Being in nature helps forge true spiritual connection
When COVID changed the pattern of our lives. my spouse and I realized we had to be creative. We decided the refurbishment of our sadly neglected small sailboat seemed like a good project. We thought it could help us build some hope into our lives and those of our family.
The boat came into our lives when we were in graduate school. We had reached a point where we felt mired in the minutiae of academia. We recognized we had lost something vital to our being.
Although we were the very model of debt-laden students, we decided to purchase an inexpensive sailboat kit. It was advertised as an ideal craft for families. One of our professors kindly let us the use his workshop to build the boat. The craft was almost finished when we left student life. It travelled with us to the prairies where it hibernated for two winters on the deck of a friend’s apartment. Our next stop was Victoria. The sea beckoned and the boat was launched.
Our adventures had finally begun.
We dreamed as we built the boat. Imaginings took us to a timeless place where the scent of warm summer winds brought hints of new places to explore. There was the rhythm of the waves as they lapped against the hull bringing the sounds of comfort and story. An intimate awareness of the cycle of the tides was shaped by the music of the ancient dance between the water and the shore. The dreaming was a manifestation of our yearning for connection beyond ourselves. We knew some part of us had been withering.
J. Philip Newell in his book Christ of the Celts touches on such dreaming and names it as an ancient way of prayer and relationship with the Creator. He challenges the reader to look beyond traditional ways of seeing Jesus the Christ. To think of Christ as symbol and memory of the cosmic relationship between and within all things is both ancient wisdom and newly resonant today. Newell writes that history has demonstrated the pathology of Christian doctrines designed to meet the political or state need to control people. This has been made painfully evident in recent events where doctrine is confused with theology. We have examples of this in the overturn of Roe vs Wade, or the diminishment of overdue environmental action. These demonstrate profound disconnection from the universe and the Creator.
Newell writes that by connecting to the true nature of Christ we are free to embrace the Christ as the heart of creation.
This allows us to re-discover our true selves. This is not the self wounded by legislative doctrine, nor the self we have been led to believe separates us from God.
It is akin to re-remembering an ancient song. It affirms our irrevocable relationship with the Divine Creator, the Christ, the Holy Spirit, and all of creation. It is cosmic belonging.
There is the disease of isolation when we forget, or let institutional values dominate. Ancient practices, poetry and prayer affirm the self which prizes all of creation. It may be found by opening one’s self to be enfolded and nurtured in a forest, or by exploring the intricate beauty of the inter-relationships in a tidal pool or sailing in a small boat and letting the water and the shore tell their stories. These are simple ways to embrace the Heart of Christ.
Our sailboat is almost ready for the next set of adventures. I wonder where the dream will take us.