The Wild Geese: Messengers of Natural Faith
Many religions speak of “Angels”—a Greek word which means “messengers”—often “messengers of God”.
The Natural Faith of which I speak today relies upon a more mundane form of messengers:not angels, archangels or seraphim but “wild geese” who also have a message, and possibly some “good news” to deliver.
Even now the wild geese are gathering along the banks of the Mississippi to fish, chat and prepare for their annual journey south. May it always be so!
“The Wild Geese”
Part One: Wendell Berry
Let’s tune in to a lovely poem by Wendell Berry, a poet, farmer, gentle man and revolutionary from Kentucky.
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves.
In the opening stanza, the poet tells us about the “life world” in which he dwells. Notice he uses the world “we”. Wendell Berry sees the world through the lens of long-term relationships.
Sunday morning is a sacred time, for this spiritual but not churched poet, and the following lines tell us, like a Japanese Haiku, that the poet is riding the cusp of late summer and early fall.
Sampling persimmon and wild grapes becomes a kind of natural communion—communing with the turning seasons and one another.Summer reminds him of the sweet harvest; fall draws his attention to evidence of mortality and a ritual of remembrance:
we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves.
The next lines shift our attention from summer/fall to the promise of spring:
We open a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
In a scant but poweful 13 lines, the poem is reminding us of a necessary and inescapable truth:
our lives are poised between birth and death,
between the promise of new life and reality of death.
Even if we manage to live to be 80, 90 or even 100, our lives are a very brief interlude between birth and death….
As a Zen poet writes, we are “Dew drops on a blade of grass” (Dogen)
In this brief and lovely interlude we call human life, what might give zest, meaning and joy to our brief conscious watch? If you know your Bible or have listened to fire and brimstone sermons you know what comes next: angels or evangelists offering salvation for a price or at least messages about salvation. But this poem is set in this world in the natural matrix of a brief life between birth and death. The messengers are of a natural sort and familiar to many of us.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes.
Abandon, as in love or sleep,
holds them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith:
what we need is here.
And we pray,
not for new earth or heaven,
but to be quiet in heart,
and in eye clear.
What we need is here.
If this “ancient faith” is indeed natural, that is, grounded in this world the only requirement is that we let nature takes its own course. When the topic of prayer is introduced, it seems ironic—what is sought is not an glossy improved version of heaven and earth but the natural gifts of mindfulness practice; to be “quiet in heart and in eye clear.”
Equipped with a tranquil heart and clear eyes, we can see what has been around us all along— the beauty and bounty of this world is experienced as an end in itself…
not a pale copy of an “ideal form”
nor stepping stone to a “higher world”.
The twice repeated refrain tells us the “Good News” of Wendell Berry’s Natural Faith “what we need is here” and not anywhere else, this world beheld and cherished with quiet heart and clarified senses is enough.
This world is enough. We are enough. What we need is here.
And when we embrace who we really are—a sometimes conscious exultation of Nature—we come home, just like the wild geese except we don’t have to fly thousands of miles to find our way home. All we have to do is pay attention as we settle more fully into the present moment.
Like this…. Quiet time to practice being here now
“The Wild Geese”
Part Two: Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours and I will tell you mine.
This poem begins without any descriptive references to Nature. Mary Oliver is preaching and her gospel is addressed to a “you” for whom her message rings true. For many UU’s and spiritual naturalists it does seem to ring true—for this is one of her best known and most loved poems.
“Being good” is totally not dismissed. This is gentle and frank chiding by someone who knows the ropes of self-abuse and has discovered that being cruel to our selves does NOT encourage us to kind to others.
Instead these lines aim to open our eyes, hearts and minds to ANOTHER path, another Way to Awakening. Rather than cruelty and self-abuse, Mary Oliver prescribes a grand-motherly tonic:
We only have to “let the soft animal of our body love what it loves”
Both Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry’s “natural faith” does not require that we be mean to our bodies or ourselves. We just have to let go, get out of the way and let the rivers of loving-kindness carry our small boats along the rivers and valleys of embodied delight.
This shared path life affirming spirituality stands in marked contrast to the “negative way” which infects many traditions of spiritual practice.
Both follow a way of acceptance, kindness and compassion for all forms of embodied life, including us but not just us.
The vision of Mary Oliver, like Wendell Berry, places Nature including us in the “Holiest of Holies.” Mary Oliver’s vision of earthy paradise has an open gate with a sign overhead that reads “Meanwhile.”
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
If this were a Biblical scripture, “Meanwhile” might be replaced with a more exuberant “Behold!” but there is much to admire in this modest understated “Meanwhile.”
When we see clearly with the eyes of a poet, lover or yogi the Natural world opens itself to us. Nature is the “oldest testament,” to read its sacred texts all we have to do say poets and sages of all ages is to “let go” (see: wu wei) and witness the universe including us with uncluttered heart, mind and clarified senses. The concluding verses of this Gospel end with a call to awakening not from the lips of Angels, but from the worldly form of “wild geese.”
How fortunate we are to live in the presence of “wild geese,” whose seasonal rhythms of flying north and south have not yet been disrupted by our folly.
Whoever you are,
no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
The Gospel, the “good news” that both poets read in the flight of wild geese leads to a fundamental awakening:
a radical turning (metanoia) in our hearts, minds and senses
a new understanding of who we are and where we belong.
We are not alone, even when we feel lonely.
If we can lose the habits of self-absorbtion carelessness, it we can learn to quiet heart, mind and senses. If we can become better neighbors to other forms of life, the universe will indeed call to us, and will welcome us back into the family of embodied life which our bodies never leave, but which our minds sometimes obscure with too many big ideas, ambitious plans and dreams of a perfect paradise somewhere else.
We belong here!
for we are Nature watching Nature we come from Earth, Sea and Stars and when we recognize that fact our longing is fulfilled in this world, here and now, where every breath can become a blessing.
Mary Oliver calls the larger network “the family of things” which reminds me of a Lakota word which is often heard in Indian country, which by the way, is our whole country.
Me tok We-essan
All our relations! All who live are related!
Whenever we take our seat in the “family of things” let us say
“Yes!” or “Amen!”
“Blessed Be” or Me tok We-essan!