The picture of black raspberries piled over a bowl of vanilla ice cream caught my eye as I scrolled through my Facebook feed. The caption for the picture read:
“Spring black raspberries. Yum. Raspberries are a great lesson in perspective. You first pick the ones that are most obvious. Then you think ‘that’s all.’ Then you change your point of view, and a great abundance reveals itself. A friend of mine calls these the “Big Book” lessons. So true.”
It reminds me of a reflection/poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
I love that my friend did both. She not only plucked black raspberries, but she also noticed that her berry bush was crammed with heaven and afire with God.
The Christian tradition tells a far more dramatic version of this kind of sacred experience. One morning Jesus’ friends gathered together. While they were praying a powerful wind blew around them and they saw tongues of flame rest over each person. Then they heard themselves speaking in a language they had never spoken before. Visitors in the city who had come from different countries were able to understand the stories the friends of Jesus were telling about their time with Jesus.
While the differences between the experience of Jesus’ friends and my friend with the blackberries are obvious
- my friend did not speak in a different language
- she did not have a tongue of flame descend on her
I’m actually more curious about what they share in common.
So often that Christian story is told as if the friends of Jesus were just going about their day and suddenly were taken over by this profound, spiritual experience, as if they only played a passive role. But they weren’t passive. They contributed to this spiritual encounter.
It had been fifty days since Jesus’ died. For forty days they experienced his presence, though it was often hard to recognize him. And then he told them they would no longer be able to see him as they had been. But he would continue to be with them in Spirit.
He told them to gather and wait, and the Spirit would come. And so they waited. And the Spirit came.
They waited. They prayed. They watched for. And the Spirit came.
This contrasts with a different wisdom teaching about the Spirit. The night before he dies Jesus tells his friends, “The world will not experience the presence of the Spirit because the world will not go looking for it. The world will not recognize the Spirit when She’s present.”
This is the same wisdom captured in Elizabeth Barret Browning’s poem,
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
My friend picking black raspberries, the friends of Jesus, and Barret Browning share the same spiritual truth. Spirit is with us all the time. But we can miss it, if we aren’t watching for Her.
The Spirit did not randomly disrupt the lives of Jesus’ friends when She showed up in wind and fire. They had been waiting for Her. Watching for Her. Praying for Her presence. And so when she showed up they recognized her.
There is reciprocity in our relationship with Spirit. We offer our attention, and She reveals herself.
My friend picking blackberries could learn the spiritual lesson about “abundance revealing itself when you change your point of view,” because she’s come to know that “earth is crammed with heaven” and she recognized Spirit ablaze in her black raspberry bush.
We offer our attention, and Spirit reveals herself.
Wisdom teachers sometimes call this Second Sight. Being able to see Spirit’s presence in, with and under life’s everyday moments.
Peter Mayer, in his song “Holy Now” describes this shift:
“When I was a boy each week
Sunday we would go to church
Pay attention to the priest
And he would read the holy word
Consecrate the holy bread
Everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
This morning outside I stood
Saw a little redwinged bird
Shining like a burning bush
And singing like a scripture verse
Made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
‘Cause everything is holy now”
We can cultivate this kind of sight. Sometimes it begins in grief, when someone recognizes their mother’s presence in the cardinal visitation after her death, much like Jesus’s friends recognized Jesus’ presence with them after his death, though he appeared differently to them.
Other times we feel prompted to call a friend, and discover our call came just when they needed to hear from us, and we begin to recognize the Spirit’s presence in that prompting.
Or, like Jesus’ friends, we set aside time to pray, sit quietly, watchfully, and a sacred text, that at one time might have just been an interesting story about other people, suddenly offers us surprising guidance about a question we’ve been living with.
Or like Mayer describes in his song, we watch a weeping willow dancing in the wind, or the grace of heron gliding over the lake, and feel caught up in a holy moment.
As this happens more often, we can even begin to notice Spirit’s presence in the disruptions in our life.
A friend of mine had been traveling, and windy weather canceled her ferry transport. She found herself lamenting at first the need to change her travel plans. She would not be able to visit one of the destinations on her pilgrimage. Interestingly, in some sacred texts the word for Wind is the same word for Spirit. As she considered how Spirit might be present in the windy disruption, she discovered Spirit had paused her travels, inviting her to reflect more deeply on the beginning of her journey, before heading out again on her pilgrimage.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;”
Spirit blazes around us all the time. She may not show up as dramatically in our lives, as she did that morning for Jesus’ friends in tongues of flame, but when we notice her, the outcomes can be similar.
The disciples found themselves sharing their stories of their experience with their wisdom teacher, Jesus. As others listened, they wanted to know more, and found themselves embarking on their own spiritual journeys.
My friend chose to share her black raspberry story on her FaceBook page, sharing her encounter with Spirit in a way that invited others to notice Spirit blazing in their lives too.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.”
Spirit surrounds us all the time. She’s in, with and under our family visits, our bodily ailments, our walks in the woods, our conflicts at work, our daily meals, and the weekly laundry chores.
“‘Cause everything is holy now”
“But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
Questions for Reflection
- What practices help you notice Spirit’s presence in your life?
- Where have you noticed Spirit in your everyday life? Where have you noticed heaven crammed into earth?