Noticing Rootedness
Music, grieving, a geode, Gospel trees, Lugnut the llama, and being held in hope
I’ve been wondering what has been a consistent thread for me through the last few weeks. There’s simply been a lot going on - I am grieving the unexpected death of another dear friend, there’s some stuff in the church I serve, and then the changes that August bring - kids back to school and the reality of our lives as parents continuing to change. So a lot has felt a bit wobbly recently and I am so grateful for the wisdom of a book I am reading called Hope: A User’s Manual by MaryAnn McKibben Dana. A chapter I read a few days ago had her sharing about learning to use a stand-up paddle board and the lesson of learning to trust that this board under her feet is actually stable. (“The paddleboard is stable. It’s me that’s wobbly.”1). Later in the chapter she wrote these beautiful and needed words about what she heard through a rabbi friend of her’s about a lesser known name of God in the Hebrew tradition:
But many believe that the earliest name for God is pronounced “ha-makom.” “Ha-makom” means “the Place.” The earliest name for God is the Place! Remarkable. Before we began hanging a bunch of theological attributes on God, God was simply a place—the place. Before God was ever a Who, God was a Where...Even amid the wobbliness, I believe in ha-makom, a great trustworthy stability undergirding all things, or what Paul Tillich called the Ground of All Being.2
I love this idea of God not only as being but also as place. It echoes Jesus’ parable about the house built on the rock. So as I looked back at what I have been photographing and experiencing the last few weeks, I see a thread of finding places of stability and “ha-makom.”
Before the images... the music. I am no musician (can’t sing, can’t play an instrument) but music is central to my experiences (ask me about Cinderella’s song Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til Its Gone). The last few weeks there have been four songs/albums that have been listened to many times over and wow are they diverse. Two songs from the Barbie soundtrack, a new song and an older one by Carrie Newcomer, and then the whole of Jon Batiste’s new album.
Barbie - “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa is just a powerful, upbeat, joy-filled, life-affirming song. I love the beat, the sound, the feel of it. And then the opposite extreme - Billie Elish’s What Was I Made For? Haunting, resonant, seeking wisdom and direction.
A Great Wide Mercy - Carrie Newcomer - I wrote about this a few weeks ago and I keep listening to this beautiful song. Especially the chorus “There’s a big wide sky filled with stars // That feels so close but feels so far // I’m tired of all the rage // I’m tired of all the worry // I’m ready for a great wild mercy.” Yes. Yes. Yes.
Geodes - From Carrie Newcomer’s 2008 album, A Geography of Light. This song has a connection that is much bigger than I can share right now but it ties in with something later in this post. A song that came into my life at the exact needed time and continues to resonate beautifully.
World Music Radio - Jon Batiste - I have loved Jon and his spirit and his music since first seeing him with Colbert on the Late Show. This album is so beautifully diverse in content, styles, sounds, and genres but there’s a thread through the whole of unity, joy, wonder, hope, and most of all... life. It was just released last Friday and I think I’ve listened to the album fully through 8 times.
Rootedness
The rootedness starts with this small geode. There’s a big, amazing story behind it but suffice to say I’ve been holding to this small rock (and listening to Carrie’s song) a lot. The other thing that this photo also shares of rootedness is my wedding band. I am so grateful for my amazing wife and our amazing children who are my roots and my joy and my foundation through all things. Gratitude upon gratitude for them.
Drew
For the third time this year, I have lost a very dear friend. This time with no idea it was coming. Drew was a seminary classmate, one of our groomsmen in our wedding, and one of the smartest and funniest people I have ever known. Drew died in a random accident while on vacation. In seminary, he helped me work my way through the maze of systematic theology while bringing in amazing humor (which included the multipage paper he wrote where the vast majority of the words were hyphenated in a bit of a nod toward the over-hyphenization that one of our textbooks engaged in), there were too many Sunday night Taco Bell trips, and he was always responsive since seminary to questions, ideas, and just engagement. I am forever grateful for his amazing memory of music, the wonderful (my wife would not agree with that adjective) orange chair he passed along to me for my final year of seminary when he moved into married housing, but most of all for being an amazing friend and a light in this world. One of these photos was the last one Drew posted on Threads before he had his accident and the other is a drawing made by one of our seminary friends in memory of him. Goodbye and thank you, my friend.
God Speaking
The same place where I received that little geode had these four trees. I have been to this retreat center many other times but for some reason I never noticed these four threes that were clearly planted together in a line and I found myself wondering whether they were “Gospel trees” - The first three trees are nearly identical in size and then the fourth is a bit different - it is spaced a bit further away and it is much shorter. Maybe it is just the seminary geek in me but are the first three representative of the synoptic (Matthew, Mark, Luke) Gospels and then the fourth is the slightly different Gospel of John? Regardless, they were a reminder to me of finding God’s Word all around us and still speaking to us.
The Requisite Image of Scout Being...well...Scout
Our dog cuddling with her best fuzzy friend, an orange llama named Lugnut...
Nature
Nature is my rootedness place in so many ways. I need to get out into the woods and the trails and breathe the air, hear the sounds, feel the crunch of a gravel path under my feet, be amused at the many ways that Scout finds new things to sniff (and sometimes eat), be humbled beneath tall trees, to marvel at the uniqueness of every sunrise, find awe and wonder in the ways that nature is painted with colors too beautiful to be replicated, and to feel my body moving. I am grounded by the big expanse of a majestic sunrise, the curiosity of a deer poking its head up, and the tiny droplets of morning dew on a spiderweb. Breathe it in... breathe it out...
Being Held in Divine Love
Finally, one last image that bookends the geode. On my walk this morning, I walked by one of my favorite trees. I have shared photos of it before and there wasn’t anything specifically different about it this morning. But it still speaks to me whenever I go by. In this gorgeous tree, I see an open hand with fingers reaching up to the sky. I have never done it but I wonder about climbing up into the palm of this hand and just sitting there and resting. Maybe I should next time I go by.
I wonder what it would feel like to read Isaiah 41:10 sitting in that place...
do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
Where are you noticing and finding rootedness?
Tags -
,Dana, MaryAnn McKibben. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 140). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Dana, MaryAnn McKibben. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 140, 141, 142). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Go. Climb and sit in that tree.