105: Step Outside
I’m not sure how it is where you live, but here in Tallahassee, FL, the weather has been absolutely delightful…at least in recent days. Mornings in the 50s, highs in the mid 70s, maybe low 80s. Clear, crisp blue skies. And lots and lots of sunshine, with light that holds a subtle new slant, glittering, dancing through the trees. I cannot get enough, it seems.
As I imagine northerners are preparing for a season of hibernation and soaking up as much outside time as they can, most southerners are just now beginning to reemerge. After an unbearably hot summer that kept many clinging to indoor, air conditioned spaces, now, at least for me, I find myself spending as much time as I can outside. That’s one of the things I love about autumn—whether we’re heading in or heading out, this particular season seems to hold some space for all of us. And I’m learning that all of us need to step outside every now and then. Here’s what I mean.
In her book, Practice the Pause, spiritual director Caroline Oakes shares about a piece of advice she received from her doctor after giving birth to twins. She was about to head home from the hospital, to a house that would now hold three children under three. Anticipating the overwhelm she was likely to experience, Caroline’s doctor pulled her aside and said this: “You may have a few challenging nights and days and even months ahead…I have found it always helpful to remember [this]—when things get difficult, go out and be under the sky.”
While I don’t know the often burdensome joy of being a mother, I do know the power of being under the sky. Of taking that step outside and immersing myself in God’s creative handiwork. And recently I’ve been reminded of the significant shift my soul experiences there. In those moments, a sort of subtle transformation takes place.
More often than not, when I step outside, anxious thoughts are met by calm reassurances. A drained spirit is strengthened, lifted, and refreshed. Fear moves toward trust. Despair turns toward hope. And I’m reminded of my deepest belonging.
Now, we know science and psychology both support this experience; studies show the positive impact being in nature can have on our health and well-being. Time in the natural world lowers blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension and stress hormones; it strengthens immune systems, aids in physical healing, and increases positive thoughts, feelings, and connections. The research is pretty clear here.
But I also wonder what this means for us as people of faith. Maybe the research is also revealing something we’ve known to be true in the deepest parts of ourselves. That the natural world is not just the natural world, but God’s good creation. Filled with reminders, nudges, glimmers, glimpses of who God is and who we are as a part of it all.
I can’t help but notice that there seems to be a spiritual conversation happening when we spend time outside. And this conversation is not new by any means. All throughout scripture, we see God’s people connecting with God in the natural world. Mountains and valleys, wind and rain, birds and flowers, fire and clouds, waves and trees, sun and stars—they all had something to offer, something to say, and I can’t help but believe that God still speaks to us through those same means today.
As Caroline Oakes writes,
“…[the] conversation with nature is embedded in the Hebrew language…the Hebrew word midbar, usually translated as ‘wilderness,’ is rooted in the verb dabar, which means ‘speaking.’ Ba-midvar, translated in most cases as ‘the wilderness,’ also means ‘the organ which speaks.’”
Oakes continues,
“Think of the wilderness in which the Jews wandered after being led out of Egypt; think of the wilderness into which the Spirit led Jesus, where ‘the angels ministered to him.’ Understanding the wilderness…to be a place that speaks, through the wind, the rain, the birds, and the animals ‘transforms it from a harsh place of difficulty to a tender place of intimacy.’ Even in our modern time, many of us can recall when we ourselves have experienced a kind of conversation in the wild that somehow includes a deeper silence that invites to pause and ‘listen to the voice of the sacred’…”
As Caroline shares, something noteworthy happens in the intimacy of the literal wilderness. Actually stepping outside—whether for a few moments, an afternoon, or a whole weekend—can help us reorient ourselves as we seek to tune into that sacred voice, the voice that tells us the truth, the voice we often so desperately need to hear.
In a recent episode of the Life With God podcast, I listened as author Mark Buchanan shared about the spiritual practice of immersing ourselves in nature—how that practice “right-sizes” us. Now, I don’t know that Mark is the first person to note this or use that particular term, “right-size,” but I certainly resonate with it.
It is true that when I’m peering out at a mountain-scape, sitting by the water’s edge, standing under a sky full of stars, watching the sun set or rise, or experiencing a literal storm passing through, I am certainly “right-sized.” I’m reminded of my smallness, my limits, my being in the grand scheme of things. In those experiences, I’m invited into wonder and awe and humility and I need that invitation more often than I realize.
But just as nature helps to “right-size” us, I also wonder if maybe it “right-places” us, too. Because when I watch as the wind moves through the trees, when I hear the birds singing their songs, when I close my eyes and feel the warmth of the sun on my cheek, or I sit on my porch and smell the rain closing in, I remember my place. My belonging to the beauty. My call to care for it. And my connection to the Creator of it all. In those moments, I am invited to breathe deeply, and find myself grounded in goodness.
As Mary Oliver writes in her poem, When I Am Among the Trees:
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
So today, with whatever today might hold, remember to step outside.To be right-sized and right-placed. May we choose to immerse ourselves in God’s good creation—even if just for a moment—trusting that, among the trees, the birds, the fields, the mountains, the flowers, the waves, the sky, God is speaking and needed reminders abound.