“Bristlecone Pine, Green Sea Turtles, and the Big Blue Whale”
Suggested scripture reading: Luke 24:13-35
Luke tells the story of two folks walking on the afternoon of Jesus’ resurrection. and Jesus joins them, but they believe he is dead, and they don’t recognize him.
Their Beloved was sharing the road with them, but they couldn’t see.
The sacred was in their midst, and they didn’t recognize it.
We do the same.
If only we’d open our eyes,
we’d be awed at what was sharing the road with us.
Columbia gets 400 inches of rain per year. (My town in the Midwest gets about 35).
The giant panda is found only one place on earth: in the bamboo forests high in the
mountains of central China. Each panda needs 40 pounds of bamboo each day.
The giant squid has eyes the size of headlights.
The largest fish is the whale shark, which can be as big as 59’, almost the length of a
large semi trailer.
And the oldest tree in the world lives high in the White Mountains of California, a
bristlecone pine which is 4500-6000 years old, and still growing.
If we’d only open our eyes,
we’d be awed to see what was sharing the road with us.
The blue whale is the largest mammal that ever lived, bigger than the dinosaurs at
150,000 pounds and up to 98 feet.
A blue whale calf weighs more than 2 tons at birth, and gains about 200 pounds a day.
The red-tailed hawk can spot a field mouse from 100 feet in the air.
The golden eagle can dive at a speed of 200 mph.
The nest of the osprey can weigh 1/2 ton.
If we’d only open our eyes,
we’d be awed to see what was sharing the road with us.
We all know about global warming.
We worry about our planet.
We can all recycle,
and consume less,
and use less gas in our car and chemicals on our lawn.
Like you, I’m trying to do those things.
I’m trying to learn to reduce my carbon footprint.
I’m trying to learn to live more lightly on the Earth.
Those are good things.
But it is awakening a sense of the sacred in our midst that is the most important thing we
can do.
Try this.
When the local strawberries are ready in your part of the country,
get the most beautiful one you can find and take five minutes to eat it,
doing nothing else at the same time.
Green sea turtles, which weigh 200-300 pounds, feed on the coast of Brazil,
but they breed and lay eggs on Ascension Island,
which is halfway to Africa: 1400 miles.
Ascension Island is only 5 miles long,
so if the turtles are just 5 miles off course,
they will miss it.
But they don’t miss it.
Try this: when spring has come to your area,
grab a lawn chair and sit in front of a lilac bush
and watch it for 20 minutes.
Pretend you will never see lilacs again in your life,
and notice what you notice.
If you suspect that, like the rest of us, you take the sacred for granted,
well, there’s always this to help remind you:
if you want to know how sacred water is,
go without it for a couple days.
The biggest living thing on earth is the General Shermon Sequoia in California.
It is estimated at 4 and 1/2 million tons, 275 feet high (almost the length of a football
field.)
The lowest branch, which is higher than a 12 story building, is bigger than any tree east
of the Mississippi.
It might be helpful to notice how you respond to the sacred all around you.
I’m sorry that I don’t remember the source of this insight, which I found many years ago. It tells us that there are five responses one could make on seeing a flower.
Ah!
Oh…I want it; but I’ll let it be.
Oh…I want it; I’ll take it.
Oh…I want it; I can sell it.
So?
When you encounter that flower—the sacred—on the road, which response do you most
often make?
A single grass plant—winter rye—grows 3 miles of roots per day.
And in one cubic inch of ground,
that plant puts forth 6.000 miles of root hairs.
Locusts in flight can blacken the entire sky for 9 hours.
An elm tree in one season puts forth 6 million leaves.
It’s spring,
a perfect time to begin paying attention.
If we’d only open our eyes,
we’d be awed to see what was sharing the road with us.
©2008 Janice Jean Springer
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