There’s something that, at least to me, feels strange about identifying “silver linings” to sheltering at home. We don’t seem to be through this time yet, and there are a lot of unknowns around the corner. We haven’t accounted for the toll this has taken on lives and livelihoods, and how can we interpret something we’re in the midst of?
Even so, gratitude and lament can rightly co-exist. They do throughout the Psalms. And both these things—gratitude and lament—presuppose attentiveness and care. We neither mourn nor celebrate that which we ignore. Perhaps a good that some have found in these times sheltering at home is an increased awareness of the place they are in. Many of these mid-May resources revolve around that: paying newfound attention.
Simone Weil writes that, “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.” In an interview by Norman Wirzba, Wendell Berry asserts that love must always be particularized and recites a poem of attentiveness to the particular loves of his earthly life. Fittingly, Frederick Buechner describes in a 1992 talk at Laity Lodge how the power of words, particularly poetry, might jolt us into paying attention to what is before us in a given moment. There are two occasions here where the poetic music of Sandra McCracken offers to shape what and how we see and attend to: the newest album from Rain for Roots, “All Creatures,” as well as a conversation with Ellen Davis interspersed with songs. And if the track “Bird Song” catches your interest, there’s also the timely reminder of the place of birdwatching in attentiveness and tips on bringing birds to our backyards.
Finally, should you need to attend to yourself in these times, I commend to you Curt Thompson’s reflections, shaped to how you feel today. This may be a good place to start if you feel you have little attentiveness or care to spare.
If Simone Weil is right, that attention to its highest degree is prayer, these may be prayerful times we’re in. As we attend to ourselves, our loved ones, the birds we see, the blooming flowers, a potted plant, may these be wordless prayers giving shape to gratitude and lament in these days.
See the complete listing of mid-May resources that we’ve curated on the Sheltering at Home page. Our aim is to provide you with opportunities for learning, engagement, encouragement, and hope from our perspective as a creation care organization.
Grant Shellhouse works as the Hospitality Manager at Laity Lodge. He earned his Master in Divinity from Duke Divinity School, where he gravitated towards Christian agrarianism, ecologically-informed theology, food and faith, and environmental ethics. He and his wife, Wylie, live in Kerrville, Texas, where he grows as many tomatoes and Texas native plants as his apartment patio will allow.
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