Value in Observation

/by

Last spring, at the start of the pandemic, I found myself spending a lot of time in the park near my apartment in St. Louis. We were in the middle of a six week shelter in place mandate by the city. With a pause on my work and feeling quite cramped in my little apartment, the park offered a second space to be.

At first, having nothing to do other than wander around the park, often aimlessly, felt wrong. Nothing about this was productive. When asked by friends or family how I was using all of my time, I felt I had little to show for it. I felt embarrassed, almost ashamed that I wasn’t finding anything better to do.

But the more time I spent in the park, the more I enjoyed it. The place was beginning to grow an immense sense of familiarity. If it was late in the afternoon, I would keep an eye out for a red-tailed hawk that would usually show up in the west side of the park. On one occasion I thought I heard the hawk’s screech, only to find the sound had come from a nearby blue jay. Oddly, seconds later the hawk appeared. Was this call from the blue jay somehow related to the presence of the hawk?

Another day I found myself observing a park employee mowing the lawn. As the mower moved away from me it left a strip of lawn that was lighter in color, and when it turned towards me, the grass behind it was much darker. If I looked at the strips at a right angle, they disappeared completely into a single shade of green. Later, while walking home past the houses in my neighborhood, I noticed different patterns in the lawns, each presenting a different habit of mowing. Some started by mowing the perimeter of their lawns and working in. Others were keen to make parallel strips. Some had whimsical qualities, a tangle of twisted lines with little order.

It soon became clear that I wasn’t the only one growing familiarity with the park. At some point I met a neighbor in the park who was also watching the bluejays. She told me that when jays see a hawk they will imitate its call in order to alert other jays of the hawk’s presence. Another day I noticed very organized piles of acorns, pinecones, and sticks under a shrub by the stream. The next day the mystery was solved, as I watched a grandpa and grandson approach the piles with new materials to add. The boy excitedly added to his collection, while being careful to organize by color, texture, and shape.

What was once a way to pass time and escape my apartment soon turned into a growing familiarity with my neighbors and landscape, a developing sense of place. With uninterrupted time and little agenda, could it be that I and others were opening our eyes to our surroundings? With these thoughts in mind, I was immediately reminded of my days at Wilderness Canoe Base.

One of my favorite parts of a trip into the boundary waters comes usually on a second or third day. These often occur during a down moment, such as the time between hanging a bear bag and scrambling into tents to escape the oncoming swarm of mosquitoes.

Someone is peeling away layers on a strip of birch bark, which curiously seems to separate endlessly into thinner and thinner layers. Somebody else is throwing pine needles into the fire noticing how some crackle and erupt into flames almost instantly, while others soundlessly and slowly turn to ash. Meanwhile, two others sitting by the lake are intently discussing the pattern of light  that is dancing on a shoreline rock, reflecting off the water from the setting sun.

In these moments, I’m reminded of the value of doing nothing. Like my time in the park, a canoe trip presents an opportunity to immerse ourselves in our surroundings. When left to our own devices, we begin to explore our surroundings.  It is a spontaneous instant of our landscape drawing ourselves out to ask questions. I believe there is power in the knowledge that comes from asking these questions. In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimerer warns of a concept known as species loneliness, “a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of creation, from the loss of relationships”. How do we escape this fatal trap?

I think a good way to start is by exploring. The wonderful thing is that exploring can look however you want it to. It can be loud and messy, or quietly done in solitude. It can look like play or rest. It can be done in the wilderness three nights into a camping trip, or on a stroll through your neighborhood. Keep an eye out for both the ordinary and the unexpected. Ask questions and talk to those around you. By this way we might better know the world, our neighbors, and ourselves.

Written by Jack Rosenwinkel, 2021 WCB winter volunteer and former staff

Most Beautiful Sky

/by

There are probably a lot of things you miss right now.  Perhaps you miss potlucks or concerts.  Or you might miss going into the office to work.  Maybe flying in an airplane to distant places has been calling your name for months.  For me, one of my greatest longings these days is to sing with others.  Most people who know me, even if we’re just acquaintances, know that I love to sing and will often shamelessly hum while I go about my day.  Though it is possible to sing by myself in many circumstances, I still crave the intertwining of voices.  Zoom church and virtual song circles just don’t cut it.  I’ve even taken to recording myself singing multiple parts of songs so that I can at least feel like I’m singing with other people and voices.

I know I’m not alone.  Choirs across the world have gotten very creative with “virtual choir” videos and some have even found ways to sing masked and distanced.  But if you’re not in a choir and still trying to follow Covid precautions, your chances of managing any sort of choir experience are slim to none.  Though all I want to do is pull together a group of people and teach a simple round, I recognize that all I really can do is wait.  And dream.

But while I wait, I’ll still sing.  I’ll sing with the birds.  I’ll sing in the shower.  I’ll sing as I work.  I’ll sing while I cook.  I’ll sing along to my music in the car.  My voice will be prepared for that blessed day when we can stand in a circle and hold hands, when we can breathe the same fresh air, unmasked and unafraid, when we can sing praise to God and Creation as we never have before.  That will be a magnificent day.

Until then, I can look around me and relish in the pause – in the rest.  Most importantly, I can take this time to listen to the music of nature and of the seemingly mundane that surrounds me.  There is beauty in the simplest and the vastest of things.  Can you hear it?

Written by Solveig Orngard

 

Most Beautiful Sky

Melody and lyrics by Jennifer Levenhagen, harmonies by Annie Zylstra

Most beautiful sky,

I see how you change each day

And each day remain.

 

 

Though I prefer to learn songs in person with others, this song is one I just recently learned from a recording.  Here I share it with you as a recording of myself singing all the parts.  I hope the melody sticks in your head.  The simple lyrics manifest grounding, observation, awe, and gratitude and seem to hold special power in this time when so much feels heavy.  Maybe someday we will be able to sing it together! -Solveig

Dreaming of Open Water

/by

I like winter. I like ice and snow and outdoor activities. I even like the cold. It makes me feel alive.

But right around this time of year, as the days grow a little longer and the sun shines a little more intensely, I start dreaming of open water.

With our mild fall and winter down in the Twin Cities–and the help of a few brave paddling partners– I was able to extend my canoeing season well beyond when I normally hang up my life jacket. But after the cold weather in January, even the rivers have locked up. Prep time. The broken canoe rib has been spot-welded, the paddles stowed in the rafters, and next season’s boat registrations ordered. My mind wanders.

Fellow fall paddling partners.Fellow fall paddling partners.Fellow fall paddling partners.

I first dipped my paddle in the water last year on April 30. I had been checking the status of the ice at a nearby entry point every evening for a week. On that fateful Thursday, I was delighted to find that the stubborn clump of honeycomb ice had receded enough to open up a channel along the shore to the first portage. I ran the quarter-mile home, grabbed a canoe, and jogged back with the boat on my shoulders, too excited to bother strapping it onto my truck. When I pushed off from shore and heard the rush of water and clink of ice under the hull, my already-elevated breath quickened. I felt like a kid again.

As my boots crunched through crusty snow on the portage, I felt perversely proud, like I had won a race before the other competitors even knew it’d started. I MUST be the first one out here this season, I thought to myself. The lynx tracks pressed into the mud up around the next corner disabused me of this notion. Mine were far from the first feet to cross the portage that spring; they probably weren’t even the first of that day.

I only made it a few lakes in before I encountered ice that was frozen solid. I floated there next to the
shore as the shadows grew long and the air grew chilly. A pair of loons passed low overhead, the high-pitched whistle of their flapping wings punctuating the stillness. I couldn’t stop smiling.

I like routine. Too much change drives me nuts. And yet I sure am grateful for the rhythmic contrast of seasons in the Midwest. Every spring, I get to fall in love with open water all over again.

“But it’s only February,” you say. I know. I can wait. Most good things in this world require patience. But the next time you see me staring out the window lost in thought, or diligently shoveling the snow off of the battered old Grumman canoe up on blocks in my backyard, or stopping along the path on my afternoon walk to gaze out over the frozen Mississippi River, you’ll know what’s on my mind.

—Dan Ahrendt, Wilderness Canoe Base Program Manager

The Time Was Not Lost

/by

Remember the “Cancel 2020” sentiment? Last April, a couple of weeks into Minnesota’s first coronavirus lockdown, a friend shared a meme that said “Wake me up in 2021” and I remember instantly disliking it. After the last nine months, I understand the feeling expressed by that meme a little more, but I still could never wish away a single day of my life, even in jest. As last month’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the continued rise of Covid-19 cases and related deaths in the United States suggest, problems like white supremacy and public health crises didn’t end on December 31, 2020. These problems and the many others that have risen to the forefront demand sustained attention and collective action, not wishful thinking.

Recently, as my mind dwells on the halting and imperfect distribution of vaccines, as well as on the return of many Minnesota schools to in-person learning, I keep coming back to a piece by Dr. Theresa Thayer Snyder, a retired superintendent from upstate New York. (You can find Snyder’s original Facebook post here.) Writing to address concerns expressed by friends and colleagues about potential educational deficits when kids are again able to return to in-person schooling, Snyder urged teachers to

“resist the pressure from whatever ‘powers that be’ who are in a hurry to ‘fix’ kids and make up for the ‘lost’ time. The time was not lost, it was invested in surviving an historic period of time in their lives—in our lives. The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post pandemic world.”

Snyder’s argument— that the time was not lost—really resonates with me, and I don’t think it only applies to kids.

My mom met with her high school friends via Zoom this year for their annual holiday get-together. As an introduction, they went around the circle sharing moments of gratitude from a year filled with so much hardship. One friend, an introvert, mentioned that she didn’t feel like she missed as many things as she typically does. Most of her life, she has felt like she should be doing more. Even when she chose to “stay in” for the evening, she often had the irrepressible sense that she was supposed to be “out”—at a work event or a museum or the opera or something. This past year, she finally had permission to stay home. She spent time with her kids, who came back to their childhood house for a few months, long after they thought they’d moved out for good. She read and walked and gardened and did all the things she likes to do, and didn’t feel guilty about it once. I don’t think she was only one who was able to find peace in the absence of some conventional social obligations.

I was talking to my neighbor a few weeks ago as we shoveled snow from parallel sidewalks in the chilly grey dawn that sometimes lasts all day this time of year in the Midwest. He mentioned how much difficulty his son had experienced with distanced learning during the past semester. “He failed a class for the first time in his life,” my neighbor said, pausing and leaning on his shovel for a moment. “He’s just such a social learner, and that computer science class, online, from the basement, really didn’t work for him.” The challenge of distanced learning drove my neighbor’s son to apply for and gain acceptance into a semester of study at an in-person environmental learning center down in North Carolina. This year, the program begins with a ten-day backcountry camping trip, during which students will distance and mask as they work to create a virus-free community. Admittedly, the privilege to apply for, accept, and travel to an exclusive in-person learning program isn’t practically available to the overwhelming majority of individuals who have struggled with distanced learning over the past year. But, I still think it demonstrates mature and resilient decision-making in the face of challenge. Last week, my neighbor’s son headed down to begin the program. I’m excited to hear how it goes.

I’m still deeply disappointed about all who were unable to visit Wilderness Canoe Base this past season because we cancelled our traditional summer program. And yet, this cancellation made space for family getaways, in which cohorts of people connected with our site and with each other during socially distanced cabin stays. Last season, we were able to welcome individuals who visit our site often, couples who returned after nearly sixty years, and families who came up for their very first time. These retreats happened on a smaller scale, certainly, but in ways that were no less meaningful. As we currently prepare and plan to welcome people up for guided trips, we’re also working to continue to create opportunities for people to visit Wilderness in this family getaway style, even during moments when our site might be a little busier with traditional canoe groups.

More important, we’re considering the responsibility that we at Wilderness Canoe Base have in working to foster reflection, healing, and continued resiliency. I, for one, am looking forward to the chance to listen carefully to all who need to share, to be still and reengage with faith in community, and to run around outside with kids after so many months spent sitting inside looking at a screen. Here, I turn again to Dr. Snyder:

“When the children return to school, we will need to listen to them. Let their stories be told. They have endured a year that has no parallel in modern times. There is no assessment that applies to who they are or what they have learned. Remember, their brains did not go into hibernation during this year. Their brains may not have been focused on traditional school material, but they did not stop either. Their brains may have been focused on where their next meal is coming from, or how to care for a younger sibling, or how to deal with missing grandma, or how it feels to have to surrender a beloved pet, or how to deal with death. Our job is to welcome them back and help them write that history.”

The scope and scale of the trauma of the past year is greater than I could have ever imagined. In writing this, I’m not intending to disregard the grief of all those who have experienced and who continue to experience devastating loss; in fact, just the opposite. I was awake for 2020. If you’re reading this, you probably were too. How are we working to honor that by recognizing—and ensuring—that the time was not wasted?

Written By Dan Ahrendt, Wilderness Canoe Base Program Manager

A Theoretical Framework for Welcoming Campers

/by

Kristin and her trusty paddling partner Maggie

When I tell people what I do for a living, I often experience a disconnect between what they imagine I do and how I actually live out my vocation. Many people imagine working at a summer camp as something like a stationary cruise director for kids. They assume that the job consists of planning activities to keep kids busy and assuring that they are happy and safe. And these things are certainly true to an extent. I do help to plan canoe trips and other activities in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and I spend a whole lot of time thinking about how to keep campers safe and having a great time.

But I think we do a significant disservice to our youth when we imagine that summer camp is simply a place where kids want to go and take a vacation with their friends. Today more than ever, it is critical that we understand the youth in our care as integral and full members of our communities who come to us with not only a desire to try new things and have fun away from home, but also with a need to explore who they are in relation to what is happening in their world (not to mention learning all kinds of new camping skills and teamwork strategies on top of that internal work)!

I would argue that it has always been the case that the lives of youth are saturated with the same issues that adults are tasked with solving: the ramifications of living in a country whose legacy and present reality is steeped in the power of white supremacy, the disenfranchisement that occurs with the unequal distribution of wealth, and the perpetual struggle to find wholeness in a culture that typically fails to see every human as a child of God in favor of quantifying their achievements and access to power. In my experience, kids don’t show up at camp as apolitical beings who leave their everyday lives behind when they dip their toes in Seagull Lake. Rather, the struggles of growing up in America in 2021 come with them on their canoe trips, and we as camp professionals have the incredible opportunity to help campers express their full selves in the midst of it all.

This is why it’s essential that we as camp staff spend time cultivating an intentional praxis that best enables us to welcome campers to our sites as they are. For me personally, this requires ongoing work (because it is never finished) to weave theories of anti-racism, anti-colonialism, liberation theology, ecological justice, feminism, and trauma-informed pastoral care into my daily work. I am lucky to have fantastic colleagues with whom I can collaborate on this communal process of learning and forming a space that embodies “just love” in the best way we know how. And I feel immense gratitude to be working within the context of a larger church body which is also calling for justice and reconciliation in all moments.

This summer, we will be welcoming campers and summer staff back who will surely be trying to integrate themselves into a world that has forced them to bear witness to incredible hardships on the global and local scale. And in the midst of this reality, we will have the immense privilege of welcoming them into our sites as members the body of Christ. If one camper suffers, we all suffer. And if one camper is honored, we all rejoice with them (a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians: 26).  And this is one of the guiding principles through which we will tailor our work as we prepare for the summer of 2021, along with the logistical and safety concerns that go along with creating safe sites with meaningful programming. We can’t wait to join with you as we do this work in the months to come!

Written by Kristin Middlesworth, Wilderness Canoe Base Site Manager

 

Passing of Rev. Ham Muus

/by
Read more

A New Look for Our Organization and Sites

/by

Way back at the beginning of 2020, we started on a fantastic journey with a marketing company to create a refreshed brand for the camps of Lake Wapogasset Lutheran Bible Camp. Here is a peek at the process and the scripture that became the cornerstone of the brand: Ephesians 3:17-19.

Considering Fall Colors

/by

It’s the season of change here in our pocket of the world.  The nights are getting cooler.  The bugs are no longer buzzing around our heads.  The sun sets as the last crumbs are eaten off of our dinner plates.  Most noticeably, the leaves are in the midst of their annual color transformation.  But I suppose calling it the “season of change” is redundant, isn’t it?  Season denotes change.  Without change, there would be no need for the word “season”.

After working at Wilderness Canoe Base many different seasons over the past six years, I am elated to finally be here in autumn for the first time.  Despite already high expectations of the beauty this time and place would present to me, I have been overwhelmed by the intensity and variation of color in this boreal landscape.  I thought I had great familiarity with blueberry and bunchberry plants, mountain maples and aspens.  Yet, before two weeks ago, I could not have described to you the deep red of blueberry leaves in fall or the way the edges of mountain maple leaves often turn a neon pink before fully departing from their verdant quality.

 In complete awe of this colorful landscape like no other I’ve seen before, I set out to learn how and why such an impeccable palette exists in this locale.  With the help of information from the U.S Forest Service and americanforests.org, I was able to gain an even greater appreciation for the “reason behind the season”.

A leaf’s primary purpose is to capture sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide from the air and absorb those into the tree.  Chlorophyll, which is what gives leaves their green color, uses sunlight to break down the carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) into oxygen (O2)  and glucose (C6H12O6) through the process we call photosynthesis.  The oxygen is expelled into the air (humans gratefully receive that gift!) and the glucose becomes energy for the tree.  As days become shorter and temperatures decline in the autumnal months, the tree has fewer resources to consume.  Rather than waste precious energy on maintaining leaves, the tree produces a cell layer, called an abscission layer, that gradually blocks the flow of nutrients to and from the leaves.  As this layer is formed, the chlorophyll in each leaf, which normally is broken down when exposed to sunlight, can no longer be replaced.  This is when new colors come into sight.

Carotenoids, chemicals that produce orange (beta carotene) and yellow (xanthophylls) colors exist in leaves all spring and summer, but are masked by the green of chlorophyll.  However, as the chlorophyll breaks down, the carotenoids become the more prominent chemicals, causing leaves to turn some variation of yellow and/or orange.  In contrast, chemicals called anthocyanins, which create red and purple colors, are actually produced only in the autumn from glucose that has been trapped by the abscission layer.  Any leaf you see in the fall that has transformed from its original green, is experiencing a unique combination of all these chemicals interacting to create the exact coloration you see. Temperature, moisture, sunlight, and tree type all play a role in producing the yellows, oranges, pinks and reds of autumn.  Finally, as sunlight breaks down the carotenoids and anthocyanins over time, tannins found in the cell membranes remain in the leaves, leaving the brown color as they begin to decompose back into the soil which will soon play host to new life.

The magnificent colors of autumn leaves seem simply to be (though probably are not entirely) a byproduct of trees adapting to change.  After considering how much I admire the visual produced by that adaptation, I wonder if the trees can be our teachers at this moment.   One can hardly argue that things are changing these days, at a rapid and often alarming pace.  Yes, change has always existed, but it hit us in a new way with the current Covid-19 pandemic.  We have had to make so many adaptations in nearly every aspect of life: wearing masks in public, connecting with friends via zoom, ordering food to take home or to a park, and teaching or attending classes completely remotely.  As the pandemic has gone on, it has become clear to me that many things will never go back to “the way they were”.  That can be terrifying to think about.  But if we look again at those vibrant fall leaves, proof of resilience and the preparation for a new season, it is easier to have faith that we, too, can adapt to our changing world and continue to create stunning beauty through actions of kindness, empathy, and inclusivity.

Written by Solveig Orngard, Fall Staff 2020

Ways: A Reflection by Katie

/by

“And a highway will be there—it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that way.”

– Isaiah 35:8

The author, Katie Malcom

I have realized that one theme that’s been talked about a lot this year, whether stated explicitly or not, is mapping, directions, or navigating—to me often summed up with the word “ways.” So many conversations surrounding current events in our world both reference and use as a framework the notion of figuring out a path ahead, or where things will go— physical locations and also conceptual plans, goals or even guesses. Earlier in the spring of  this year, one big questions was “where will get hit next by the coronavirus” or “where will it spread to next”?

Locations and directions were intensely tracked and so much focus fell on specific places – another example being 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed. That specific intersection kind of evolved into a sacred or holy space of  gathering in a really beautiful way. Another one is how the media constantly covered where or which way the protests and marches were moving. This summer and fall at Wilderness, we’ve often used the phrases “the way that things will look”, and had meaningful conversations digging into “ways of knowing”.

On the path to the chapel
Photo by Katie

In the midst of all these things going on, we all use different methods of finding our way;  we reach for different kinds of compasses and maps. For many, I think it’s faith, religion, spirituality, or even a mindset. And in this verse they name a path a “Way of Holiness”  which I really loved and for me kind of circled back to one conversation we had during our  staff training this summer about openness regarding bible studies, faith conversations and reflections here at Wilderness—thinking about the question we often ask campers, “Where  did you see God today?” and stretching that in different directions or using new language that might resonate differently. In each of our own unique experiences of WCB, as staff,  campers, or guests, I think that here is a place where we explore those new ways—ways of  knowing, ways of growing in our faith, a “Way of Holiness”. And this can be outward,  inward, through and within these paths and places in our lives.

I think it is important to acknowledge that sometimes the ways of our thoughts and minds  are filled with logistics, judgements, negativity, and stress, which is just our human nature. But when has there been a better time to practice shifting that mindset or narrative by  welcoming and embracing radical openness and new ways of finding holiness? Whatever our map or compass or GPS or guiding light situations is, we can listen, learn, navigate, welcome and follow new ways of holiness, however that may be for us.

One perspective that I’ve found holiness in is this blessing by Jan Richardson:

The Map You Make Yourself
by Jan Richardson

You have looked
at so many doors
with longing,
wondering if your life
lay on the other side.

For today,
choose the door
that opens  to the inside.

Travel the most ancient way
of all:
the path that leads you
to the center
of your life.

No map
but the one
you make yourself.

No provision
but what you already carry
and the grace that comes
to those who walk
the pilgrim’s way.

Speak this blessing
as you set out
and watch how
your rhythm slows,
the cadence of the road
drawing you into the pace
that is your own.

Eat when hungry.
Rest when tired.
Listen to your dreaming.
Welcome detours
as doors deeper in.

Pray for protection.
Ask for guidance.
Offer gladness
for the gifts that come,
and then
let them go.

Do not expect
to return
by the same road.
Home is always by
another way,
and you will know it
not by the light
that waits for you

but by the star
that blazes inside you,
telling you
where you are
is holy
and you are welcome
here.

What Faithful Communities Can Learn from Lichen

/by

Katelyn Lavrenz, 2020 Program Coord.

Hi everyone! My name is Katelyn and I am the program coordinator for the summer. I have been connected to Wilderness for many years starting as a camper, swamper, and staff member, and now I find myself in a new terrain of a virtual staff member. A few of us have taken on the task of being virtual naturalists this summer (though it seems like such an ironic title to be trying to teach folks about the outdoors through a screen because it can be hard to build relationship and connection to a wilderness space through a computer). Recently, I have been learning and reading a bit about lichens. They are fascinating and if you all would humor my science teacher side; I would love to try to tell a bit of their story.

Lichens are OLD – approximately 400 million years old. Scientists initially believed that they were just an organism living like any other plant just doing their little photosynthesis thing (turning water and sunlight into sugars, using those sugars as energy, rinse and repeat).  In 1867 it was discovered that lichens are actually made up of two separate organisms: algae and fungus. The fungus and algae live harmoniously to create lichen which behaves like a single independent plant. This symbiotic relationship is formed between the two organisms and each of them benefit from the other. Both organisms can live independently when they are on their own, but they can prosper when they are living together in community.

What does it look like when we work as a community just like the fungus and the algae? What does it look like when the dominant culture works for and with those who are oppressed to work to end systemic racism?  What does it look like when the Christian community joins together to lift people up of all sexual orientations, races, socioeconomic statuses, ages, and abilities? What does it look like when the Wilderness community joins with one another from all different eras to share stories and talk about how WCB has impacted them? Let’s consult back with the lichens to try and help answer these questions.

British Solider Lichen

Lichens are incredibly diverse. Scientists have discovered around 15,000 different species of lichen around the world. There are different species of algae that pair with the fungus and even sometimes bacteria that creatively wedges itself into this community. These pairings create a variety of beautiful lichens ranging from old man’s beard to reindeer lichen, to hammered shield lichen, and even British soldier lichen. This diversity makes them so special and also so understudied. There is so much to still learn about lichen and, until recently, folx had a next-to-impossible time trying to identify them due to their structurally small size. So if you are looking to have an organism named after you, lichen is a great place to start your studying! As I consider how lichens are 400 million years old, it makes me think about how lichens rich biological diversity could have impacted the sustainability of their existence. This diversity has grown their community to make them become some of the oldest and most unique systems of mutual reciprocity in nature.

“Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity. Each person, human or no, is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a stream’s gift of pure water then I am responsible for returning a gift in kind. An integral part of a human’s education is to know those duties and how to perform them.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Reindeer Lichen

This act of reciprocity, as Robin Wall Kimmerer shares in the above reading from Braiding Sweetgrass, is a seemingly simple idea. Within lichen, the fungus is acting to protect the algae. These fungal threads (called hyphae) wrap around the algae just like a swaddling blanket. The algae produce sugars through photosynthesis not only to provide for themselves but also for the fungus that is keeping them safe. This allows them to have a complete symbiotic relationship with one another; the fungus provides protection for the algae like a home and the algae providing for the fungus like a cook. We can learn about what it means to not only give but also receive from analyzing this symbiotic relationship. This relationship allows for lichen to be able to grow in extreme environments that you would think would be just an absolute desolate wasteland, but it is covered in life.  Lichens cover rocks that are tackled by waves, trees that are tossed in the wind, sometimes even covering the oh-so-inhospitable building or sidewalk. They are everywhere, and on top of all that they continue to thrive and survive through harsh freezing winters. Now that is down-right resilience.

Currently we live in a time where we all have to be resilient, and some more-so than others. Many of us are trying to find different ways practice resilience in this time whether it be sewing masks, attending protests, signing petitions, or donating to a cause. Resilience may also look as ordinary as going to work, finding a job, or attending a doctor’s appointment. We can see how resilient the lichens are and learn that it is a small ecological community of different types of algae and fungi supporting one another. Our communities can also provide resilience. The Wilderness Canoe Base community, for example, is extremely resilient. A forest fire couldn’t cancel our summer programming in 2007 and even through a global pandemic we are able to provide virtual programming and offer Wilderness to families through Family Getaways. We would not have been able to do this without the help and vast support of our broad community.

“Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man  from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

– Genesis 2:5-9

Old Man’s Beard

Lastly, lichens are a great indicator of good air quality (this is called a “bio-indicator”). There are some species of lichen that are sensitive to common air pollutants like nitrogen, which is why you may find less lichen in cities than in places like the Boundary Waters. They also have the ability to absorb air pollutants and clean up the air. This makes me think about breath and how our religion started with breath – God breathing life into this world like in our first reading today. The Greek word for Lord is “Yahweh” which literally translates to “inhale” (Yah) and “exhale” (weh). Lichens are indicators of God’s breath of creation. The air that we breathe is the air that the lichens breathe. God’s presence is clear in wilderness spaces through the awe and wonder that surrounds places like the Boundary Waters. But that is also one of the troubles with wilderness; sometimes we forget about God’s presence in the city.

But you know what still exists in the city? Lichen! Although it’s not found in the same quantities, you can still find it cleaning up pollutants and making the air clean for all of God’s creation to breathe in.

So what have these small, almost unnoticed, pairings of algae and fungus taught us? Lichens are a small community that has been living harmoniously for centuries thanks to their incredible diversity. They are resilient and can withstand harsh and troublesome conditions for years. And that they are sharing the same air and space that we are. How can we better shape the Christian community to look like this? People have been displaying the resiliency of lichens for years. Just look at the Black Lives Matter movement, or the LGBTQIA+ community, the people that stood for standing rock and protested the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the folx that fought for the Equal Rights Amendment. How could Christians be better at supporting these resilient strong communities? What are we doing well at? What are some things we should consider about our historical past and our cultural lenses? What could the Wilderness Canoe Base community improve to help support resilience and sustainability for these communities? On the flip side, what have both of these communities done well? This is a huge question that we need to continue to talk about in these spaces and then go a step further and act upon them. A starting point is thinking about how we can support these communities that have suffered years of discrimination and then create an action plan that we will abide by. Just like how the fungi support the algae in lichen.