Today I want to draw your attention to a superb essay, in ever so many ways. It describes both, the exploration of some churches in a particular neighborhood of Portland, Ladd’s Addition, and also a secular pilgrimage in search of something larger, deeper than ourselves by a man who has left traditional churchgoing long behind. The author, David Oates, lives here in Portland. His latest book, The Mountains of Paris – How Awe and Wonder Rewrote my Life won the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award and was also a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. I have not yet read it, another item in the growing pile of nature-related writing on my nightstand.

The linked essay is longish (hey, weekend is coming up!), and made me grateful, once again, that healing exists from psychological wounds inflicted in childhood.

Grateful, too, that people don’t allow themselves to be cut off from things or themes associated with the hurt, when these offer independent source pf learning or grace.

Grateful, last but not least, that there are writers who can write about topics of spiritual meaning without being didactic, proselytizing, or worse, saccharine, in my ears, pairing wit with humility. As I said, a superb piece.

I was reading it while sitting in my chair at the window across the pear tree. This year’s addition to the garden has been a raised bed where we planted – oblivious to the snow and hail to come – the first rounds of peas, leeks and lettuce.

So far the squirrels are eating the lettuce, long yellow and flat from the cold snap. The finches and chickadees, on the other hand, have found the perfect source for nesting material – they are relentlessly pecking away at the twine that holds the bamboo stakes together, harvested from our hedge and rigged in a makeshift attempt to provide a structure for the climbing peas.

There they were, birds searching – and finding – essential necessities, their and their offsprings’ continued existence dependent on it. No meaning required. Just biologically ingrained task performance. Something, I suppose, somewhat similar for humans under existential threat – no time to waste in pursuit of higher-order concepts when survival is at stake. But if we have the luxury to pursue them, if we have the chance to find meaning, what a gift for cognitive creatures who cannot help themselves but asking about the nature of and reason for their existence since time immemorial.

We obviously long for some evidence that there is something out there beyond the mere facts of burdensome existence, something that could, perhaps, prove guidance or protection or allow us to bask in its reflected glory (made in the image of whatever deity…).

I always wonder what characterizes those who seem to be able to find it.

For my part, I believe that our existence has no more – and no less – meaning than that of the finches and chickadees. We are a coincidental by-product of an evolutionary process in a random universe. I strongly believe, though, that we can make meaning, live a meaningful live, by focusing on others rather than self, refuse to be bystanders, force ourselves to be witnesses and adopt an ethic that favors solidarity with those in need and contribute with whatever talents we possess.

Today’s music is about dancing unhatched chicks – I envision those bird eggs snug and warm in a bed of twine in their nest….