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More than 400 people from across the Albany Diocese came to Carondelet Hospitality Center in Latham on a recent spring evening to hear theologian Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, speak on the Holy Spirit. Wonderful teacher that she is, Sister Elizabeth divided her talk into three parts: the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit in human life and the Holy Spirit in nature.

In the last section, on the "cosmic presence of the Holy Spirit," she called nature the place where God dwells, reminding us that there are two books of Revelation - Scripture and nature.

However, she added, when Christian theology separated natural and supernatural, we lost a focus on the natural, on the "beloved creation filled with the Spirit."

Three of my favorite books describe nature filled with the Holy Spirit. Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," which I read many years ago, has stayed with me as vivid images of God's profligate and varied natural world. Dillard spent a year at Tinker Creek in Virginia, simply observing the creek's biological life. That in this instance she called herself a "pilgrim" has always delighted me: Her journey with creation was a spiritual journey, a journey filled with the Holy Spirit.

Kathleen Norris subtitled her account of 20 years in the Dakotas "A Spiritual Geography." Is my backyard a place where I am reading a "spiritual geography?" Norris tells me that her reading of nature is connected intrinsically to her spirituality.

"Walden" by Henry David Thoreau was, for so many of us who connected to his retreat, a revelation of truth and wisdom. The Spirit comes from every page of this classic of American literature.

Mystics all, did they know as we know that we are all kin, that we have a common genetic ancestry, that we form one mutually interdependent community of life, that all creation is held together by the oneness of love, from the stars to the depths of the sea?

I was tempted to check out these classics from the library and reread them. Instead, I will do as these writers did: spend time in my own backyard and elsewhere, practicing what theologian Sister Ilia Delio, OSF, refers to in her book, "Eco-Christology: Living in Creation as the Body of Christ."

Since deciding this, I have had two amazing instances of "revelation" from nature. Outside my office window, I noticed as, day after day, on a barren tree, a single leaf grew from tiny green emergence to full-blown green life. In my former frame of mind, I would not have seen this as I worked busily at my computer.

One day, our staff at Sacred Heart parish in Castleton took a lunchtime field trip to a rocky cliff overhanging Schodack Creek. In a tree across the water, I saw, aided by binoculars, a mother eagle sitting with her two babies, only visible by a little black fuzz on their heads. Together, we staff ate lunch, felt the sunshine and watched. I felt as if we were at prayer, practicing "eco-Christianity" and "living in creation as the Body of Christ."

I'll stop writing now, and go see what's going on in my backyard.

(Sister Francine is pastoral associate at Sacred Heart parish in Castleton.)[[In-content Ad]]

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