The 2nd Sunday in Creationtide
Sunday, September 8, 2024
1.
I had two intentions this summer, the whole summer really, but especially my month-long August vacation. The first was to read a handful of novels I’d been collecting for most of a year. And the second was to recommit to a daily practice of centering prayer, 20 minutes of silent prayer in the morning, and 20 minutes again in the evening. I’m reminded of the simple teaching of the great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh—who once said: “Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.” Just that: “Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.” My hope this summer was to ‘practice stopping.’ And these two practices, reading novels and centering prayer, do so much to slow me down, sometimes even way down—reawakening in me the gifts of stillness and imagination, softening the edges of my mind’s rush to judgment, and emptying my analytic self of so many assumptions and Dave GJ notions. No small task, that.
So these were my intentions all summer long: to read some novels and revive my centering prayer practice. And for the most part, I made good on those intentions. It was a good summer for me.
So one morning, about two weeks ago, I set out in a little red kayak on the ever-so-still waters of a favorite Maine lake. And I was frankly kind of full of myself, satisfied with these two daily practices, and the calm and balanced spirit with which I paddled across the protected bay in front of our cabin. I’d even left my phone on shore! At the time I was deep into a spectacularly inspired novel by one of my all-time favorite writers, David James Duncan; and his story is, in part, a meditation on the unity of human spirit and created world, the wholeness and liberation we discover in and among the geographies of our lives. The novel’s called “Sun House”—and I have it right here. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
So as I paddled across the bay, I marveled at a flock of geese flapping in the reeds along the shoreline, then lifting off, and then winging in formation overhead. And I felt less like an observer than a participant in their timeless migration, less like a sightseer than a kind of wild goose myself, following the instincts and desires of my own soul. Paddling the still waters. The late summer sun, like the Light of Christ, everywhere around me. Like I say, it was a good summer for me.
And just then, over my right shoulder, I heard the sweet laughter of a loon, close enough to be along for the ride. You know the sound, the laughter, the wonder of it. A song millions of years in the making! So, of course, I swung my big, no longer calm, nor balanced body around to take a quick look, because that’s what you do—and proceeded to flip my little red kayak, dramatically and totally, upside down. K-splash! Which meant, of course, that the paddler was paddling no more, and tossed instead into the loon-loved lake. Grabbing after my paddle with one hand, reaching with the other for the upside-down kayak with a mind of its own. And all the while, gasping for embarrassment and surprise.
I was maybe a hundred yards from shore, and I had no genius ideas about getting my big, no longer calm, no longer balanced body back into the kayak. So I did what I guess one does when one’s flipped his kayak in a loony lake. I held on to the paddle, pushed the kayak forward and did my best little froggy kick to get us all back to dry land and a warm towel…and all kinds of humility and breathlessness. A couple of kids in a motorboat, trailing a line with a happy water-skier, waved and cheered on their way by. I was frankly relieved they didn’t stop to help.
And about half-way back, I saw just ahead of me another loon—maybe the same one, or maybe an amused friend—floating serenely and worrying about nothing. And as if on cue, she caught sight of this crazy human being, one with creation, totally united with the lake and all its wonders, and looking about as silly as a human can look, pushing his kayak toward shore. Like a great white frog. And she lifted her gorgeous black and white neck into the Maine sky and whelped with joy, laughed with delight, welcoming me home. Yes, I was embarrassed, a goofy, clumsy sight to see out there, for sure, for sure. But I found myself laughing with her, the two of us, an unexpected community in the August sun.
2.
So, Creationtide! A season of celebration, reflection and wonder. What could it mean for us? What could it mean for the church?
There is, in the reading this morning, in the Song of Songs, what I might call a “beckoning” spirit, even (some might say) a “seductive” spirit: “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!” There’s no question, really, that at some point this was a love song, romantic poetry, maybe even erotic poetry. “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!” For God’s sake, for God’s sake, let’s not over-think this text. It’s a love song, a duet: lovers responding to one another with delight, and finding in the fields and vineyards of their world a thousand mirrors of their own vitality, their own attraction. “The flowers are unfolding in the fields; the birds are warming up their songs; the fig trees are bringing forth fruit; and the vines are filling the air with fragrance.” The heavens are telling the glory of God, and all creation is shouting for joy! “Arise, my dearest, and come away with me!” By the way, this is all right there, in your bible!
Then, too, the Song of Songs—when it’s read here in church, in worship, and especially during our Season of Creationtide—this Song captures a kind of intimate mysticism: the Creator and the created in love, in communion, in relationship. We might call this “creation spirituality.” Creation spirituality! Faith, after all, is organic and relational. It’s not static and tribal and cocky sure of itself; it’s responsive to birds warming up their songs in tall trees, and to vines filling the air with their fragrance, and to loons singing anthems millions of years in the making. And when the Beloved says, “Come away with me,” faith goes. My friend, you are not a cog in some theological machine, or a notch on some evangelist’s salvation belt. You are the Beloved’s beloved; and you are sought out, you are invited into the world, you are beckoned into awareness and gladness every moment of every minute of every day of your life. So when the Beloved says, “Come away with me,” you go. That’s “creation spirituality.”
So the gift of this poetry, the gift of this Song of Songs, is in the poet’s unembarrassed celebration of the community of creation, and all the ways Love (and I’m talking about the One Big Love with the capital L), all the ways Love finds us and claims us and invites us to taste and see and revel in the reality of it all. Revel in the reality of it all. The reality of human love, to be sure. The reality of lakes and loons, to be sure. The reality of your neighbor’s zucchini and your dog’s happy tail. The reality of sure-footed gazelles and sunflowers lifting their heads in the fields, and the cooing of the turtle dove and the explosion of fall foliage every October in New England.
And don’t miss this. To love it all is to be changed by it all. To taste and see Love in the midst of it all is to be summoned to new life, to a kind of faithfulness that is well beyond orthodoxy and creed. This is about mystery and union and the oneness of it all. To revel in the community of creation is to become the rivers and streams that hydrate our bodies, and to become the fields and gardens that feed our souls, and to become the lakes that swallow us whole when we flip our kayaks on bright summer days.
3.
So the thing is this. The gospel thing is this: we are not created by God, we are not gifted with a precious span of days and years to merely observe creation; we’re not blessed with breath and body to spend our seasons as sightseers on planet earth. We are called into communion. Always, always, communion. We are invited into circles of loving and blessing and sharing. We are taken by Love’s hand, summoned by Love’s voice: “Arise, my dearest! Come away with me!” And this means devotion and romance. And this means sacrifice and feasting. And this means a faith infused with love and shaped by responsibility for the integrity of creation and the life of the planet. So, Creationtide! And creation spirituality! Meaning, we are called into communion with fig trees and grape vines, with bee hives and salmon runs, with tiny streams and great bays. We are called not to rise above creation, as if the whole point is to conquer creation, to subdue it all, and need very little of it for our survival. No, no, and no again! We are called to rise for creation, to rise with creation, to rise in courage and resilience and passion as lovers of creation, as friends of creation, as partners in creation.
