The Role of Rememberance

During a Saturday morning hike on the prairie with a dear friend (my friend with amazing hair--jools, you know who I'm talking about! Of course you do...you are making me write this! Oh...this is a bizarre aside that is very distracting to the deep thoughts from me...but it does need to be about you, right???) Back to the prairie...I actually said something to this good-haired friend that made me stop and take note in my heart. The meaning of my thoughts, turned into words, turned right around and landed full circle back on my heart with an "AHA!" It never sounds as good as it did in the moment, but here goes...

I was trying to explain some random, but meaningful, tidbits of information I had learned on the last hike I took on this prairie about a month ago. That trek was with my seminary class and we were led by one of our classmates who is a docent. We would stop every so often and he would share details about the things we could see around us....the large tree that had survived many decades of prairie fires, the types of grasses, the story of the river and stream left in the dried up places along the banks...

The part I tried to explain to my good-hair friend on this most recent hike was about the limestone "bluffs" that seem to project out of the rolling hills. Given that this prairie once was under water (An ocean? I mean that is how limestone is formed, right?) these plateaus/bluffs of limestone were actually the result of the carving out of ocean "shelves" millions of years ago. If one is able to take her ground's eye view and swing a 360....you notice that these shelves actually exist at various levels, and each level has other bluffs, perhaps even miles away that match the same elevation...because they are actually the same limestone shelf! It causes me to do a "zoom out--wide angle" view of my world...well at least my prairie. How amazing that view is!!! So connected! I don't know how to put words to this, but that experience of seeing the "big picture" of the prairie and its land forms gives me shivers of awe.

So I continued to recollect to my good-hair friend on Saturday, as we meandered through the last leg of our hike, that I had been out in another location of our city a few weeks ago. Again, I was on a seminary class trip--a silent retreat--lounging on the prairie again. It wasn't this section of prairie, rather it was probably 10-15 miles NW of this location. Lounging in the NW section of our prairie, I was on my stomach looking at the small limestone rocks jutting out of the ground. I noticed that one of the rocks was cracked...about to split in two. Because of my curiosity, and because I had time to do introspective things like this on the retreat, I broke the rock in two only to discover something beautiful! There was a seashell fossil as clear as could be! The "big-picture" limestone underwater shelf comment and this "up-close and personal" experience with an individual rock created a very poignant moment for me. Quite a juxtapositioning of myself, face-to-face with my place in the big picture of things. At that moment of discovery (the fossil discovery), I marvelled thinking about how I was the first person to ever see this sight. No one had "planted" the fossil there...no one had ever seen it since it began its fossilization. It was a "first in history" moment. In that very moment of awe, I had a word whispered to me from the Spirit. He said, "Just like this fossil is etched into stone over the course of millions of years, I have etched my mark on your heart."

Let that settle in. I was grateful for fossils, the prairie, limestone, seashells, and the whispers of the Spririt.

Well, as I am explaining this to my good-hair friend (Yeah, jools, I am trying to keep your name current in this rendition!) we begin touching on the topic of evolution, greenpeace, tree hugging, etc. I shared that my belief embraces both evolution (organisms changing--usually for the better--in order to survive) and devolution. In regard to the creation as a whole, I believe it is in a state of devolution--slowly decaying and drifting father from its intended use/expression. For instance, we just happened to be walking and talking on the trails through some of the last natural prairie ecosystem in the world. Why is it gone? Shouldn't it still be here? Isn't the fact that we have to intentionally save it a sign that something has gone wrong, really wrong? So what is to be done? Should I become a tree hugger? Work for Green Peace? This tension finally settled into this line of thought...I should do only what I feel is necessary to maintain rememberance. I believe the prairie preservation we were walking on has a very specific function. It is there to remind us of what the world/creation once was. It is there to remind us that everything is decaying. It is there to remind us of our desperate need for restoration to flood over the layers of our very soul. In the rushing waters of restoration I hear the whisper..."You are marked for discovery. You are marked for rememberance. You are marked."