The Gift of Sauntering

Oct 7 / Lisa Graham McMinn
A couple of miles into our first day trekking in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, I told Rae I was thinking of us as saunterers instead of backpackers. Rae, my daughter, who gifts me with invitations to adventure with her in some wilderness for a few days every September, graciously tolerated my foray into word etymology.

Earlier this summer, I came across John Muir’s claim that the root of the word saunter
emerged from Middle Age pilgrimages. As pilgrims passed through villages and were asked where they were going, they'd say "to the Holy Land" (a la sainte terre), and so became known as Sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. I’ve since learned dubiousness hangs around Muir’s etymology, but I’m claiming the description for now.

Backpacking suggests rigor and accomplishment, while sauntering hints at a slow meandering that encourages pausing to notice unusual rock formations rising above on one’s left, ducks crossing the lake with their babies in tow and picking and eating the last of the summer salmon berries.

I’m reading Nicolas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic and brought all 17 ounces of  iit with me, one of two weight splurges (the other being the backpack chair I spent chunks of time reading in). Reading about Black Elk’s life while sitting beside the Lakes Basin allowed his words to resonate and sink a shade deeper than they might have at home.

A good number of people I companion in spiritual direction speak of sensing God most poignantly and powerfully when outside. It is no surprise as our native home is "outside." I resonate with them, and indeed, seemingly, God waited for me around every bend, in the remaining few wildflowers blooming in the open meadows, in the chipmunk that seemed to follow us from campsite to campsite, in the utter and deep silence of the mountains, in majestic peaks and alpine lakes, jumping fish, soaring hawks, the movement of the clouds, and in the tiny lakeside frogs we joined for lunch one day on a flat rock by Moccasin Lake.

With every encounter, God was already smiling, saying, as it were, "I was expecting you! It is delightful to see you!"

And I would say a bit shyly, chagrined perhaps by my surprise, "it is delightful to see you, too."

What would it be like, as Eric Clayton [1] suggests, to live with a disposition of expectancy at seeing God at every turn? The truth is (one Clayton also names), we don't need to go looking for God. Our invitation is to live aware and awake to God’s constant dwelling within us and simply to recognize that of Christ in us, recognizing that of Christ in all things—and with delight.

I find it easier (of course I do; we do) to see God in these natural world elements. I want to live out of that awakeness when it comes to seeing God in my more ordinary life, in people who sometimes annoy me, in people I have hurt and who have hurt me, in people I would like very much not to get elected into positions where they become my local, state, and national representatives.

What would it be like to live with a disposition of expectancy in seeing that of Christ in the stuff of ordinary life rather than primarily in saunterings in the wildness? What might change in the delight I sense from God and the delight I mirror back? How might we nudge our shy awareness so that gentle joy and delight emerge in seeing God in all our seeings and doings?

Today, that is my prayer. And echoed in a prayer of Black Elk’s:

Grandfather, Great Mysterious One,
You have always been, and before You, nothing has been. The star nations all
over the universe are yours, and yours are the grasses of the earth. Day in and
day out, you are the life of things. You are older than all need, older than all
pain and prayer. Grandfather, all over the world, the faces of the living ones are
alike. In tenderness, they have come up out of the ground. Look upon your
children with children in their arms, that they may face the winds, and walk
the good road to the day of quiet. Teach me to walk the soft earth, a relative to
all that live. Sweeten my heart and, fill me with light, and give me the strength
to understand and the eyes to see. Help me, for without you, I am nothing.
Hetchetu aloh. (Amen).

[1] Eric Clayton, "Now Discern This: A Disposition of Expectancy"on the Jesuits.org
website.ue time.
Lisa Graham McMinn
Lisa retired from college teaching to pursue a vocation in spiritual care. When not listening to the nudges of God through spiritual direction she might be found meandering the woods, tending goats, hens, and gardens.

Lisa is a contemplative Quaker who sees each storied life as part of a bigger story—all of them held together by God. Although also a writer and speaker, she now more often is found hosting space for spiritual renewal and exploration via spiritual direction, supervision, and personal retreats through Into the Woods Spiritual Care, housed at Fern Creek Farm a few miles outside of Newberg, Oregon, where she lives with her husband.

You can learn more about Lisa, what she offers, and her books and current writing at https://www.ferncreekfarm.com