The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
where morning dawns, where evening fades,
you call forth songs of joy. Psalm 65:8
A few weeks ago a friend and I went to visit Shenk’s FerryWildflower Preserve, a narrow cut of land that follows a steep ravine draining
into the Susquehanna. In spring, it’s carpeted with native wildflowers:
thousands of trillium, bluebells, trout lily, and more.
I mentioned to an older acquaintance that I would be going
and how surprised and amazed I was the first time I went, and she smiled, and
nodded, and said “It’s the . . . . “
She looked around, as if looking for the exact right word, then smiled even more: “the muchness of it.”
Exactly.
I’ve been trying to find a proper word for what she meant,
and in English, we don’t have one. Plenty, abundance: those refer to quantity,
but don’t capture the idea of more than enough in both quantity and diversity,
the rich, varied, suprising “muchness” evident at Shenk’s Ferry.
Amazing that a forgotten strip of ground, owned until
recently by a local power company, barely accessible by steep, rocky, rutted roads,
would explode into beauty every spring. There’s no way photos can do justice to
the effect, or capture the delight of standing on the narrow path, surrounded
by the fleeting loveliness of flowers rarely seen in such stunning multitudes.
For those who make the pilgrimage, there’s a sense of wonder
in looking over the flowers, trying to identify the unfamiliar, marveling at
the variation in shade, size, combination.
Sitting on the stones by the stream at the head of the
ravine, I found myself wondering what the world was like, before so much was
flattened, and plowed, and rearranged to look so much the same. I found myself reflecting
that our vision of control runs contrary to God’s original design. Our
monolithic, monoculture, “my way or the highway” steam-roller approach has cost
us much of the beauty and abundance initially intended. Small pockets of beauty
have barely escaped; Shenk’s Ferry itself was targeted for a new pipeline, just
recently rerouted to cut along existing farmland instead.
Another spring activity for me is bird-watching more than
usual, in hopes of seeing the migrating birds that pass through our region on
their way further north, or of spotting where returning birds build their
nests. Our Thursday morning bird walks lengthen as we linger to identify
unfamiliar warblers, or wait to see where the Orchard Oriole is building its
intricate woven nest.
With birds, as with wildflowers, there is muchness and
delight: birdsong, if you can hear it, in the middle of the night, as songbirds
pass on their nocturnal flight. Birdsong before dawn, as wrens and warblers
announce the coming of the dawn. Delight at the loveliness of tiny acrobats,
capturing invisible insects to take back to their tiny moss-lined nests.
Delight at learning to recognize the exuberant song of a warbling vireo.
 |
| my backyard House wren; photo by Leslie Peed |
One of our birding group, decades older than me, sometimes
announces with great satisfaction at the end of a morning walk: “Well, I
learned something again.”
Yes. Muchness and delight. We will never come to the end of
it, no matter how we try.
This week I attended the graduation exercise of our local
community college. I’ve been to many graduations, Ivy League and small liberal
arts, public and private high schools. This time I was seated where I could see
the faces of the graduates just before they turned to mount the platform to receive
their diplomas.
I had never seen such a varied group of students: old,
young, dignified, merry, every shade and texture of hair and skin.
And I had never felt such joy in a graduation ceremony: the
sense of accomplishment, of relief, of a step toward a hard-won future.
Watching the faces, it struck me, forcefully, that God sees
and delights in them, the muchness of them, the vivid variety, the unique,
intricate beauty, the way wildflower enthusiasts delight in the flowers of
Shenk’s Ferry.
I found myself envisioning God lingering over each, as we
linger over the migrating birds: look at the energy and endurance here. Look at
the gentle dignity here. Look at the sweet spirit, the stunning smile. Look at
the tender, teachable heart.,Look at the lovely lively laugh.
I enjoy learning the names of wildflowers. I find it a form
of poetry: Trillium grandiflorum. Anemone Canadensis.
I hear that same poetry and joy in the voices of those
learning to recognize new birds: Blackburnian warbler. Acadian flycatcher.
Swainson’s thrush.
Far beyond that was the reading of names at Thursday’s
graduation: Anna, Asher, Abdul, Abdalaziz, Amber, Andrew, Ayodeji, Amir, Afrin,
Alan, Angel.
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the work of
God’s spirit in breaking down walls, reuniting his people, empowering his body
to live and work as one.
The poetry of muchness and delight is part of today’s
reading:
“Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontusand Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Acts 2:7-11
Around the globe today that reading will be heard, in Greek,
Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, Gujarati, Assamese, Maori, Zulu, and more than two
thousand other languages.
God’s poetry
of Pentecost continues.
The more we learn of microclimates and living systems, of
microorganisms and cell biology, the more clearly we see the reality ofinterdependence, the need for a grand diversity in people, plants, creatures.
Yet there’s something in God’s economy that goes past need,
past utility, that passes over into art, beauty, exuberant delight. How many
variations of common violet do we need?
For utility, maybe one.
For delight? Apparently
many: more than five hundred, in a wild array of colors, shapes, and patterns.
Left to ourselves, we want what looks like us, what’s most
familiar, easiest to understand.
God’s economy lifts us beyond that, into a rich world of
muchness and delight, more varied, more beautiful, more vibrantly healthy, more
endlessly joyful, than we can yet imagine.
How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights. Psalm 36
This post is part of a series on God's Economy. Other posts:
Fruit
that Will Last April 19, 2015
God’s
Economy: Subtract or Multiply? April
26, 2015
God’s
Economy: Inescapable Network of Mutuality
May 3, 2015
God's
Economy: Generational Investment May 10, 2015
God's
Economy: Managing Anger Assets May
17, 2015
