The teaching #4: Immerse yourself in nature and pay attention

 

The practice: Take time in nature, pay attention, and listen

 

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? See how the flowers of the field grow.” Jesus of Nazareth

Immersing ourselves in nature is a spiritual discipline that Jesus tells us to do and modern science confirms. Jesus gives us the secret to reducing stress and anxiety; consider creation, the fields, the tress and the birds that live there. I discovered that installing a humming bird feeder outside the window next to my desk helps me relax. Maybe we should be less concerned about style religious rituals and create fresh organic ones that are happening all around us.

“Jesus’ spirituality was immersed in the natural world: Jesus says matter and spirit, divine and human are not enemies, but in fact are two sides of the same coin. They reveal one another and are finally one! Once you grant subjectivity to the natural world, everything changes. Things out there are no longer mere objects with you as the controlling subject, but you now share mutuality with all things.” Richard Rohr

Jesus goes on in this same passage the most westerners have herd “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Jesus I so enjoy how he says, “Tomorrow will worry about itself!” Jesus is not advocating not planning, he is advocating time in nature and pursing plans that have eternal impact. Saying, “Don’t worry,” only makes worry worse, but giving a practice that reduces worry, is of great value. Jesus gives us both. I know that Bob Marley read the words of Jesus often, and I like how he sings about his organic spiritual discipline that Jesus taught, “Rose up this morning, smiled at he rising sun, three little birds where by my door step, singing sweet songs, a melody pure and whole.” The message nature then replies back to all of us is, “That every little thing is gonna be alright.” Yes you child may die of cancer, yes war will go one, yes natural disasters will strike and pain is apart of life, but the grace of the humming bird is also present, the beat of her wings and the beat of your heart, and the breath in your lungs today rises and falls like the sun. Jesus invites us not into tomorrow’s ills, but into the present grace that is always with us and nature whispers our creator’s secrets if we have an ear to hear.