Doomscrolling & the Peace of Wild Things

                                                                       Photo: Ruth Mundy

Bless the Lord, all powers,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
40 Bless the Lord, sun and moon,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
41 Bless the Lord, stars of heaven,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
42 Bless the Lord, all rain and dew,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
43 Bless the Lord, all winds,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
44 Bless the Lord, fire and heat,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
45 Bless the Lord, winter cold and summer heat,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
46 Bless the Lord, dews and snows,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
47 Bless the Lord, nights and days,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
48 Bless the Lord, light and darkness,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
49 Bless the Lord, ice and cold,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
50 Bless the Lord, frosts and snows,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
51 Bless the Lord, lightnings and clouds,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
52 Let the earth bless the Lord;
    let it sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.

from the Song of the Three Young Men

It would seem that I'm incapable of stopping my doomscrolling in these grim days. 

The relentless news of the deaths of children in Gaza, more than 4,000, haunts me. 

As barbaric as the attacks by Hamas were on unsuspecting civilians on October 7th, and the need for self-defense by Israel, I cannot reconcile the ferocity of the response directed toward those who have no political or ethnic affiliation because they are children, children of God, children of Allah. I go to sleep thinking about them and awaken with a sense of dread. This is not civilization. It is darkness. 

This morning we were up very early and saw that the first hours of the day would be blustery with the possibility of rain. In our twisted logic this seemed to be perfect weather for a November walk on a beach in Prince Edward County. It may not surprise you to hear that we were entirely alone, save for the birds.

                                                                           Photo: Ruth Mundy

Somehow the wind and waves and even the glowering sky were just what we needed. We were compelled to look upward and outward and to marvel at the sheer beauty of Creation. Our immersion in all this would not allow us to dwell in despair. I thanked the Creator and felt the stirrings of hope. 

At one point we sat on a drift log for a mug of tea and splendid Ruthian blueberry muffins. I pulled out the Doomscroll device and found the apocryphal Song of the Three Young Men, a wonderful expression of gratitude for each aspect of the world around us, supposedly uttered by youths who were in the fiery furnace. A while later, on the drive home, Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things welled up from memory. 

I still struggle with a welter of emotions over the suffering and deaths of children in Gaza and in so many other places on our troubled planet. Yet for a brief while we found strength for the journey as Christ's followers. 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry 

                                                                           Photo: Ruth Mundy