Light from the Woods

Anyone who has seen a play by Anton Chekhov may well have felt that the characters were living in a locked room. Not a locked room of a murder-mystery, in which one of the characters must be the murderer.  Instead, a psychologically locked room, in which Chekhov's characters voice their failed dreams, never achieved projects, and unfulfilled desires.  In one play in particular, however, Uncle Vanya, a beautiful green illumination occasionally shines into the psychologically somber atmosphere.  It is the emerald light of a forest.  And it tells us something about Nature and the human spirit.

Twice in the play, the light glimmers through the voice of Dr. Astrov, a physician who every year has planted new forests.  Some of his lines seem to display remarkable foreknowledge of our current environmental challenges, especially given that the play was published in 1897.  For example, in Act I:

"The forests diminish year after year, rivers dry up,

 wildlife is coming to an end, the climate is spoiled...."

Astrov is able to express the beauty of forests, but only a very personal and individual way:

"When I plant a young birch and then see its leaves turn green

 and the way it sways in the wind, my soul is filled with pride...."

When he describes the human relationship to the forests in more communal terms, he is able to describe it only in a distancing or critical way because he is discouraged.  He quickly bores his distracted listener in Act III when he lays out on a table his series of maps charting the receding size of the forests over many years.  Also, his depiction of any combined life of humans and forests is only grim:

"What we have here is a degeneration, the result of a downhill struggle for existence....

 And so [man] destroys everything and never thinks about tomorrow...."

Thus, even though Astrov has nobly devoted much time and money to trying to sustain the forest, he cannot sustain a vision that will inspire other people.  Nevertheless, the green illumination that merely glimmers through him flares more brightly through another character, Sonya.  This is partly because she loves Astrov, but also because she is able to feel more loving toward all people. She is able to tenderly express a beautiful vision of how Astrov's reforestation work can be transformative:

"He says that the forests glorify our earth,

 they teach a person the meaning of beauty and kindle a spirit of majesty.

 The forests make the climate less severe.  In countries where the climate is mild,

 less energy is spent in the struggle with nature, and so there we find a gentler,

 more understanding person.  There too people are beautiful, pliant, and responsive;

their speech is elegant, and their movements are graceful."

Anton Chekhov

What does the playwright Chekhov himself think about these matters?  We have a solid clue in that he gives to Sonya the final words in the play -- the most beautiful and loving speech in the entire play.  We also have a more subtle clue in that the name "Sonya" is a Russian variant of the name "Sophia," which means Wisdom.

~~~

Do you know someone in whom the love of nature shines? Can you describe their spirit?

(The quotations from Uncle Vanya  by Anton Chekhov,

are from Anton Chekhov's Plays, translated by Eugene K. Bristow, © 1977.)

(A most accessible adaptation of the play is the movie version Vanya on 42nd Street.)

An Imaginary Island

In order to cultivate analytical thinking, philosophy teachers seem adept at devising situations we will never encounter.  (Such as:  "If you and two other people were adrift in a boat with no drinking water or food, but then one of those people died, would it be immoral to eat the body of the dead person?")

Despite the contrived nature of such thought-puzzles, there is one imaginary situation that still seems to evoke interest, even among non-philosophers.  It is the scenario of being stranded alone on an island.  I think that scenario engages our interest because it does not simply ask an ethical puzzle but asks us what we like most:  What would you want to have with you if you were marooned on an island?

My slim "Dover Thrift" book entitled Books and Reading: A Book of Quotations tells me that G. K. Chesterton was once asked what book he would want to have if he were stranded on an island.  The Bible?  A volume of Shakespeare?  No, Chesterton, replied he'd want to have a guide to shipbuilding.

It is a cleverly humorous reply.  But I think it ultimately evades the point of the "island question."  Namely, the question of what book is of most enduring value to you.  Surely Chesterton, if not on an island, would not want a book on shipbuilding to be his only available reading for the remainder of his life.

The "island question" does not, however, have to be asked or answered in terms of literal books.  The medieval theologian Meister Eckhart wrote:

"If I were alone in a desert and feeling afraid,
 I would want a child to be with me.

 For then my fear would disappear
 and I would be made strong.

 This is what life in itself can do because it is so noble, so full of pleasure and so powerful.

 But if I could not have a child with me
 I would like to have

 at least a living animal at my side to comfort me."

Meister Eckhart chose from the world's library a different kind of "book."  He chose what Christian tradition has called "the Book of Nature."  It has been considered to be a "book" so valuable that it can even be viewed as a window into God.

Meister Eckhart gave a different kind of answer to the "island question" because he looked deeply into himself, asking what was his most enduring need, not just what would be a quick fix to get out of the desert (or get off the island).  Interestingly, in looking into himself, Eckhart found that his need for belonging could be filled with the companionship of forms of life that were in some way different from himself:  A child.  Or an animal.

~~~

If you were marooned on an island, what things in Nature would you like to have around to comfort you?

(The Eckhart quote can be found in the theologian

Sallie McFague's book The Body of God, © 1993, p. 98.)

A Shawl Wrapped All Around

One of the first things I was taught about God (even before I entered elementary school) was that God loves me and everybody else.  Another of the earliest things I was taught about God (just as early in my life) was that God is everywhere.  I still hold to these two basic principles, even though I admit to the complexity of using that word "God."

But how can I ever imagine that God is everywhere?  (Especially when I have been cautioned against elevating anything in the world into a god, an idol.)  How can I ever imagine that anything is everywhere?

For me, growing up as a child, it was the sky that helped me envision how God could be everywhere at once.  God was invisible, but the sky, which I could see, expressed a kind of "everywhere."  When I stood outside and looked up and around me, the sky seemed to surround everything on the Earth.  As I scanned the sky and guided my sight back down to the Earth, the sky seemed to wrap around the edge of the Earth at the horizon, no matter which direction I was facing.

Today, I know of an open, inclusive church that has in its mission statement in the worship bulletin the phrase "God's all-encompassing love."  Even though I myself struggle with how anybody could actually love every person on this planet (so ornery do we humans often become), I do have a sense of what "all-encompassing" is.  I learned my sense of that from the over-arching, all-surrounding sky I could see when I was a child.

There was a second way, as a child, that the sky gave me a visual experience of "everywhere." For, after all, church-school had also reassured me that this God who loves me is with me no matter where I go.  I got a sense of "no-matter-where-I-go" by watching the sky as I rode in the car at night.  You can experience this yourself the next time you are riding in a vehicle at night (with someone else safely driving).  Look out the side window and notice how the objects here on Earth zip by.  A parked car flashes past the side window of your vehicle.  And there's a tree a little further away from the road, so it moves less quickly -- but even it first comes into view and then is gone!  That's how everything in life is:  Things come, and things go.

But now notice, in contrast, the moon or stars up in the sky.  Notice how they seem to travel with the vehicle you are in as it travels.  Just like God.

My high-school English teacher taught me not to mix metaphors.  But religion loves using multiple metaphors, and so I'm now going to do so.  I'm going to mix metaphors because I think this metaphor of the heavens wrapping all around us resonates with another metaphor used a few times in the Bible (such as Psalm 61:4 & Matthew 23:37).  Namely, the metaphor of God being like a caring mother bird sheltering her tiny chicks under her protective wings. We are like God's chicks.

~~~

Have you ever tried to imagine God "everywhere"?  How?

The Restraint of Insects

Most people in the U.S., I would guess, have heard of the cartoonist Charles Schulz, creator of "Peanuts."  A fair number of people have heard of Pogo's creator Walt Kelly.  Few people, however, know the name Don Marquis, who, in the first part of the 20th century, created the serialized humor of "Archy and Mehitabel."  In its time, that series provided witty comment on the human condition, usually through the eyes of an otherwise harmless cockroach named Archy.  I was struck by the perceptiveness of one of Archy's observations I recently came across in an anthology:

"if all the bugs

in all the worlds...

should sharpen up

their little stings

and turn their feelings loose

they soon would show

all human beans...

their relative significance

among the spinning stars."

green damselfly

Indeed, if human beings ("beans," as Archy pronounces it) could actually experience firsthand the bottled-up energy of every single insect in the world, we would quickly know we are outnumbered.  The best calculations are that insects outnumber the human population a million to one, and in total body mass outweigh the human population twelve times over. Moreover, what an enduring as well as versatile form evolution found when it developed the insect structure. We human beings walking upright are only one species; but the basic insect structure (3-sectioned body & 6 legs) comes in a fantastic array of a million species.  Some are as delicate as a damselfly.  Others, such as Goliath beetles, look like army tanks in comparison. Still others, such as walking sticks, are camouflaged as twigs.

ladybug

Given the incomprehensible number of insects worldwide, and the versatility of the class Insecta to evolve in almost any condition, the "if" that introduces Archy's poem is significant: Archy's scenario is imaginary. Insects are, for the greater part, much more concerned with leading their own lives than they are with harassing humans. Moreover, a mindless desire on our part to indiscriminately rid our planet of insects would mean the loss of bees and other insects that pollinate fruit and nut trees, and help pollinate other crops. Their roles as pollinators only hint at the vital links insects serve overall, being food for birds, some fishes, and many mammals.  Those animals in turn nurture the many cycles of air and soil. Not to mention the delight many children can get as they discover the animated wonders of usually harmless insects.

Archy, in his own restraint, merely implied another point.  Namely that, on the whole, the class Insecta has demonstrated more restraint in its behavior than has Homo sapiens.  Although we do need to find better ways to regulate the dangerous effects of certain insects, maybe we can add to our more restrained behavior a greater appreciation of the benefits of insects.

~~~

Have you every imagined what it would be like to be a certain insect?  Which one?

(The poem of Archy is from

  The Lives and Times of Arch & Mehitabel by Don Marquis, © 1935.)
(The photo of the damselfly by JDP90 [Joydeep] used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

A Kitchen with a View

One feature of many U.S. kitchens built in the 1950's is the placement of a window above the kitchen sink.  I recognize that such an arrangement could have been prompted in part by ergonomics, that science of designing workplace objects to fit the size and movements of a person's body:   Because we need to lean forward slightly to reach down into the bottom of a sink, we could hit our heads on a cupboard if it had been placed above the sink.  I am inclined to think, however, that another reason for that window is our general dislike of washing dishes by hand, contrasted with the soothing possibilities a view of Nature can provide when we look out the kitchen window.

Kitchens in middle-class houses built back in the '50's did not usually have automatic dishwashers as part of the original construction.  And in most families I knew, washing dishes was, let us say, not a beloved task.  (When, in the early 1960's my family briefly hired a maid to assist my mother with household work, my sister and I found the otherwise nice woman a bit peculiar when she explained that she would not cook but that she did love to wash dishes!)

I do not have many happy memories revolving around my washing dishes.  But I do have good memories about people enjoying that view out the window above the sink.  When I was a child and my parents were house-hunting , one thing that attracted them to the house they settled on was a graceful, flowering mimosa tree just outside the kitchen window.  And in our previous house, I lost count of the number of times my mother, at the sink, would remark upon a cardinal or other bird she noticed outside.  What my mother saw and commented upon expanded my own childhood knowledge and awareness of the world.  Today, in my own house, my wife and I have a low cherry laurel to gaze upon, delighting ourselves with the antics of the squirrels that clamor upon it.

I know an architect who says he just cannot imagine designing a kitchen without a window above the sink -- it just would not be the courteous thing to do.

In E. M. Forster's 1908 novel A Room with a View, a window-view becomes both the source of the book's title and a symbol for the book's theme of the struggle between social insularity and openness.  The upper-class heroine, not yet married, and on vacation in Italy, finds that the hotel room she is assigned to lacks a good view.  A gracious middle-class man offers to switch rooms so that she might have a window with a beautiful view.  Who will she marry? That generous man's son, or a man who is of her own class but who is shallow? Those social questions are Forster's primary concern, but the relationship with Nature is a sub-theme.  The cinematographer's who made the 1985 movie version took advantage of that sub-theme:  When the young woman, vacationing away from cold England, opens the shutters on that new window she agreed to accept, the beautiful and warm Italian sunshine floods into the room.  And more than light floods into her as well.

~~~

Do you have a view of some aspects of Nature through a window where you live?  Is there a favorite thing you like to see?