Parker Palmer:Trees

Parker Palmer: Trees

“I used to take trees for granted. But these days I know that sitting in their presence for a while will leave me refreshed and renewed. I wonder if trees photosynthesize the soul as well as sunlight? But most of all, I’m drawn to trees because of something W. S. Merwin says in this lovely poem—the way they slowly and quietly cycle through the seasons ‘as though nothing had happened while our individual and collective lives whirl madly around them.’” —Parker Palmer’s response to W. S. Merwin’s poem “Elegy for a Walnut Tree” in his weekly column in “On Being with Krista Tippett” (5/3/2017).

I want to remember what Parker Palmer is telling us about the outdoors, and trees especially. Could “trees photosynthesize the soul”? Being outside with trees does do something to my soul. Photosynthesis “is a process used by plants to convert light energy into chemical energy (sugar from carbon dioxide and water) that later is released to fuel the plants’ activities and releases oxygen as a waste product.” Plants are like transformers, changing one form of energy into another, turning light energy into chemical energy.

Being outside in a forest does transform and quiet my soul. Soon the busyness of my mind, the committee in my head, and my to do list no longer are managing my mind. I am grounded to the earth. I move out of my mind and into my body. I see a world greater than myself, a power at work beyond my limits. As I keep returning to the forest, I observe how the trees do quietly “cycle through the seasons.” The trees are a permanent icon, reminding us that we are to be the “steady bow,” as the parent that Khalil Gibran writes about in The Prophet. We are indeed all parents caring for this earth that in turn also parents us, cares for us.

My father was a forester who for so many Saturdays took people out to plant more trees. Often we would drive by the pine forest to see how they were growing. This produced some synapse change in my cells, so that I always had difficulty seeing a tree cut down. This poem is especially meaningful to me today, since two large trees in my neighbor’s yard just outside my window were uprooted last week. Yesterday men with chain saws took the trees away. I grieve for the trees’ absence. It helps to remember that our son and his wife had to cut down a dying tree that was adjacent to where they are building a house. They honored the tree by using the wood to make a mantel to go over their fireplace.

I look forward to hearing from you about what you have learned from trees and how you honor trees.

Joanna joannseibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.

Parker Palmer: Let Your Life Speak

Parker Palmer: Let Your Life Speak

“A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there. A leader shapes the ethos in which others must live, an ethos as light-filled as heaven or as shadowy as hell.” —Parker J. Palmer, “Shadows and Spirituality” in Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass, 2000).

I learned about Parker Palmer when I attended a College of Preachers conference just for deacons at the National Cathedral led by the Bishop of Maryland, Robert Ihloff. We spent the whole week learning to preach and studying Palmer’s book about vocation. Parker Palmer told us about what causes leaders to fail. We cast shadow rather than light when we fail to go on an inner journey and have insecurity about our identity and worth. Our identity becomes dependent on performing. When we are insecure about our own self-worth we create situations that deprive others of their identity or develop settings in which others are required to meet our needs. We assume titles that place us above others. We call others by their first name, while we must be addressed by our last name or title.

Leaders fail when they see the universe as a hostile battlefield. We see others as either allies or enemies on a playing field where we must be highly competitive or we will lose. Palmer’s third explanation of why leaders fail is “functional atheism,” a term he may have coined. We believe that the ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. The fourth shadow within a leader that leads to failure is fear, mostly fear of chaos. This fear leads to a rigidity toward rules and procedures. We forget that creativity is born out of chaos. Finally, Parker sees leaders fail when they deny death. They keep resuscitating programs that are no longer alive, putting them on life support.

I can identify with all of these shadows of leadership. Do these shadows speak to you as well?

Joanna joannseibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.

Guenther: Holy Play

Guenther: Holy Play

“Often what we call ‘play’ is competitive or compulsive, because the aesthetic dimension of true play, its holy uselessness, goes against our grain.” —Margaret Guenther in Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction (Cowley, 1992).

young people’s table

Holy uselessness. What a grand term for those of us who are driven. When I think of holy play, I think of just sitting, not reading or knitting or thinking about my to do list—just sitting. (Some friends this morning reminded me that they did not want to be on my to do list.) Holy listening, holy uselessness can entail just looking outside my window, watching a breeze come and go, or changing my horizon. Many learn to practice holy uselessness as they look out over bodies of water or mountains that call to us as icons to see through them—or perhaps hear through them as a connection to God. Nature changes the synapses, the pathways in our brains. Immersing ourselves in its peace slows down the cerebral traffic.

Others find holy uselessness listening to music or playing an instrument. Instead of light waves we experience sound waves like soft, free-floating harmonic speed bumps, slowing down the traffic jam in our head to two to five miles an hour.

Just sitting down on the floor with a young child can become holy uselessness, as you try to keep up with the child and follow his or her lead. In this way we can become connected so easily to the Christ Child in another, and to the Christ Child within ourselves. At your next family dinner, volunteer to sit at the youth or children’s table and just listen. You will find a whole new world, and it will be much more fun.

We usually do not put “practice holy uselessness” on our to do list. The best part of holy playtime is that we can follow this spiritual practice anywhere, any time. It can change our life.

Joanna joannseibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.