Beholding (Green)

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Onto "Beholding (Green)”

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You may have noticed that the title for this post is different from what came before. Beholding (Green) not Noticing (Green). This came out of a Fr. Richard Rohr and Amy Frykholm post shared on Friday, May 22 called “Beholding God Everywhere.” The whole post is worth your time - click here to read - but I was so moved by this from Fr Rohr...

The real gift of contemplative practice is to be happy and content, even while we are simply sitting on the porch, looking at a rock, or benevolently gazing at anything in its ordinariness. When we can see, accept, and say that every single act of creation is “just this,” we allow it to work its wonder on us....Remember, the whole process most often begins by one, long, relished moment of awe, one fully sincere moment of beholding anything and saying, “Just this!” And, as Isaiah promised, we will know that every moment is shouting, “I am here! I am here!”

And then Amy Frykholm picks up on that by going deep with the challenges that come with a practice of “beholding.”

Let’s be clear, though, contemplation of any object, person, idea, or being is much more difficult than it sounds. First of all, we face the difficulty of sitting down for beholding at all….If we are able to get ourselves situated for beholding, we will notice the next difficulty arising: We are constantly being taken out of presence by our own thoughts…. Any act of attention is not a sustained experiencing. It’s a series of successive efforts to bring attention back to the same thing, considering it again and again... We gradually train our attention to encounter, discovering its fruits in slow and subtle movements over time. Whatever you behold, you eventually become beholden to. You enter into a love relation. You recognize your own dependence on the created world, the way that you are held, even as you are holding...And sometimes grace carries us away, and we glimpse, maybe even for several seconds at a time, the whole interconnected, openhearted world … welcomes us.

When I read all this on Friday morning, I realized that “noticing” wasn’t the word for what I have been doing. Noticing feels more like the quick glance, the “oh, that’s cool” type of thing. But beholding (literally coming from words meaning “to keep hold of - or held by” or “belong to.”) has a much more tactile and deeper sense to it. It puts the beholder and the beheld in some kind of relationship and sometimes in physical contact. It isn’t the quick glance but it is much more of a gaze to behold what is being experienced. And this beholding isn’t just about visual sight but through any (or all) of the senses.

This was further amplified by Sunday’s podcast episode of The Daily entitled Sites Unseen: What’s Revealed by Traveling With the Blind. It is a conversation with NY Times photographer Andy Isaacson about how he experienced traveling in a completely new way. Isaacson has traveled all over the world in his work for the Times and his work has largely been through the lens of his camera so he was used to experiencing travel through the visual medium. But he took a trip to India with a travel company called Travelize who create trips pairing visually impaired travelers with sighted travelers as equal companions. In the podcast, Isaacson is challenged to experience India through his other senses and to be deeply open to the experiences of his traveling companions who are sensing the trip in a radically different way than he. While the word “beholding” was not used, I couldn’t help but return to that time and again as I listened to this story as Isaacson and his companions beheld that amazing country in unique and beautiful ways.

And finally we come to one other intersection for this week of “beholding” the color green. In my journal entries from past years, I saw that on May 22, 2016 (yes May 22 like the day I read the Rohr / Frykholm post), I wrote the following reflecting upon readings from 1 Chronicles 16 and 17 during a Bible in a year read.

Imago Scriptura 52 - The Color Green

Yes, in a week in 2026 where I was seeking to behold the color green, I was writing and reflecting upon the same 10 years ago. A significant portion of that reflection was connected to the Rich Mullins song, The Color Green, a song about beholding the beauty and wonder of God in all of nature (not just green). The chorus of the song is this:

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise

I love how the song holds together so much of what surrounds us in creation and names so many things - the gold of the sun that rises, the waving of the winter wheat, the vibrance of the blue sky and of course the color green that stands out so boldly. And that’s just the chorus. These lyrics are very much in my heart and mind as I’ve listened to The Color Green many times these last few days.

As a result of all this, my practice changed slightly after what I read on Friday. I decided that each remaining day I was not only going to photograph green but I was going to behold green not only through seeing it but also receive it with my other senses. Each day is a different leaf from a tree or plant that has deep meaning to me with the exception of Monday’s and Tuesday’s which were something I decided to do with Scout. So, here’s beholding green for the last week but starting with the green image that I shared 10 years ago this week.

From Ten Years Ago

Wednesday - This is one of the leaves from CharaJoy, the tree that the church I serve planted on our first Sunday officially together last September. CharaJoy has filled out and is in full bloom right now

Thursday - this is a leaf that had fallen at the base of the "Hand tree" that I have shared many times here. It is a tree that has five large trunks that spread out from a single central trunk. It looks like an open upraised hand

Friday - this is a tree that I am currently calling The Tree of Life. You may have seen several photos of this from 2026 with Winton Lake in the background. So here's one of the leaves of that beautiful tree that I have been watching go from barren in the winter to its fullness now in Spring

Saturday - this tree is in our front yard and is our "Samantha tree." We planted it in memory of a young girl who died far too young. Dear friends of ours had brought her to Cincinnati Childrens Hospital for treatment. We prayed with and for her and them many times and we continue to grieve with them. This tree has some of the most gorgeous pink blooms in early Spring each year. So the feeling here was not simply in the softness of the leaves but in the memory of this dear girl and her family.

Sunday - this is the oak tree that we planted several years ago in our backyard and is named Treebeard. We had to cut down an old oak that had given shade to our backyard and my family bought this tree for me for Father's Day. It has grown so much and is beautiful in its full leafiness now and then turns an incredible shade of red in autumn. The leaves have a really unique paper feel to them - they don't feel thick but instead feel light like paper

Monday - This leaf was the first that Scout sniffed when we began our walk. The back of the leaf had the feel of worn leather, kind of like a few parts of an old leather jacket I used to have. But it still somehow felt soft. The front was smooth and cool with the remains of the overnight rain.

Tuesday - like Monday, this was the first plant that Scout stopped to really sniff on our walk. I took a sniff myself but didn't smell anything of note. But the leaf itself felt almost like thin rubber in terms of how it moved in my hand. It felt soft and smooth and cool to the touch but unlike rubber/silicone, it felt fully alive.

Tuesday - Scout sniffing that same plant

So how did you behold green this week?

This next week is a marked contrast to what has been thus far…the week ahead is … black

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

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