By Jennifer Grant
Maybe it’s the name of the wildlife refuge: “Ding Darling.” Perhaps it’s that
the forest grows out of shallow saltwater, tree branches swarming with
thousands of tiny, fiddler crabs. It could just be the otherworldly quiet of
the place. Whatever it is, when I’m kayaking through the mangroves in Sanibel
Island’s Tarpon Bay, Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky
comes to mind.
The poem begins (and ends) with the following lines:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Mangroves. Tarpon Bay.
Fiddler crabs. These sound like they could be figments of Carroll’s whimsical imagination.
Published in 1872, Jabberwocky is
found in his sequel to Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland. Slithy
toves and mome raths?
Perhaps they are lurking there in the Florida swamps as well.
Paddling
through the wildlife refuge has become the highlight of recent summer vacations,
and not just because the experience evokes Carroll’s silly rhymes. To navigate around
narrow turns and away from low-hanging branches in the watery path requires focus.
My companions and I are, mostly, silent. We are watchful for egrets,
cormorants, and herons. No phones ring; nothing calls our attention away from the
moment and place where we are. We are present.
Focus. Silence. Presence.
Do
these words – in the context of our noisy, multitasking lives – sound like a kind
of “jabberwocky”? Despite auto-replies to the contrary, most of us are rarely
far from email or a wireless connection to the Internet. Distractions – chimes
and buzzes and beeps from our hand-held devices – fragment the moments of our
lives.
But
this way of living comes at a cost.
The
most precious human experiences require us to be absorbed fully in what we are
doing. Creating or engaging with art. Listening as someone tells her story. Being
intimate with another person. Sensing God’s company. When we only half-listen to
– or half-engage in – any one of these experiences, it is diminished.
This
summer as schedules shift, if not slow down, let us set our intentions on being
present right where we are as much as
possible.
·
Let’s
take sabbaticals, even for just a few hours at a
time or just one day a week, from the incessant buzzing and chiming of cell
phones and laptops.
·
Let’s
choose to gift others with the very best present of all – our full attention.
·
Let’s
believe that there’s no reason to so frenetically attend to the fleeting details of our lives (see Luke
12:27-32).
Let’s
choose to carve out more time for
silence, for focus, for whimsy, and accept with open hands the gifts that
God has for us this summer, whether they are as jarring as a broken tree limb
jutting up from the bottom of a swamp, or as capricious as a play on words.
Jennifer Grant is the author of
Love You More and MOMumental. She is a frequent contributor to Christianity
Today’s her.meneutics blog for women.
Read more at www.jennifergrant.com.
To be present in the whimsy is one of life's great pleasures, Jen, whether in a Florida mangrove swamp or sweltering in the 108 degree heat we have here in northern California today.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Tim