On Burning Bushes

Maybe it has to do with having grown up in Pinawa, or maybe it's just the way I'm wired, but I have always found the wilderness to be sacred space, a place where I'm more open to the presence of God. I first remember big questions like, "Is everything the Bible says true?" and "Is God real?" occurring to me during drives between Pinawa and Caddy Lake through the beautiful Whiteshell Provincial Park while I was in high school. There, in our wine-coloured Dodge Caravan, my mom was one of the first recipients of my theological questions. (The other early recipient, bless him, was the minister who confirmed me in high school.)

Today I found myself in the forest, hoping beyond hope that it would prove, once again, to be a place where I might encounter God's presence.

Hoping that, at some point on the 7 km hike, I might find the burning bush I desperately long for.

The burning bush that would give me answers about the job I will soon need. About what to do with my calling. The burning bush that would reassure me that God is and ever shall be, and that God loves me still. 

In less than three weeks, my work as a pastor will come to an end. That is a terrifying and heart-wrenching reality. Over the past couple of years, I've been compiling a mental list of the things that I think were missing in my seminary education. It's an interesting list, friends, but one that's best discussed over coffee and not on the blog. However, at the top of the list of things I wish someone in seminary had warned me about is this: I wish someone had prepared me for how deeply the work of pastoral care is rooted in love. I wish someone had told me how real the love is that a pastor has for the people she cares for. I wish someone had warned me that this love doesn't evaporate when someone tells you that time is up, that the job is done. To be fair, I don't know if this is everyone's experience. I suspect, from talking to other pastors, that it isn't universal. And, to be fair, I'm not sure that anything could have prepared me for this. But still.

Not unlike a 7 km hike, the journey I find myself on isn't an easy one. It's not without discomfort. My shoes, it turns out, don't have the same support that they had when they were new. My feet are making sure that I know this. Likewise, the knot between my shoulder blades and the tension in my neck remind me that the journey I'm on right now isn't easy either. 

And it's not a race to see who gets to the end of the path the fastest. Especially if you're alone in the woods. It's foolishness to hike without stopping periodically for a water break. Part of the joy of a hike is in noticing and appreciating the scenery along the way. And sometimes it's not all that helpful to try to focus on the map, or to pinpoint one's location. Sometimes, the goal is simply to keep going, one step at a time, following the path even though it's not clear what will emerge up ahead around the next bend. 

While I'm a big-picture person who longs to see the whole picture, and who desperately wants the plan for the next six months to be laid out as clearly as possible--who wants the burning bush, please and thank you--it turns out that sometimes God instead shows up as a companion on the journey, keeping pace with me one step at a time. God is present in the water breaks, in the slow stretching, in the pause to breathe in the scents of the forest, in the song birds that sing out their greetings from just out of sight. 

And, it turns out, when I slow down my breathing, fold up the map, and focus on my immediate surroundings, the forest is actually filled with burning bushes. If only I have eyes to see them.