There’s a line from an article I read a while ago that came to mind as I reflected on our FLOW sermon series and upcoming earth day: “The earth spoke, and he listened.”
The article tells the story of a man named Joe, a dowser, which, if I’ve gone a bit too southern for you, is someone who walks the land with a simple forked branch or copper rods, searching for underground water. There are no maps or techy instruments, this is attention…feel…something deeper than can be explained.
At one point, the writer describes watching Joe walk quietly along a trail until, “The branch yanked toward the ground as if pulled by an invisible cord.” And then, Joe simply said, “This would be a fine place to put a well.”
Now, I don’t know exactly what to make of dowsing but whether you call it luck, intuition, science we don’t yet understand, tradition, or something else…what we do know is it’s been passed down through generations of people who knew the land in ways many of us no longer do…and they uncovered flowing water. And that’s the thing I can’t shake about this, that underneath it all, water is already there. Hidden. Moving. Waiting to be noticed. And that’s the work of dowsing, not to create something that isn’t there, but to learn how to notice it.
It made me think of that vision from the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 47…the one of water flowing from the temple; water that wasn’t gushing out but was already flowing. And this passage grows…from a trickle to a full-blown river. And everywhere the water flows, life happens. The question asked in this passage, “…do you see?” [verse 6] or put another way, did you notice?
I can’t help but wonder if part of our challenge is that we’ve slowly forgotten how to do just that.
We’ve been taught, often without even realizing it, to trust what can be measured, explained, or proven, and to set aside the kinds of knowing that feel less certain. The old ways of paying attention to the land, to the body, to the subtle movements of the world around us…they can start to feel outdated or easy to dismiss. After all, “We live in a culture so stripped of its animacy, we mistake the earth’s enigmatic language for silence.” That one stopped me… because I wonder how often I and we do that…not just with the earth, but with our lives. We assume nothing is happening, nothing is changing, nothing is flowing. When maybe…we’ve just forgotten how to notice.
There are other ways of noticing, too. The way you can smell rain before it comes. The way certain places just feel different in your body. The way something in you softens when you step into nature and finally take a full, deep belly breath.
As hard as it is, we must remember that not everything that is real announces itself loudly. Some things have to be noticed and maybe that’s the connection for us here. Because if God’s grace and love is anything like that river in Ezekiel…already flowing, already moving, already bringing life… then our role isn’t to force it into existence, it’s to become the kind of people who can pay attention to it.
Noticing where life is already emerging, where healing is already beginning, and where something beneath the surface is waiting to be discovered.
With this week coming up being Earth Week it feels like an especially meaningful time to practice this kind of attention or noticing. Not as a test and not to “get it right” but as an invitation to notice and perhaps step into the flow.
A Practice Opportunity for the Week
Starting Sunday, there will be a Creation Prayer Walk available in the sanctuary through Thursday during the church office hours.
And while it may look different than walking through the woods with a forked branch in your hands, I wonder if the heart of it is actually quite similar. It’s a chance to slow down, to move with intention, and to notice what might otherwise go unseen and to perhaps see the story through fresh eyes.
As you walk, pause where something catches you and notice what stirs in you. Let yourself be present…because maybe the goal isn’t to find something new, maybe it’s to rediscover what has been there all along. Or as that article reminded me, “The earth spoke…” So perhaps, even now, it still is. The question is whether we are learning how to notice.
https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2024/witching-water-in-search-of-the-unseen
(Link to read the article referenced)