Seeing with new eyes

Some friends are making their second annual visit to WindCradle and the northshore. It's wonderful to see them and to have a good excuse to hike and paddle more than usual!

But they are artists....

As I hike or paddle with Lisa and Bernard, I see the world anew. I catch just a bit of what an artist sees. Their view of the beauty of surroundings makes me begin to see the familiar in new ways.

It seems remarkable to me that with the same eyes we can see the same things, and yet they notice light or lines in rocks or ferns in ways I've never seen them.

The gift: helping someone to see more fully, bringing added dimensions to the world. I wonder if that's something we can all do for others as we stand aside another and bring our perspective to them.

The Gift of joy and wonder

When we baptize in the Episcopal Church we ask God to give the one being baptized "the gift of joy and wonder in all your works." So it was with much joy that I (along with a bit of help from her parents) introduced my little granddaughter Esme to some of my favorite spots in the great north. She LOVED the Kadunce River, wading and preliminary sliding on some of the tiny waterfalls.


















And what could be better than sitting by the big lake throwing rocks into it. We are pleased to say that there are still a number of rocks left on our beach, even after her best efforts to throw them all in!

And of course she had to try out a little canoe ride.......we poked the nose of the canoe into the Boundary Waters, so we'd know she'd had her first BWCAW trip.....It'll be a few years before we get to the first overnight one I'm afraid.

And while I know she's unlikely to remember all of this...I'm glad to be a part of helping to instill "the gift of joy and wonder" in all God's works. And seeing someone else's joy deepens mine--what a gift.

nature--big, little and funky

The beauty of the great north takes many forms. The lakes reflect light onto the trees and the ancient rocks glow in the setting sun. Clearwater Lake is one that stretches into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and makes for great paddling.

And then there is the beauty of different plants and animals: ladyslippers hiding in the woods on a summer hike (this is the South Lake trail off the Gunflint Trail.)

We've seen so many beautiful birds here-orioles, rose-breasted gross beaks, indigo bunting, pelicans, eagles, osprey. Ravens seemed mainly annoying, until we started reading about them in a book called THE MIND OF THE RAVEN. We began to be fascinated by them: these are a few of our local friends, who like to look in the window or pick up bright stones.

Nature captures attention, intrigues in a number of ways: the prayer from the baptismal service, "give this child the gift of joy and wonder in all God's works" worked for me!

Building a Labyrinth

Okay you've got to admit it--most people don't have one of these in their front yard. It's about 45-50 feet across and is called a "Modifed Chartres" labyrinth. In other words, it's in the style of the one in Chartres Cathedral in France, which was built around 1200 or so.

Why a labyrinth? The idea is this: many of us struggle to sit down and pray or meditate--involving the body can help us center. As you walk toward the center you empty yourself of some concerns. In the center you pause to pnder before making your way out.

This is not a maze! You don't have to make any decisions except the one to enter and walk it.

The Love of Dog!

In the last couple weeks I've had the chance to talk about my book, Dogspell: The Gospel According to Dog. Here I'm reading at Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais; I also did a talk related to the book and our god images at the Sacred Ground Center in St. Paul.

As I read from the book, and see

people's reactions,

I remember how hard it is for us to

remember that we are beloved.

Or as one person said at this salon

at Drury Lane Books, "How different would the world be, if we believed, really

believed, we were loved?!"

Water reflecting,dancing, flying

Water seems to dominate

our world up in the great north.

We sit on the beach looking at

all this liquid space. Often our retreats begin on the beach.

Sometimes the lake roars;

sometimes it reflects light.

Sometimes we paddle on it;

rarely we swim in it.

Or we go to the inland lakes to paddle or hike. This is Daniels Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Light there reflects off the water onto tree trunks and rocks, which the native peoples called "dancing spirits."

At WindCradle, from the deck, the living room or the dining room we see the light of the lake dancing, reflecting.

And sometimes it seems that some

of the light gets caught on a bird's

wings as with this Indigo Bunting.

All this light, reflected, dancing, winged...speaks to me of God.

Spring in the Northland

Spring comes late here. But we sure appreciate it. Living in Cape Town with its Mediterranean climate, spring was nothing, since winter was nothing. Minnesotans joke that our weather builds character, and that may be true. Or as one friend put it, "No one moves to Minnesota for the climate!" But....this week I went to see some members of Spirit of the Wilderness Church up on Seagull lake, and of course we had to go paddling! (My kind of pastoral visit!) The water was still very cold, but calm, and a loon broke the surface of the water right next to us, water drops on her head. Lovely.

Since this is a fly-way, there are also lots of migrating birds passing through. The other day I was bowled over by the bright orange of an oriole, the bright scarlet of a rose breasted gros beak, the intense yellow of a goldfinch, and then along came an indigo bunting. Such exuberant color after months of muted tones.The world is also alive with water, snowmelt feeding streams, rushing down ravines that will be dry in a month or two. And the waterfalls are stunning, roaring, spraying, making rainbows here and there. And those baby green leaves on the trees; plants poking out of the ground.

As we hike, it's hard to tell what is poking through--what this little funnel of green or this tiny leaf will be. Some will be the spring ephemerals which only last very briefly; some are the beginnings of ferns that will become waist high.

I'm thinking about the new life in each of us, and how it's hard to know early on exactly what that life will look like later. I'm hoping for lush green growth as I cooperate with the great spirit.