God’s Wilds

I recently read an article by Gretchen Reynolds on one of the New York Times’ blogs entitled “How Walking in Nature Changes the Brain.” I’d encourage you to pause here and go read it. I’ll wait.

It’s good, huh? But while I can’t really say I’ve ever wondered how, specifically, walking in nature changes the brain (and really can’t say that I totally understand it even after reading the article), I’ve always known that walking in nature changes my brain. And I’m not alone.

John Muir, one of nature’s greatest champions, said this way back in 1901:

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail.” (John Muir, Our National Parks)

Later in his life, Muir said this:

“In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.” (quoted in Linnie Marsh Wolf, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938)

I think Muir and I would’ve been friends.

So let’s talk about the article a bit, because I found a few things pretty interesting. Gregory Bratman, the researcher in the NY Times post, decided to focus his research on the effect of nature on a person’s tendency to “brood.” Brooding, also referred to in the article as “morbid rumination,” is “a mental state familiar to most of us, in which we can’t seem to stop chewing over the ways in which things are wrong with ourselves and our lives.” Or with the rest of the world.

Hi. I’m Ron. And I’m a brooder.

The fact is that nature has always had a profound recalibrating effect on me. And while I think everyone can benefit from time spent in nature, I’m convinced that I need it more than most people. Then again, maybe it’s just that I’m more aware of my need of it than most people.

The article ends with an assertion that many questions remain, “including how much time in nature is sufficient or ideal for our mental health, as well as what aspects of the natural world are most soothing. Is it the greenery, quiet, sunniness, loamy smells, all of those, or something else that lifts our moods? Do we need to be walking or otherwise physically active outside to gain the fullest psychological benefits? Should we be alone or could companionship amplify mood enhancements?”

I have some thoughts about most of those questions, at least based on my own experience. And although decidedly unscientific (and because I’m often wrong, but never in doubt), I’ll assert them as fact. 😉

So let’s take them one by one, shall we?

How much time in nature is sufficient or ideal for our mental health? I think there are two elements here. The first is frequency: How often do you need to spend time in nature? And the second is duration: How much time do you need when you get there. I’m tempted to just say “As much as you can possibly steal from other activities and obligations.” More (and more often) is always better, at least for me. John Muir thought that too:

“Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God’s wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If you are business-tangled, and so burdened by duty that only weeks can be got out of the heavy-laden year … give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it . . . .” (John Muir, Our National Parks)

I like the way Muir thinks! I recognize, though, that his advice will be regarded, for  many, as practically impossible, given the constraints of modern society (or rather, the constraints we’ve placed upon ourselves in modern society, but that’s another post). I think it’s telling, though, that in the study they imposed a 90 minute walk. I think 90 minutes is great, especially if I could have that every day. If I can’t have it every day, I want more when I can have it. But trading frequency for duration has a point of diminishing returns, I think. If I could have an hour a day with 2-4 hours on the weekend, I’d feel pretty good. If I could bump that up to 90 minutes a day, I’d feel like I was in heaven. But I don’t think 15 minutes is nearly enough.

What aspects of the natural world are most soothing? Is it the greenery, quiet, sunniness, loamy smells, all of those, or something else that lifts our moods? For me, it’s the quiet, mostly, and the peace. And as long as we’re parsing this all out, quiet means the absence of human sounds and peace means the almost certainty that I will not encounter anyone else whilst I’m there. Nature is my sanctuary, and for me to derive the most benefit from it, I usually need to be alone. Which is not to say that I don’t relish a good walk in the woods with my son or brother (or both). But I can count on one hand the specific people who I could be with in nature and not feel like it was disturbing the mood. So generally, I want to be alone. Beyond that, the sights and sounds definitely play a part.

Do we need to be walking or otherwise physically active outside to gain the fullest psychological benefits? I’m not sure that matters much to me. Usually I do some of both. I’ll walk quite a bit because I enjoy walking and because I like seeing new things. But if I come to someplace really special, or if I get tired, I’ll stop and sit and enjoy the view. I will say that nature is much different when you’re quiet and still and allow yourself to fade into the background and become part of it, and you shouldn’t rob yourself of that experience by constantly being on the move. Nature is something you experience, not something you get through.

Should we be alone or could companionship amplify mood enhancements? Again, I generally prefer to be alone. When I’m not alone, there are only a small handful of people I’m willing to share my time in nature with. Generally, that’s my son and/or my brother. I hesitate to say this because it has the potential to sound like I don’t like people, which would not be true. But people complicate things. And frankly, I’m around people a lot. That said, I’m an introvert. I love people, but people drain me. A friend of my wife’s (an extrovert) was talking one time about her ideal day and she talked about how wonderful it would be to have lunch with 200 of her closest friends. Just thinking about that made me tired. In nature, I’m seeking something I can’t get when I’m around people. So for me, the two are a little bit mutually exclusive.

So there’s my take on the questions raised by the article.

Regardless of whether my answers to those questions are right or wrong, it’s so true that nature has a recalibrating effect on us. For a people who are inundated – by circumstance and by choice – with noise and bustle and chaos every waking minute of a day filled with too many waking minutes, nature is a gift of God, offering a respite and reprieve from the madness and a chance to get to know yourself again. And more importantly, a chance to get to know the God who created it and you. Nature is his gift to us, I’m convinced. Take advantage of it. Enjoy it.

Post-Holiday Pruning

For the past few years, I’ve taken a voluntary break from social media over the Christmas holidays as a way to reflect, recharge, and refocus. I’ve found it to be a very beneficial practice. So much so that this year I decided to raise the bar a bit.

First, I started at Thanksgiving this year. From Thanksgiving through yesterday morning, I have enjoyed a self-imposed exile from Facebook (the only social media I have left). Furthermore, I refused to check email from the start of my Christmas break (the 17^th) until New Years. And I greatly limited my internet use (mostly to checking on Steelers scores, tracking Christmas packages, and IMDB, which, let’s face it, has become an essential companion to movie-watching).

Today I’m back, and frankly, I don’t like it. At all. I’ve been on Facebook a half-dozen times since yesterday, for only a few minutes at a time, which is all I can stand before I have to shut it down and retreat to the peace and quiet.

Here’s the thing – for the past three weeks, I haven’t thought much about politics, and somehow I’ve been okay. Surprisingly, I’ve not suffered the shakes without my hourly infusion of memes. And miraculously, it’s actually been okay not knowing what all of my friends are doing on a minute-by-minute basis.

My son and I took a hike last week with my brother while we were at his place in northern Virginia, and actually ended up someplace out of cell service. When I realized it, the first impulse I felt – no kidding – was exhilaration. For about an hour, I was totally unreachable by anyone. The rest of the world would have to manage without me for a while. And it felt great! I was reminded of Ye Olden Dayes when folks had to rely on handwritten letters delivered by postmen. It might be months before you heard from a long-distance relative. And somehow we all managed. Now we think we all need to be reachable every minute of every day . . . by EVERYONE. Surely most of us aren’t THAT important.

Over the past three weeks, I checked out. And it’s been great! I’ve had the time and brainspace to focus on the people and things in my immediate proximity without being distracted by what’s going on around the country or on the other side of the world. And I’ve learned that my life is much simpler (and way more sane) without geopolitics and the daily dose of complaints, criticism, and OPT (Other People’s Tragedies) served up to me by the media and some of my hand-wringing acquaintances.

I’ve been more contemplative, more creative, and more peaceful. I’ve had time to address some of the bigger issues of life that I’ve been neglecting (because I’ve been reading the latest political rant or sharing the next in an endless parade of memes). Things like my family. My future. And my faith. I’m fifty years old now. Half my life (or more) is in the past. What do I want the remainder of my life to look like? These are important things, surely more important than the noise.

Away from the noise, I’ve become more purposeful. And one of the things I’ve purposed is to not go back.

So here I sit trying to decide what to do now. How do I proceed? Do I cancel my Facebook account altogether? Unsubscribe to all of the email lists that I subscribe to? Cut back on my commitments? Whatever I do, I’m fairly sure that I need to do some pruning of my life and the things I give my attention to.

I started to close this post with the words, “Stay tuned,” as I have in the past. But then I thought better of it. Because you’ve surely got better things to focus on than waiting breathlessly for another post from me. So I won’t say, “Stay tuned.” Instead, maybe this better fits the spirit of the post:

I’ll see you when I see you.

The Work of Ministry

I think some of the problem with understanding the “work” of ministry comes from our American mindset that says that when you have a job, you must produce; you must have something at the end of the day to show for your labors. Unfortunately, applying that mentality to ministry is almost surely going to result in problems, namely, the feeling that one must keep oneself “busy.”

But ministry is fundamentally about joining God in the ongoing work of transforming people. As it so happens, the transformation of people is a slow process; it is difficult to observe and even more difficult to measure. Therefore, by nature, what we as ministers “produce” for our labors is extraordinarily difficult to gauge. In my experience in ministry, I have found that if stay attuned to God’s will and open to His leading, He will see to it that I make “productive use of my time.”

In fact, much of my most significant ministry (measured by its effect on people) has occurred, not as a result of usual ministry activities like preaching, teaching, or visiting those in the hospital, but rather, in the context of merely living life (being involved in my son’s Cub Scout group, recreating with friends, watching a Steelers game with church members, or the random conversations that often happen with people at the post office, grocery store, or over the back fence with a neighbor).

This is, I believe, because God is the orchestrator, not me. And so as I live my life, God, in his time, tends to place in my path enough people with whom I can connect and bless and influence, to keep me occupied. Obviously I am not the one to reach everyone; some people will never feel a connection to me, nor I them. God realizes this and, to the extent that I remain open and attentive to his leading, makes my path cross with those people who he knows I can connect with.

As a case in point, several years ago, one of my friends called me on a Saturday (a day off for me) and asked me if I wanted to go river rafting. I said sure (naturally) had a blast, and had the most interesting spiritual conversation with one of the other guys who went with us (a non-Christian). So, the $24,000 question: Was this “work” or was this “play”? Was it ministry or recreation? Answer: Who cares? Ministry happens best in the context of life in relationship with God and with other people; it does not happen merely by putting in a certain number of hours in the office. It also does not happen merely because we’ve scheduled it or planned it.

And sure, there are classes and sermons to prepare, personal study to be done, and the occasional fire to put out, but I no longer try to stay “busy” eight hours a day. This may mean that my day off gets “interrupted” by a random contact with someone whom God has placed in my path, but it also means that my “work days” are not driven by time clocks or office hours or “production quotas.” I must leave room and flexibility in my daily schedule for God’s “interruptions.”

The goals and demands of ministry are just too different from those of ordinary jobs to be shackled by the drive to “produce” or by some misplaced sense of “time.” You simply cannot answer the question, “How much time did you spend in ministry today” with any kind of answer that fits the paradigm most people use to judge productivity. You simply cannot judge the effectiveness of ministry (or try to produce effective ministry) by focusing on productivity and numbers of hours. It can only be judged by how faithfully you’ve stewarded both your own unique, God-given gifts, and the people God has given you. Furthermore, this can only be evaluated by God, and only over time.

Shalom.