Woods

My Loyal Companion and I went for a lose-your-breath paced walk in the woods this evening, I for peace and he because it’s his passion. I went out to the hazel wood/because a fire was in my head[1]. You may have caught on by now that I pay very close attention to the natural world and find solace and encouragement there, but tonight I hardly noticed. I saw enough to know it was a gem of a spring evening but I neither felt nor saw any of it. It was instead as though the inner vortex that has been stealing my peace escaped and twirled madly around in a heady mix of glowing pastels, bird calls, and peeping frogs—VanGogh on a living scale.

Forests are wonderful places to lose, or alternatively, find oneself.[2] Or to lose something chasing literally or figuratively at your heels.

“One day he lost sight of his retinue in a great forest. These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran. Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes. In this way they have the advantage of the princesses, who are forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun. I wish our princesses got lost in a forest sometimes.”[3]

I did not find anything in the woods tonight; I did lose something there, though, and was able to return home without so much swirling madness. In the woods is freedom to simply be however you presently find yourself. The only eyes out there do not calculate worth based on appearance, and the only minds do not weigh value or pass judgements in the same brutal way we do. Their assessments are brutal, sure, in terms of physical life or death (“A bird unwary! I shall eat it,” thinks the fox) but far more injurious to the inner life—the one that matters—are the assessments we make.

It is a surprise to find that just came from my pen; it was not where I expected to be going with this. Those aren’t the questions I’m dealing with. Well, okay, maybe not in large part, but looking more closely it has been dredged up in the sediment. Great. Again. Does nothing ever stay resolved? Rewind to an excerpt from 2014:

“ ‘And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these (Mt6:28-29).’ New thought here too. God made the flowers and us, He clothes them and us. How ridiculous it would be for flowers to compare themselves to others! For the poppy to say ‘I am not elegant like the rose, dainty like the phlox, as full as the hydrangea—I am not as flowery, as tall, as stately, or as many-petaled.’ How utterly ridiculous, for God made each and each is beauty itself! And yet how often we, made and dressed by the same God, make exactly these comparisons. These are only comparisons of appearance, too—we make thorough inventories of talents, possessions, relationships—you name it and we tally it all up in bleak columns of ‘don’t have,’ ‘would like,’ ‘need,’ ‘desperately want.’ How great is our sin! How much greater is His grace.”

So, after all, this false accounting is part of what drove me to the woods. True difficulties in the larger context of my current situation have been stirring up a good number of thorny questions, but I’ve been looking at the balance of things from miserly human eyes and totally blind to astounding wealth God places daily around me. Even here— feeling as though the path twists with wicked unexpectedness and I cannot see and there are stones and fallen trees and sink holes to maneuver—even here, I am not lost. Here too, I cannot remain, nor am I left to continue on unaided.

“Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.”[4]

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”[5]

“Indeed, you are my lamp, Lord. My God illuminates the darkness around me.” [6]

Blind as I may be, I am kept safe by the loving presence of a God who cares greatly for his creations. No, safe and comfortable are not synonymous, but you can’t very well expect to enter the woods and stay comfortable. You lose things, gain things; maybe you will find peace along the way, perhaps even the peace that comes with letting things fall freely from you—or handing them eagerly to one who can actually carry them. At peace, refreshed, you can carol on or croak out with birds and peeping frogs:

“You…clothed me with joy, that my heart may SING to you and not be silent…into Your hands I commit my spirit…I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in Your love…”[7]

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[1] WB Yeats, “The Song of Wandering Aengus”

[2] For a much, much more detailed and fascinating look at how landscape intertwines with story, specifically Märchen, I highly recommend Sara Maitland’s “From the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots of Our Fairytales.”

[3] A very tongue-in-cheek excerpt from George MacDonald’s “The Light Princess” that had me laughing out loud the first time I read it.

[4] Psalm 43:3

[5] Psalm 119:105

[6] Psalm 18:28

[7] Excerpts from Psalm 30:11-31:7