The Walking Stick Journal

Stepping Stones of Transformation

An Unfolding Manuscript

by 

C.D. Baker

Chapter Five: Attachment to Trees

 

If I had a pill that guaranteed the end to all unnecessary fear, you and I might take it together. But there is no such pill, so many of us walk with fear as our unwelcome companion. 

Jesus tells us to be anxious about nothing. “Do not be afraid,” he says. Missing his words as an offer into divine comfort, preachers too often distort his beautiful invitation as an impossible demand, commanding us to have more faith…to believe, better. 

As if we could muster magic.

And when we cannot rise to dispel our fears, we become all the more anxious. 

The truth is that inner peace–the deep shalom of God’s love– may be a longing but it cannot be an accomplishment. Nevertheless, when our deep selves are available to the wonder of the Spirit, we can be led through our fear and toward Jesus’s blessing. Sometimes that leading delivers us to the most unexpected of places.

***

February – March, 2019

I am sitting in Bill’s waiting area reviewing my journal notes. He always disappears for a bit when I first arrive.

Bill then points me into his office with a friendly smile and his standard, “So how are you today?”

I grunt something, and before long am blurting out that that my childhood was filled with bad dreams.

“That’s significant.”

“As a teen I’d escape to the bright lights and hard tile of the bathroom in the middle of the night to calm down.” I suddenly realize that my anxiety is not as new as I thought. 

I then tell him about my ongoing obsession with (It)…that I’m constantly checking my hands for tremors and muscle wasting.

“You’re actually anxious about something else, but you transfer your fear to your hands. It’s not okay to ignore anxieties.”

His tone feels authoritative. I look out the window. Authority figures are not my favorites. At least two have cast long, fear-inducing shadows since my childhood. One of them is God. 

I don’t risk telling him that my anxiety feels worse since I started doing this. Instead, I start building a wall with words until I finally don’t want to. I then say something real. “My expectation is that this process will expose my weaknesses, and then you’ll judge me.” Not sure if that’s even fair. My mouth goes dry.

Bill offers that look he has of please hear me: “I understand why you feel that way. I hope you can learn to connect to people who care about you. I care about you.” He lets that sink in, then says, “It’s attachment that makes us feel safe.”

Attachment? I’m surprised by that and I write it down. “Attachment makes us feel safe.” 

***

Friday, March 1, 2019

Strange morning. Still processing. Feels really big:

Had walked downslope toward the creek listening again to Thad Fiscella’s instrumental, “The Beauty of Grace.” It’s become an important song to me for some reason that I can’t explain.

I stopped walking and looked through the stark woodland, and it was then that everything around me suddenly changed. The bare trees dissolved into a singular, textured scene that was weirdly available to me. I dared not move as my eyes relaxed their focus into a restful gaze. I could feel myself being absorbed into a soft something ‘More’ that was gentle, even kind.

Everything melded with everything else. A deep stillness held the whole. Soft edges. A diffused monochrome of bark and branches joined to a yellow-brown carpet of leaves. It was all one.

I stood in the midst of this sacred vision and then felt an integration of welcome that included me. In that fleeting moment it was like I belonged to all of it…attached in an unfamiliar, numinous way. My eyes filled and a tear slid along my cheek. 

§

The vision of the woodland followed me through the following chaotic month, as did the music of the creek from before that. I wish I knew how to process all of this, but I know that something is touching me. These experiences feel like they are now part of who I am. I hope so.

Today I’m waiting nervously in the dermatologist’s office for a biopsy report. Why am I anxious about everything?  I’m told the key is surrender. Surrender what? Control? That feels dangerous.

Surrender to God? He scares me. 

A couple of days ago I remembered a picture in my old children’s Bible. It was some guy racing for a sanctuary city. That’s me, but I can’t get there. I take a breath. I’m so tired. I close my eyes, dreading the doctor’s report. 

I then remembered how good the woodland vision felt when I was absorbed into the wonder–when I felt attached to the trees. 

Or was I attached to something More?

Or Someone more?

I smiled.