t write about the art of noticing nature and the beginnings of spring without also noticing the pulse of tension in our collective body, the steady streams of news invading our thoughts, the web of fear and paranoia and racism that entangles us all, the obsession with guns as a personal right. We are being regularly manipulated by news channels and algorithms, modern day money-changers, to fear one another instead of care for one another. To hurl insults at one another instead of seeking to understand a different perspective. To blame the gun problem on anything else before we admit that it’s a gun problem and that, in our pride, we bear some of the responsibility. This is the result of our collective choices: trauma and death and hate.
I personally do not believe the right to bear arms is compatible with the Christian faith, with a God who told Peter to put down his sword in the garden of Gethsemane, who willingly surrendered His body to the violence of this world, who repeatedly told us not to be people marked by fear, who taught us through the story of the Good Samaritan that our neighbor is not the one who looks and thinks like us, and who then chose these words to sum up the greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself.
You have the right to disagree with me, and that’s okay. We all need to listen to one another a little better, to practice the art of conversation instead of argument. Myself included. So, even if you disagree, I hope you’ll stay with me as a reader. And as you look up from whatever screen you are currently reading this newsletter on, I hope you’ll notice and engage the world around you: the robins and budding oaks and blooming irises as well as the exhausted store clerk, the sulking teenager, the harried mom. Each one bears the stamp of God—made by His hand, made in His image. May God give us eyes to see; may God give us the courage to repent.
Jenica
Ordinary Joy
Words of Jubilee
It’s been hard to find words to share this week in light of everything in the news. Before finalizing this newsletter, I learned of yet another shooting. My heart is heavy; my mind scattered. So here is Langston Hughes “Island”:
A Few Good Things
This poem was shared with me, and I am leaving it here with you.
Hope at Family Scripts shares some thoughtful questions in her recent Substack post about finding joy in parenting.
Got this book in the mail yesterday and I am really excited about it!