Cold and clear overnight, I had an unobstructed view of the southeastern horizon from the boat ramp at Governor Nelson State Park. It’s a view of the isthmus from four miles across. Familiar University buildings to the west. The capitol dome, lit all night, focal and glowing. But really, mostly clear distant sky and calm dark water.
I had just dropped him off at the airport and had the morning idle time to savor. Day after Thanksgiving. I had my coffee. My gloves. My watch. My cell phone camera.
Sunrise would occur about 6:50ish. I knew because I needed to check last week and we lose about a minute a day on each end. Two minutes of darkness per day falling through Advent week one. Precise tables at my fingertips. I hear the ducks now, geese and coots in silhouette.
We’ll see him again at Christmas. When the light begins returning.
Dawn begins with a faint glow, and then the clear-sky colors, and then a point of intense plasmatic yellow dancing in a corona, and then it grows quicky until you remind yourself that you really shouldn’t look it full in the face.
We’ve all seen it. Utterly unremarkable. Happens daily – literally. And yet, new each time. Worth standing here and waiting in the cold. Worth an Easter prayer.
Our earliest understanding is a phenology. Days and seasons, stars and tides. Winter birds and warblers passing through. Green vestments becoming blue becoming white. Planting and harvest. Christmas music piped in at the grocery store. Ecology tumbling with faith tumbling with culture. Reliable patterns like clockwork nested gears, changes and chaos layered over that, something immutable beneath it all.
And again its time to ask.
This thrifty little enterprise runs on the generosity of donors. A phenology of grace curated by writers and seers and guides (and a deer nerd they allow to run feral) who volunteer their time and apprehensions. It’s supported by a community of readers and commenters. We ask for just enough to float it for another cycle.
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3 Responses
So true! The RJ blog is one of those “internet corners” that keeps this branch of the church from becoming a cult. Thanks, everyone, for daring us to think.
Ja, a deer nerd gone feral. Our combination of Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold. But what we also appreciate in your writing is that you are a kind of Romantic. I mean in the CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien sense. You write with a sense of what Lewis calls “die Sehnsucht,” that is, longing and desire. It is the typical Michigander desire for “up North.” The woods past White Cloud. But it’s more than that, it’s deeper, it is a longing for the passing world, what Tolkien calls “the Long Defeat,” before the domination of “Man.” For Tolkien it is Elves and Ents. For you it is wildlife. Your “Sehnsucht” comes through in all your writing. It is easily a pagan thing, but for you (like Tolkien) it is also a Christian thing. Thank you for always sharing that with us. Even a new word for me today: “phenology.”
Phenology! A new word. And that paragraph is worth reading again.