The
Real Thing
“Psychology
and religion are metaphors, and symbols, and signs of the real thing,
at least one step removed. Revelation is the real thing. Nature is
revelation, and nature is us; nature creates us.”
Michael
Dwinell (Being Priest to One Another, p.29)
In Being Priest to One
Another, Michael Dwinell tells a story of three encounters with
animals that happened in one road trip to Canada. Three times, a wild
animal crossed his path—a wolf, a hawk, and a red fox. Each animal
crossed directly in front of him, and the wolf and the fox each
stopped, sat down, and made eye contact. He did not feel threatened.
Each experience was “electrifying, stunning; each had riveted
and commanded my attention. I know them to have been visitations.”
(p.29) When we have experiences like these, with real animals in the
wild, they are neither metaphor nor symbol; they are true revelation.
Dwinell saw them as trinity—his symbol for the divine. His path had
been crossed by the divine.
From the porch this
morning, I watched two squirrels running along a branch of the oak
tree in my neighbor's yard. One of them air-dropped about four feet
to the limb below and kept going. The second one contemplated the
drop and thought better of it. He/she turned and ran back to a place
where the lower limb was closer, and jumped to it. Then both of them
chased all the way to the end of that limb. What now? There was no
branch below or nearby to leap to. After a short hesitation, the
dare-devil squirrel flipped to the underside of the branch they were
on, and ran back to the trunk. The other squirrel carefully made a
U-turn and went after him.
There are so many
metaphors one can make with this squirrel activity. One squirrel was
a leader, a risk-taker, innovative and courageous. The other was
clearly a follower, careful, slightly insecure. Or, perhaps one took
unnecessary risks, and was cavalier in the way he encouraged the
other to act similarly. The second one was smarter, more sensible;
got to the same place but in a thoughtful way. The Han Solo and Luke
Skywalker of squirrels. We humans can draw all manner of parallels.
As for the squirrels, who knows?
There is so much to
learn, and there are so many teachers. All we have to do is tune in.
Here is a poem by Michael Dwinell (Being Priest to One Another; p.26)
that speaks to this:
The Night
Walk
“We
don't find God.
We are
found by God.
We don't
have a soul.
We are
ensouled.
We don't
have our sexuality.
We are
sexual.
We don't
discover nature.
Nature is
us.”
I hope nature crosses
your path today. And I hope you take time to tune in.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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