Tiny Blessing: Baby-led Environmental Education on a Suburban Sidewalk

It all began with this stick, seen from an adult's perspective, and that of an 11 month old. Last week I visited with my grandson and, while waiting for his next treatment, we went outside to explore the world for a little while. He is now walking with the help of a larger person's fingers and, as a result, is able to bend forward and examine the ground as he moves along. 

As we maneuvered down the short sidewalk in front of his house, this tiny piece of wood caught his eye. He briefly pondered it from above and after some thought, sat down on the ground to more fully take it in. He picked it up and felt its texture, turning it over and over in his little hands. He dropped it and watched it bounce, his brow furrowed in concentration. He tossed it and watched how far it would travel and then reached for it and began his hands-on observations all over again. 

When satisfied that he had learned what he wanted to know about the stick, we took a few steps more before coming to a partially dried mulberry leaf laying on the sidewalk. He took notice and stepped on it. Hearing its crunch, he paused and thoughtfully stepped on it again, presumably to discover if it would, indeed, crunch a second time. When it did, he promptly sat down for further exploration. He held the leaf and peered at it, turning it over in his hands before beginning its dismemberment. He tore it into pieces and, after looking each piece over carefully and manipulating it with all 10 fingers, he proceed to shred each of them into smaller and smaller bits. 

Once again, his examination complete, he was ready to move on, perhaps by now intentionally on the alert for the next new thing. We did not have long to walk before he spotted it, and down he went again beside a dried Crimon King Norway maple leaf, satisfyingly crunchy and close at hand. After thoroughly investigating its makeup, he noticed another couple of small pieces of wood, picked them up and concentrated on dropping and watching them land, over and over and over. I could almost picture a tiny clipboard inside his head, as he recorded velocity, travel time and point of landing and doing whatever calculations might be called for in such an experiment.

Though we were outside for 20 minutes or more, I refrained from talking as much as possible. I wanted this time to be his time,time for him to get to know his sidewalk and whatever he found there on his own terms. I was confident that his curiosity would be motivation enough to move him towards exploration and intrigue, but even I was surprised by the intensity of his deliberations. Too often we bombard children with facts and call it environmental education, thinking that the more we teach them, the more they will know. But real knowledge and a thirst for learning grows from familiarity and love of subject and those can only be gained through experience. Sitting on a sidewalk, surrounded by sticks, leaves, dirt and such, is an ideal way to begin a life long relationship with the earth and all it contains.  Who knows what we will discover on our next outing?

Much Needed Respite

Pollinators, pollinators everywhere in the yard! Bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds...Everywhere I look there is buzzing, humming and the fluttering of wings...swamp milkweed, green-headed coneflower, ironweed, joe-pye weed, cardinal flower, garden phlox all playing host to our tiny native wildlife...I feel like a shepherdess winding through the plantings, keeping watch over her flock, ensuring that what they need for life and health is provided.

I have spent much of my day outside, longing for peace and respite from the upheaval and concern of these tumultuous times.  Sometimes I go into the garden as a naturalist, to watch and observe the biological interactions. Sometimes I go for the joy of myriad colors, fragrances and bounty of life. But sometimes I wander into the garden because I am troubled, and it becomes a place of sanctuary, a place of refuge for me, as much as for wildlife.

Stepping into my yard, where the wild comes to live alongside me, does not remove the fears or losses of my life, but it does provide a space large enough to hold the accompanying emotions and ensures comfort as no other place can. The life found there pries my eyes off myself and points them to something greater than my worries. I am reminded that there are seasons and cycles to life and that calm really does return after storms. I am reminded that life goes on. The garden that was created to be a home for wildlife has become home to me and, surrounded by its abundance of life, I am blessed.

                              

Obscure Blessing

Sometimes blessing comes in circumstance we would have never chosen for ourselves or for others.  Last week, my 10 month old grandson was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and he and his parents have spent the last two weeks in the Children's National Medical Center in DC. His tiny little body had wasted away to 12 pounds and he was admitted for malnutrition, none of us knowing why. After a few days of testing, the specter of CF was raised, his mom's family having a distinct history of the disease, and several days of waiting for a diagnosis began. When the CF diagnosis came, our worlds were shaken, filled with fear and uncertainty, and at the same time, we determined to trust God's hand in whatever the future brings.

 Trust is difficult when I am afraid. When the days ahead loom uncertain and are potentially filled with suffering, I have to make a definitive choice between becoming incapacitated by that fear, or turning my face to God and holding fast to His promises of nearness.  The seesaw of emotions teeters between debilitating, nauseous anxiety on the one hand, and deliberate confidence, on the other.  Even if trust and confidence win the day, or more accurately, the moment, the turmoil takes its toll, nonetheless.

What I have rediscovered in these last two weeks, however, is my gift for loving and caring, for nurturing those who need support in trying times. St Teresa of Avila wrote some lines centuries ago that John Michael Talbot set to music and the words have been my prayer for many years. "Christ has no body, now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks, compassion on this world. Christ has no body here on earth, but yours."  

The obvious blessing of these past days is that my grandson has responded to treatment, is gaining weight, is happily becoming his old self again, and has returned home.  The more obscure blessing is that in the suffering and grief that has been part of our lives lately, God has been at hand, "saving, helping, keeping, loving," in the words of the old hymn.  And He has reminded me of my most important contribution to the world, to be His hands and eyes in this broken, hurting world, and, in so doing, I discover again just who I am.