The Saturday Stoke #38
Listen to The Saturday Stoke
Sitting with friends we heard them. Out there in the night, amid the terrible and beautiful sounds of a pounding summer storm cell passing through the piedmont.
“Storms are strange here,” my friend Jo lines to say. “It will flood in one area while another remains untouched.”
But not so on this night. I know as much because Jo had texted my wife and me about the storm and mentioned that her husband was driving in it. And there we sat, mid the flashing sky, dark, then lightning white, and thunder peeling off in the distance like a Titan shredding oak trees.
The wind pushed the treetops into a fury.
Clack, then clack-boom!
The woods felt alive out behind our house.
And as we talked quietly about the state of our union and the state of our souls, we heard it: Ow-ooooooo!
Over and over. One calling to another. One scout, followed by the pack, they carried on behind our house near the creek.
They chased their prey on the tumult of wind and crashing sky—ranging along the creek plain, and on the single track trail, I walk with the girls. For us, the trail represents a family hike in the dappled afternoon wood-shaded sunshine. For them, a heated chase for survival. A chase to kill and to eat.
They cried out as the thunder clapped, hollering like teenagers in a frenzy.
And then, they were gone. Shadows in the storm.
We all of us walk the storm-laden path. Some days it’s dappled with the sunlight of hope. The next, it’s overwhelmed with the darkness of a mid-summer storm.
And our natural inclination is to keep an eye out for dangerous beasts along the way. The bobcats and coyotes that linger along life’s path. We walk as aliens in a wood that is not our home.
But as true as that might be, for we are none of us wild animals, do we miss something of the soul of the woods when we view ourselves as visitors and not citizens of the wild-ness all around us?
“But Tim,” you say, “are you suggesting some modern form of paganism? I mean, aren’t we bombarded enough with gnostic ideas about the world and God and life.”
“Ah yes,” I reply, “I do beg you pardon, but this is not some strange progressive Christian pantheism I speak of. Think of it more like a listening heart for the soul of Creation. There, now. How does that sound?”
The storm-laden path we like to call life feels insecure when we walk in the fear of beasts.
But what if we adopted the heart of the creek-ranging coyotes? What if we roamed the dark woods of the stormy night unafraid of the cracking air and vein-streaked thunderheads above?
I am trying to teach my daughters the beauty of storms. The elegance of the wilds. The holiness of creation. I’m not teaching them naive disregard for danger. But a courage that produces a kind of fearlessness. I want them to walk unafraid in these lands, both wooded and of the soul. It’s a type of courage that when seen by outsiders looks like fearlessness. But in reality, it’s a quiet confidence—a knowledge and respect of the wood and storm and beasts.
Be strong and courageous, the saying goes. Given to us by God himself to his beloved Joshua. Joshua, who knew the God of the mountain because he was with Moses in the tent of meeting. And yet he still needed reminding by the God of the thunder mountain.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And I am beginning to understand. And that understanding, I hope to pass along to my girls.
This is the courage that looks like fearlessness. But in reality, it is a holy reverence for the Maker of the Wilds, the holder of the storms, the Creator of the path.
So let us walk in the storms. Let us walk along the fear-laden paths of the dark woods. And let us give it our best howl. For the coyotes are close. And they will show us the way.
Stay stoked my friends.
