Nature's Skyscrapers

Let me preface this post by saying: I absolutely love being a therapist. There are a lot of ways in which I’m not sure the direction my life will take, but my identity as a couple and family therapist is a certainty. I feel incredibly blessed to accompany people in places of pain and fear, and it has been the most beautiful gift to see people experience healing and find hope amidst the darkness. By jumping headfirst into the realm of human experience, I have grown more in two years of doing therapy than I could have ever imagined was possible. That being said, this past week has been hard. I’ve held people’s pain, and my heart has hurt with theirs. I wouldn’t change this part of my job even if I could, but after this long, beautiful, challenging week, I needed to fill my soul back up. Sometimes I turn to cupcakes (can you say…self-care dinner?), but usually I turn to nature for healing grace.

So yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon hiking around Caprock Canyon. It was healing and soothing and invigorating in all the ways I needed it to be. More than that, I found myself reflecting on why I feel such a connection with nature. For that, I have my family to sincerely thank. Some of my earliest memories include hiking with my family in Colorado, and I remember being fascinated as a child by fuzzy caterpillars, flower petals, puddles of water, and blades of grass. As I grew older, my mom encouraged me to stay grounded in appreciation for the earth we are called to embrace. Nature is my refuge when I am feeling weak, when I am lost, when I am broken.  

 

 

Walking through the canyon yesterday, I was thinking about how I am much more impressed with natural occurrences than I am with man-made feats like skyscrapers or amusement parks. Why? The way I see it, what man builds can be easily torn down by earthquakes or terrorist attacks or fires or any number of destructive forces. What God builds in nature can also be damaged. Sometimes this involves natural processes like erosion; sometimes it involves careless human error leading to wildfires or overconsumption resulting from greed or lack of planning. Seeing all the ways in which erosion had helped develop these canyons really made me stop and think. Now, this won’t be a brilliant, scientifically accurate description of erosion, but hear me out. With wind and rain and all sorts of weather over a huge expanse of time, erosion had torn down these rocks and scarred them. But it’s almost like I could see how God’s hand had carved out these beautiful parts of the earth that didn’t exist before and weren’t visible under the original surface. There’s beauty in the breakdown. And at the bottom of the riverbed, these rocks had swept across and grated against each other, creating this beautiful mixture of browns and blues and whites. Friction can create something mysteriously lovely. I can appreciate that in the human spirit, both for my clients and for myself.  

 

 

What about 50 years from now? If I return to this same spot, will it look the same? All the crevices and jagged edges I have touched today, what stories would they have to tell in half a century? Would I recognize these same spaces, or would they have changed beyond recognition? It makes me think about the ways in which I have changed as a result of my life experiences. There are parts of me now that I’m not sure I would have recognized in myself ten years ago – some parts are improvements, I think, and some are surely works in progress. I suppose we’re all parts of God’s creation, constantly changing as a result of forces beneath the surface.

Lessons from the Desert

Surprise, surprise. Even though I gave up blogging nearly two years ago, I should have known that something would draw me back. Writing has always been a constant in my life, but reflective writing is something I all too often find excuses not to make time for. Don't be fooled. I'm under no illusion this blogging will follow a regular pattern, but I do hope to make more time for it. I've decided to give myself the gift of a summer filled with healing and learning to more fully love myself and this beautiful earth filled with beautiful people. Writing seems to be a most excellent companion for that kind of journey.

I've spent the past 8 months living in the desert. Literally. For those of y'all who don't know, west Texas is a desert. When I decided to pursue my PhD, I made a commitment to staying in Texas because I wanted to stay in the same state as my family, but man...sometimes it feels like I'm more than just a few highways away from the north Texas life I used to know with plenty of rain, humidity, traffic, and skyscrapers. Life loves to throw us curve balls, and expectations have a way of getting in the way of reality. I have to smile when I think of how many times I have probably made God shake his head and laugh a big belly laugh during this past year. Ask anyone who knows me well...I am stubborn. I like to have a game plan, and I like to think that planning ahead can resolve most problems. This year brought me a lot of experiences I couldn't have planned on happening, but in the end, they have made me more fully human, more humble, more alive, and more trusting of God's plan for me.

So let's talk about this desert business. I have spent the past few months whining about how much I miss thunderstorms and that there's a disappointingly tiny amount of greenery and wildflowers. While I was on a rocky hike today around the Lubbock Lake Landmark, it hit me. Bam. I've always had an appreciation for dessert, but I'm humbly learning to appreciate the desert (see what I did there?). It took me 8 months, but I've finally learned to see the humble beauty in west Texas. You see, the desert isn't pretentious. The desert doesn't put on airs, trying to be beautiful, sandy beaches or whispy clouds crowning mountain peaks. The desert is what she is, and if you look hard enough, you find reminders of how God has created beauty in the most unexpected of places. There are jackrabbits with their powerful hind legs and graceful leaps, patches of wildflowers hiding amidst the cracked earth and yellowing grass, and yellow bellied birds with sweet songs to sing. Sunset is the time when the west Texas desert reveals all her true beauty in a way that's impossible to ignore, but the rest of the time, you have to be patiently mindful. If you aren't mindful, your eye will glance over the brown and yellow landscape and your nose will wrinkle with disdain. Be patient, and you'll realize that life is happening out there. Even tumble weeds can be kind of exciting because it means that the wind currents are blowing, which always reminds me that the Holy Spirit is at work in ways we can't see.

This got me thinking about how, in many ways, the start to 2014 felt a lot like a desert to me. At times, it was really hard to see how God was working in my life, and I sometimes felt like I was wandering around without much of a game plan. I've had a lot of humble reminders that it's not my plan that matters as much as His plan and how I put it into action. After 8 months in the Lubbock wilderness (that might be a big exaggeration, but we'll go with it), I feel connected to the desert in a way that inspires me to look beyond the grandiose ways that the earth is beautiful or that I can see how God is at work. Instead, my friends, I am striving for a heart that sees beyond the obvious to see the beautiful in the broken, the doubting, and the works in progress.