On Becoming Naturalized

 

For many summers I worked at Camp Edgewood, one of the Ontario sister camps to Camp Mush-a-Mush.  My favourite summers were those when I was the craft and nature program person.  I loved nothing more than sharing the gifts the forest and various eco-systems on the camps 52 acres provided: the camp director coming to me to forage burdock leaves to rid campers of the prickles from stinging nettle; to source yarrow to apply to poison ivy blisters; the wonder in the children’s eyes at the smell and taste of wild ginger root; the fun of painting one’s skin with blood root.

And then there were the items we could eat like dandelion leaves, lily flower pods, bramble berries, elderberries, and common plantain.

From the hardwood forest, to the cedar stand, the grassy limestone cliff, to the succession environment of the pond system, I felt at home when at the camp.

 

Today’s readings, Psalm 23 and exerts from Mark 6, have me thinking about my days at home on those 52 acres – territory of the Attawandaron people and the Mississaugas of the New Credit.

My experience of the land represents the feeling and image I have when hearing and praying Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd/ I shall not want. There are green pastures, still waters, an abundance of food and feasting, relationship, comfort.

The land is also the place I see going when I hear the words from Mark’s gospel,

Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.

 

In a week, a counsellor had an afternoon off, and each night, time to split with their co-counsellor in the staff cabin after campers were in bed. There was not much time to ‘rest a while.’  It was like the Gospel -  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

And because we did not want to look for a different summer job, and deep down we loved what we were doing, we had compassion because they -the campers- were like sheep without a shepherd.

 

We have been exploring the Psalms as Jesus’ prayer book and relating specific Psalms to what Jesus is up to in the Gospel for the day. Jesus’ prayer life – praying the Psalms- affected him; how he perceived the world, God in the world, living faith, his responsibility and actions in the world.

Jesus was an indigenous person in his place and time. Jesus, along with other Semites and Arabs, were of the land – the Greeks and Romans were the colonizers. Praying the 23^rd Psalm Jesus was tired, as were his disciples and the throngs of people who gathered around, waiting for God’s kindom – a place of rest, with green pastures and still waters, an abundance of oil and feasting for all.

 

Earlier I mentioned one of the plants that was part of my camp home – the Lord is my shepherd space, so to speak- the plant common plantain.  Recently I learned very interesting things about plantain, in First Nations communities it is known as White Man’s Footsteps. I thought because of how connected it was to the land, its relationship in the eco-system, that the plant was indigenous to Turtle Island... meaning always part of the land. Come to find out, that although now naturalized,  it was once a foreigner, an immigrant.

I have been reading the book “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Kimmerer; this is where I have learned more about the common plantain.

Common Plantain was called ‘white man’s footstep’ because it grew like a weed behind whatever path white people left trailing behind. Often ‘foreign’ species cause trouble as they move in. We know about that from plants today like purple loosestrife choking out marshlands, goutweed aggressively forming dense growth that kills diversity in the ground layer, and garlic mustard that produces a chemical toxic to a rare native butterfly. Plantain had a different attitude.

 

Praying the 23^rd Psalm talks to the heart, mind, and spirit about resting; being content; living in abundance; where one is in relationship to their surroundings and happenings.

As plantain stayed it chose to be a good neighbour, a wise plant. Its strategy, attitude, was to be useful, to fit into small places, to coexist.  To not be invasive – and to not focus on only taking- but rather to participate in and find a way to bring healing.

As it stayed and made itself at home people learned its gifts: that it was good as eating greens in the spring, a healing poultice for cuts, burns, and insect bites in the summer; the tiny seeds good for medicine for digestion. Its leaves can halt bleeding and stop infection ---- the plantain is a  generous plant; living with abundance. It is has naturally made it self at home in green pastures, by still waters, in the deserted places.

“After 500 yrs of being a good neighbour” it has been forgotten that it was once a foreigner. It belongs.

 

Psalm 23 is about belonging.

Belonging is about giving and taking, participating and working in relationship to bring healing and wholeness.

Belonging is being naturalized to place ---in relationship; fed and feeding, healed and healing... living the intention of gifts and responsibilities.

What an abundant ecosystem!

 

When praying – thus living Psalm 23- the events of Mark 6 means no guilt should be felt when stepping aside to rest because of the reciprocal nature of relationship. When in relationship there is give and take, time to rest when others work, time to give compassion when others step away, to ask for healing and mercy when needed, to give healing when their is brokenness around, when you are tired of telling the story someone else picks it up. The ecosystem is a cup overflowing, a table prepared in the presence of enemies (not to make us different from enemies, but a table of abundance to share, to continually offer in the hopes that enemies will have a seat at the table – will set aside fear,  turn from destroyed and chaotic paths left in their wake, to a place of rest – to a deserted place- to the Lord is my Shepherd kind of place).

 

We have a choice as foreigners on this planet, where trees and rocks and watersheds are thousands of years older than we, we can naturalize and belong.  We can be like Common plantain with an attitude to live in the spaces, to find something to offer, to be useful,  to coexist.

 

And coexisting --when in the contented place of rest - even if not sitting beside still waters and in green pastures but rather getting off a boat to see a crowd of people where there should just be a deserted place because you and your group are tired... it is there that one will find an abundance of compassion because you are settled in; you belong, you are connected to a strength greater than yourself.  

In belonging one understands at all levels that all belong in the ecosystem. Naturalization creates a circle of healing where there is hope, even for foreigners who as yet disregard the land and leave a trail of chaos behind them. As the displaced cross the land, plants and people, both indigenous and naturalized, will continue to teach, to offer healing, ... until by the Creator’s abundant grace working in relationship all belong.

Until the fruition of this promise -Until that day – let us continue to pray Jesus’ prayer book, specifically Psalm 23, with hope and confidence that the words naturalize us into the gifts and responsibilities of belonging in God’s abundant ecosystem.

Happy praying.  Amen.