Movement & Stillness: Knowing When to Fly

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about movement and stillness. There is a point in St. Josemaría’s The Way that frequently comes to mind. In this point he says:

Rush, rush, rush! Hustle and bustle! Feverish activity! The mad urge to dash about. Amazing material structures…

On the spiritual level…shams, illusions: flimsy back-drops, cheesecloth scenery, painted cardboard…Hustle and bustle! And a lot of people running hither and thither.

Is it because they work thinking only of “today”; their vision is limited to “the present” what has passed and what has yet to come.

Calmness. Peace. Intense life within you. Without that wild hurry. Without that mad urge for change. From your own place in in life, like a powerful generator of spiritual energy, you will give light and vigor to ever so many without loosing your own vitality and your own light.

- St. Josemaría Escriva, The Way #837

Yesterday, I toured Prince William Sound and marveled at land carved by glaciers. The glaciers are formed as snow continuously accumulates on the high elevations in the Alaskan mountains. The steady snowfall compacts forming ice that slowly moves shaping the land, feeding lakes and rivers. While most glaciers have been retreating since the last ice age, there area few glaciers actively advancing. Yesterday we visited one of these glaciers and witnessed a calving.

Calvings are dramatic displays of a subtle change that is constantly occurring within the glacier as it shapes the environment around it. The occurrence was a stark reminder that this seemingly stagnant slice of land is growing within nurtured by a slow and unwavering snowfall.

After the glacier tour we wove our way to small oasis near the harbor in Whittier. Here a fluid stream of crystal clear water nourishes the kittiwake birds. These birds added a layer of vivacious movement to an otherwise quiescent scene as their figures provided playful movement to the rock side. Occasionally, the entire flock would crescendo into harmonious dance.

After drinking in this movement for some time, I spotted a set of eagles perched on the rocks above. The stillness of their form contrasted greatly against the delicate and turbulent movement of the kittiwakes.

We all watched hoping one would soon take flight. After some time, our patience was rewarded as one of the eagles swept into the air to fly alongside the small birds dancing about. While I had my lens steadied on that magnificent bird, in that instant I was abruptly rocked by the movement of the boat. I was disheartened thinking I had lost the shot I had been preparing. And yet, when I examined the image closer I decided not all was lost. The moment I captured contained the genuine blurriness of movement. It is hard to see clearly while moving.

St. Josemaría constantly calls Christians to seek holiness within the circumstances Providence has placed them. He recognized that just as Christ called people from all walks of life to follow him, individuals are called to the heights of holiness within every situation. He teaches that each person’s activities fed by prayer and done well can revitalize any environment. Sometimes my work feels like the slow accumulation of snowfall, other times it has the energizing flitting of an aerial dance. I do not always have the perspective see beauty in this dance. Yet, there in the still moments of prayer, I see Christ correcting and redirection. It is in those moments I can see clear enough to trust that grace will see me through the obscurity of my next flurry of movement. Lord, grant me the grace to fly within the peace of your presence.

Little Steps of Love

From some vantage points the world looks overwhelmingly chaotic. There is so much beyond our control. There are so many unknowns. There are moments when the largeness of this reality feels oppressively vast.

A small cluster of trees on the Flat Top trail.

Recently, while hiking a new trail on a now familiar mountain my son had an unexpected moment of panic. He looked over the edge across the unending expanse, and even though he had hiked much steeper trails, he was suddenly overcome with fear and brought to his knees. In an effort to calm him I drew his attention to the tiny ants crawling around us. He has always loved watching tiny things scramble about. We watched an ant traverse small rock and talked about how big the rock must seem to the ant. Soon he was able to focus on the trail again and forgot all about the immensity of the world within view.

A serene stop early on the Flat Top trail.

After our hike, we spent time admiring a smaller world within our own little patch of earth. We have a little forest by our house that supports so much interesting vegetation and life. We found a little wolf spider working his way across a patch of moss. We talked about how these tiny creatures help things grow around them simply by doing what they were created to do.

An Alaskan wolf spider found in our yard.

Humans were created to love. Things do not go well in the world when we do not do that well. In The Way, St. Josemaría says,

“Do everything for love. In that way there will be no little things: everything will be big. Perseverance in the little things for love is heroism.” (813)

Yes, the world can be chaotic and cruel. If we stare too long into this reality it will bring us to our knees. Perhaps this is well, for from this stance we can look upward towards our creator, ask pardon for our own sins and help to do better. Then, with eyes focused on the next step forward we can take that step in love knowing that doing what were created to do will make the world a little better.

The Call of Fear

It is a delightful truth that in Alaska, at any moment, one might have their ordinary activity interrupted by a magnificent but deadly beast. Moose dart across our yard quite frequently. The spring is full of bear sightings. There is a porcupine that wanders out of the woods on occasion.

I encountered this bear safely at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

Our neighborhood porcupine.

Sometimes, as I walk to my car I think, “I could be trampled by a moose right now.” These thoughts do not keep me from going to my car or from enjoying a coffee on the front porch while my son frolics in the yard with his dog. We stay alert and move inside if see an animal. When we hike, we make noise and stick to the trails. On Mother’s Day, I was gifted with a bear gun to provide further protection for my frequent hikes. I took time to learn how to safely shoot and carry my new tool of defense. I am aware that the there are real threats lurking in the beautiful Alaskan wilderness. I have a great instinctual desire to protect my son, but I do not want him to be afraid of the world or to miss out on the adventures waiting beyond our doorstep.

Our neighborhood moose photographed from the safety of my deck.

The Alaskan wilderness presents grandiose examples of natures power and magnificence. One cannot look at the mountains or into the depths of the forest without being reminded of one’s frailty or mortality. The landscape draws a person out of their self and demands response. For this reason, Alaska continuously inspires writers and draws forth adventurers. Each choosing to respond in their own way. Reminders of mortality provoke differing expressions in different individuals. Or perhaps it is more true to say, it provokes differing responses in each individual at different times. It acts as a call to withdrawal; a call to fight; a call to protect; a call to indulge; a call to amend; a call to evasion; a call to discernment; a call to pray. In one of his poems St. John Paul II said “death is contradiction.” How will this contradiction move me today?

“Fear Which Is at the Beginning

Oh, how you are bound, place of my passage,
with the place of my birth.
God’s design rests on the face of passerby,
its depth following the course of ordinary days.

Sliding into death I unveil the awaiting, my eyes
fixed on one place, one resurrection.
Yet I close the lid of my body, and the certainty
of its decay I entrust to the earth.
You rise above it slowly, and level Your design
with the surface of each day,
and with the shadows of passersby in afternoon streets,
in the streets of our town at dusk.
You God, you alone
can retrieve our bodies from earth.

This is the last word of faith going
to meet the necessity of passing,
the word that answers the record
not contradictory to being (death is a contradiction),
the word most held in suspicion, uttered
despite everyday deaths,

despite this planet’s history, which became
our place of passage, the place of death,
generation after generation

Allow the mystery to work in me,
teach me to act within my body
suffused with weakness like a herald prophesying death,
like a cock crowing-
Allow the mystery to work in me, teach me to act in my soul
which intercepts my body-
the soul still has its fear for maturity, for acts-
shadows the human spirit carries forever-
and the depth in which it was submerged;
finally of the divine, that fear
which is not against hope.
”

— St. John Paul II

Works Cited

John Paul II, “Fear Which Is at the Beginning".” The Place Within. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz,
Random House, 1979, pp. 149-60.