While
on retreat at the monastery this past weekend, I worked with trying to
reconcile the two sides of my being: the "Nature-Lover" aspect, and the
"Christian" aspect. Both are elicited by the monastery setting. On the
one hand, there is the Nature-Lover aspect, embodied in my love affair
with the landscape, which includes the 3800 acres of mountain land that
are populated by a large herd of elk,
black bears, coyotes, ground squirrels, red-tailed hawks, etc. On the
other hand, the monastery itself, together with the liturgy that is
practiced in the church - beginning with Vigils at 4:30 A.M. and ending
with Vespers at 7:30 P.M. - embodies part of the Christian aspect of my
being.
According to the usual Western logic, these two aspects - Nature Lover and Christian - are opposites and both cannot be ultimate. Is Christ an aspect of Nature, or is Nature an aspect of Christ? These seem to be contrasting viewpoints. However, I find that a sort of “crazy wisdom” or Eastern perspective on the Christ-landscape interaction enables me to see that each opposite actually implies and flows into the other.
We might recall that in Zen Buddhism the Heart Sutra says: “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” Similarly, in my experience with Christ and the landscape, the two seemingly contrasting sides actually imply and flow into each other. Here, the warmth of Christ is simply an aspect I import into a seemingly non-Christian landscape on the one hand, and the landscape is the wilderness aspect of the already-present Body of Christ on the other.
In my experience, this kind of shapeshifting of opposites occurs in the following manner. First, when I’m coming from Nature-Lover mode, I enjoy having a relationship to Nature alone. Here, the presence of the Great Mystery, Mother Earth and the landscape spirits comes to the fore. However, I realize as well that Nature can sometimes feel harsh, as when a storm or forest fire brings immense destruction in its wake. During these times, I begin to hunger for the personal warmth that Christ uniquely brings to the cosmos and to the landscape in particular. This warmth includes a sense of forgiveness, an important quality in a natural world that can sometimes seem so unforgiving of our environmental mistakes. With this hunger, I begin to shift into Christian mode, viewing the landscape as simply the wilderness aspect of Christ’s Body.
However, this kind of Christ-centered view immediately begins to feel too limiting and too much focused on Jesus as a reality distinct from the landscape. The religiosity of the monastery liturgy adds to this feeling of claustraphobia. Thus, I am led in the next moment to long to see Jesus as simply a warmly Christic aspect - an adjective or adverb - of the landscape as the ultimate noun (or verb). Here, landscape is the primary reality and Christ is a particular way of experiencing or seeing it.
And so it goes, back and forth between opposites in never-ending succession. The more I dwell in the realization that landscape is the primary reality, the more I find myself eventually wanting to move to the being of Christ as its essence, especially when natural catastrophes arise. And the more I dwell in the realization that Christ is the primary reality, the more I begin to feel limited, which leads in turn to a desire to move back to the awareness that landscape is the foundation of everything. On and on it goes, in a fascinating shapeshifting of realities. Christ is an aspect of landscape, and landscape is an aspect of Christ. How amazing and paradoxical and surprising is our life in this world!
Photo: Aspen trees and the peaks above Castle Creek Road, near Ashcroft, CO; April 26, 2014
According to the usual Western logic, these two aspects - Nature Lover and Christian - are opposites and both cannot be ultimate. Is Christ an aspect of Nature, or is Nature an aspect of Christ? These seem to be contrasting viewpoints. However, I find that a sort of “crazy wisdom” or Eastern perspective on the Christ-landscape interaction enables me to see that each opposite actually implies and flows into the other.
We might recall that in Zen Buddhism the Heart Sutra says: “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” Similarly, in my experience with Christ and the landscape, the two seemingly contrasting sides actually imply and flow into each other. Here, the warmth of Christ is simply an aspect I import into a seemingly non-Christian landscape on the one hand, and the landscape is the wilderness aspect of the already-present Body of Christ on the other.
In my experience, this kind of shapeshifting of opposites occurs in the following manner. First, when I’m coming from Nature-Lover mode, I enjoy having a relationship to Nature alone. Here, the presence of the Great Mystery, Mother Earth and the landscape spirits comes to the fore. However, I realize as well that Nature can sometimes feel harsh, as when a storm or forest fire brings immense destruction in its wake. During these times, I begin to hunger for the personal warmth that Christ uniquely brings to the cosmos and to the landscape in particular. This warmth includes a sense of forgiveness, an important quality in a natural world that can sometimes seem so unforgiving of our environmental mistakes. With this hunger, I begin to shift into Christian mode, viewing the landscape as simply the wilderness aspect of Christ’s Body.
However, this kind of Christ-centered view immediately begins to feel too limiting and too much focused on Jesus as a reality distinct from the landscape. The religiosity of the monastery liturgy adds to this feeling of claustraphobia. Thus, I am led in the next moment to long to see Jesus as simply a warmly Christic aspect - an adjective or adverb - of the landscape as the ultimate noun (or verb). Here, landscape is the primary reality and Christ is a particular way of experiencing or seeing it.
And so it goes, back and forth between opposites in never-ending succession. The more I dwell in the realization that landscape is the primary reality, the more I find myself eventually wanting to move to the being of Christ as its essence, especially when natural catastrophes arise. And the more I dwell in the realization that Christ is the primary reality, the more I begin to feel limited, which leads in turn to a desire to move back to the awareness that landscape is the foundation of everything. On and on it goes, in a fascinating shapeshifting of realities. Christ is an aspect of landscape, and landscape is an aspect of Christ. How amazing and paradoxical and surprising is our life in this world!
Photo: Aspen trees and the peaks above Castle Creek Road, near Ashcroft, CO; April 26, 2014
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