This shady street has Amazon trucks chugging up and down, dropping tiny packages of single items at people’s homes. Including mine sometimes. For this and many other reasons, climate change has our Ponderosa Pines swaying in massive windstorms every few years rather than every century.

I was talking to a neighbor on Saturday, lingering while on a walk. We were talking about the trees. Having been worried that some of the pines in his front yard would snap in the wind rather than just sway during the next storm, he had invited an arborist to come assess the situation. Two blocks from where we stood talking, a woman was killed by a falling tree in one of these storms a few years ago, and of course we’ve had long power outages, damaged roofs, smashed cars. Insurance companies trying to pretend snapping ponderosas weren’t part of the deal.

The arborist told him something that I’ve been thinking about. He said the trees are fine. Resilient because they stand in a close group. They will sway together, taking the storm as it comes. Bending together, maybe lower than they have before, but not breaking. Defiant. Alive. And not alone.

I don’t have to write the rest. The metaphor of how we can learn from ponderosa relatives at this moment speaks for itself, and if someone reads this they can apply it to their own story. Maybe it will become a theme of the next chapter.

Hawaii has a unique culture shaped by many different forces, but as I’ve discovered over time, it’s still heavily influenced by Native Hawaiian culture—a culture I’ve come to deeply appreciate.

Something that struck me, but didn’t really surprise me, during Lenore’s session was how similar the cultural ethics are between mainland Native American communities and Native Hawaiians. For me, it was helpful to hear some familiar concepts and values expressed with slightly different language.

The everyday invitation that resonated with me most from our time with Lenore was to “be a good relative” to all of creation. That’s what I would call a “sticky” idea—one that I can easily get my head around, remember, and try to put into action. It reminds me that we are all interconnected and dependent—not just humans—and that inspires me to think and act differently.

What happens when you lose sight?

It gets dark real quick! 

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside in my backyard. My husband and I were in different places but on a conference call with our business manager. He was delivering bad financial news. My mind started racing. The tug of war began. The war between worry and centeredness, between resting in easeful, trusting belovedness and walking with anxiety over to shame. Shame was calling.

I noticed what was happening in my body. I noticed the stark contrast between feeling safely pampered in Paris just a few days ago on this gift of a trip from my mother. And the financial concerns I returned home to in real life. A primary concern being, how will this affect the kids? Then…

BAM! The sound of the bird’s body came crashing into the window near me like a torpedo. Swooshing down to follow was another bird. This one  just missed  the  window and landed on the first.  The sharp  reverberation snapped me out of my worry spiral.  I was suddenly mesmerized by the  cloud of feathers fluttering around the birds.

Then, stillness.

As my mind took in what had happened I stood up and saw, directly in my line of sight, standing Triumphant on the dove, a hawklike bird of prey. Staring back at me. And just like that, the hawk spread its wings and lifted off with the dove clenched in its talons. 

WOW. Ok what just happened? This is so bizarre and jarring. I left the conference call and walked over to the feathers on the ground and looked around. All was back to normal.

I looked over to the phone and immediately took in the placement of this shocking event. What does this mean? What a shocking display of animal spirit tearing into my experience and interrupting my Darth Vader meeting of darkness that was coming for my soul. Or at least my peace. What synchronicity this was. It felt like a sign. 

So, I looked it up. “What does it mean, spiritually, when you see a hawk take its prey?” Not in my topical  Bible index of course but in the slightly less holy writ of Google. And not to disappoint, one  tradition, with highly ranked first page search engine optimization on Google, believes what I saw,  “… represents abundance, and that you’ll always be able to care for yourself and your family.” 

Okaaaaaaayyyy. Maybe it IS a sign. And  you know what? At this crossroads of cynicism verses belovedness – I’ll take it. Today the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. Today I still have the power to choose Belovedness. Today God reached through the fabric of my normal and used nature to get my attention. “Hey, hey you. I’m still here. You’re still mine. All this is mine. Keep your eyes on me”.

Also, weirder things have happened. So why shouldn’t they happen to me?

But I also know that even without this bird-sign interruption, I would get to remembrance of resting eventually. Yet this sign helped me get there sooner as it felt personal, caring. And maybe there’s a reason for my needing to get there sooner. Maybe my steadiness is needed now. I determine to remember, “I have the power to set the tone. I can show my children we remain Beloved, come what may.”

So many times the pattern in my life has been God sending me signs – reminders of my belovedness. Reminders of whose I am and of what really matters. I choose to take in those synchronicities, signs and wonders. 

I am reminded that, be it little or big problems, short or prolonged, I do not suffer without hope. Hope of the Spirit’s presence with me here and now, within me, even going before me, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts”. What a gift! 

Now most of my life my guidance has been found primarily in Scripture or “special revelation”. But sometimes, general revelation speaks a word of truth. Today I am going to let nature, or “general revelation” speak to me. Reveal to me. Shake me out of my doubts and back into Beloved’s Presence. 

PS – Since our larger conversation is also about race and injustice, I want to include that when I hear white people say, “God always takes care of me” that it has given my body a reaction and I think “That might also be because you have historically had many safety nets available to you that minorities have not. So it’s easy for you to say that you magically always come out on top”. And I am aware of how it may sound naive when white people say “God always takes care of me materially”. So I write about my hope and trust while also acknowledging how white people have designed a whole system of safety nets to keep us materially and financially stable more easily. And that feels unfair and unfair to attribute it only to God. So I want to acknowledge the unfairness and realness. And the discomfort I have writing something that could sound or even BE ignorant and unfair. I’m here to hold this up to the light and explore that discomfort with you. 

Years later, I found myself learning more about the history of the sacredness of the land I walked throughout my life. The stories that were embodied in the land. The bdote where women would walk for miles upon miles and days after days to give birth to the place of genesis. The place of creation. I learned of the concentration camp that was less than a mile away from my own home. The bodies that were buried, the tears and cries and death that happened on the land that I joyfully strolled through. 

I am now holding multiple stories that exist in this one place. The sacred stories that connect me to those that came before me and those that will come after me. The weight of awful things and the joy of new life and everything in between are held now in my hands. The rivers have converged that once were parallel. Or maybe they always were the same river? I just didn’t know it yet. Always deeply interconnected but unless I paid attention I didn’t know what my impact was on the other water that joined my own. 

This last summer when I went on a sacred sites tour with a group of students to the same place I walked as a kid, we were invited to take tobacco with us to honor the stories that the land holds. I slowly walked with a different intention than previous walks.  I closed my eyes and listened. I envisioned the people who came before me. I sprinkled the tobacco and whispered thank you. When I think about how to have an embodied, sacred relationship with creation, I think about that walk with the tobacco. A remembering of those who co-sustained the land before we forcefully took it away and now occupy it.

I was part of the garden leadership team at the church I used to work at along with other young adults who cared passionately about creation. We intentionally have a pollinator garden that is a food source to the bees on top of the church and for our neighbors. We are strategic and intentionally about what and where we would plant. It seemed to be easier on that land than in my own home. There is a team together with a goal and community surrounding how we steward that land.

As a new homeowner I think about the land I am on. As I am laying down roots, what other roots already exist here. What are the stories that live here? In order for me to have an embodied relationship with the creation in my own back and front yard. How can I invite a community to join me in co-sustaining the land I now am on. As we approach the spring and the land is becoming green and ask I pick seeds and get ready to tend to the land that is not actually mine, I am sitting with that question of how I co-sustain this land around me with what I plant and who I invite to share this space with. I think the answer lies in reflecting back to my experiences on the tour, from our speakers and my experience tending a garden team. It is an embodied community working together with the land not on the land or for the land, but with.

In all honesty, I have seen myself in a similar light. I’ve always had a deep desire to be good that is coupled with a deep fear that I am not good enough. I have seen myself as good only in terms of what I can offer to others. So I strive to help, to achieve, to produce, to fix, to give – hoping that it will prove my worth. I didn’t pay much attention to the cost on my body and my soul because I knew my time on Earth was limited so I needed to do what I could before it was too late.

Somehow slowly over time, I began to understand the truth that we find in Genesis 1 – that I am made in the image of God. Though I’d been taught to believe in original sin and therefore only saw my own brokenness and lack, this truth reminded me of my original goodness. God created humanity in his own image, “and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). I don’t have to earn my value or prove my worth because it has been imbedded within me since my conception.

When I learn to hold that truth for myself, that changes the way that I move throughout this world and interact with those around me. I don’t have to run myself into the ground striving for that unattainable status of “good enough.” Instead, I can root myself in the One who created me and loves me and calls me good, the One who doesn’t see me for my lack but who desires to lead me into wholeness. And from that rooted identity, I can walk forward in the fullness of who God created me to be, playing my part in his work of restoration in the world around me.

When I learn to see myself as inherently good, I learn to see others as good, and I learn to see all of creation as good. Each day as God created, he looked around and saw that it was good. Even before there were people to take advantage of what he had created, it was already good. Creation was good simply because it existed and it had been brought forth in love.

God, in his goodness and grace, decided to share his power and give humans the right and responsibility of dominion over creation. With that power, the temptation from the beginning has been to reach out and grasp what God has created for our own benefit at the expense of others and creation as a whole. We can choose to live in that fallen, distorted manner, or we can choose to reclaim our original identity as humans created in the image of God to steward creation, to bear fruit that lasts, to work toward the flourishing of all.

As Randy Woodley talks about, the way we rule over creation should reflect the way that God rules. God does not rule by force or solely for his own benefit. God rules as One who co-sustains. God sees that his creation is good, and he invites us to look around and see that it is good as well.

The experience that came to mind for me in reflecting on this was rather unexpected. While in Mexico, I was swimming in the rather choppy ocean. I figured I’d be fine as long as I didn’t cross the ‘safety rope’ parallel to the shore, but as I neared it, waves dragged me under the rope and further out to sea. The current was flowing against me, and hard as I tried, I couldn’t move any closer to shore.  I tried to swim parallel to escape the current, but as the waves got stronger, they began crashing over my head faster than I could take in air in between.

As I struggled to keep my head above water and felt my energy draining, I realized that I very likely wasn’t going to make it. I started to sort of feel that calmness that near-drowning victims sometimes describe, and I wasn’t so much afraid, but I felt a crushing guilt as I imagined how devastated my family would be to learn that I had died so suddenly and far from home. That thought that made me start to struggle harder, so that if this was the end I would at least fight as hard as I could.  I began to swim as hard as I could, but more importantly, I began to pray, begging Jesus to help me.

Moments later, in what truly felt like a miracle, I saw another rope, running perpendicular from something out in the ocean to the shore. The thought came to me that if I could reach that rope, I had a chance at surviving. Fueled by adrenaline and prayer, I somehow made it to the rope. Grabbing hold did not enable me to keep my head above water, but it did help me—even fighting against the current and the slippery algae—to eventually haul myself to shore.

I look back on this experience with some residual trauma, but also a greater humility and appreciation for the awesome power of nature that God created and how small we humans are in comparison.  The ocean that day didn’t care where the humans had placed the ‘safety’ rope. Humans have used elements of nature to create and achieve amazing things, but we believe we can control or disregard it at our peril. Perhaps nature is one way God is teaching us to be humble and rely on Him.

What I most feel when I look back on this near-death experience is a profound gratitude to Jesus for what I really believe was divine intervention, and a recognition that truly, without Him I can do nothing. I also recall the story of Jesus calming the stormy sea while his panicked disciples on the boat pleaded for Him to save them. Perhaps this then is the answer to the question of how do we ‘balance’ between using creation creatively for the greater good and not falling into misusing creation in a way that harms and denigrates both creation and Creator: We must let God be the Mediator, the Doorway, the Guide for how we make decisions about how to engage with creation—the Reconciler.