But What Kind of Bears?

A thought on naming things and wonder

Greg asks good questions, but he also knows when to not ask questions.

Last year, I was hiking with my cohort during the Discovering Renewal retreat (it’s just three months away!). As we started our hike, there was a sign at the beginning of the trail which warned hikers to watch out for venomous snakes. While it was way too early in the season to see any of our slithery friends, this sign did seem to make each hiker ask what wildlife we might encounter on this two-day adventure.

Lions, tigers, and bears—oh my!

Bears hibernate; everyone knows that. But bears in the smokey mountains (and the surrounding country) do not hibernate. They just den. They’ll sleep for long periods of time, but they’ll come out on warmer days, so it isn’t true hibernation.

So, would it be warm enough to see a bear in early April in North Carolina? Possibly. While our host told us they hadn’t seen any bears, the very next morning she saw some on her way into work, so anything is possible.

But all of this talk about bears and wildlife encounters made us citizens of the twenty-first century almost utter an all too familiar line, “Let me look that up.”

Ah, Google. A wonderful tool for when you're doing research or fact-checking you preacher’s statistics mid-sermon. But when you are on a hike in the woods of Montreat intentionally trying to unplug from the outside world, looking up facts about black bears is the last thing you should be doing.

Enter Greg.

When I first met Greg, I was instantly impressed. His kindness and humor were captivating. His knowledge and mystic-like insights were riveting. But what impressed me most about my friend was his ability to ask questions.

As we talked, he would always ask me to go back and explain a particular aspect of something I said. He would dig a little deeper than the normal conversation partner, and his questions had a way of bringing out details that I hadn’t even seen in my own story, even though I had told those stories dozens of times.

But as good as Greg is at asking questions, he is also wise, and in his wisdom he offered some comments on not asking questions.

Possibly drawing off the work of Gerald May or Mary Oliver, I remember Greg talking about the moment between spotting a plant or an animal and identifying it. You might see a flash of grey with a blur of orange fly by, but there’s maybe half a breath of time before you think, “There goes Mr. Robin.” This moment is the time of wonder before the recognition—a time of awe before the naming.

Google, as good of a tool that it is, can often rob us of this nameless appreciation.

It’s good to sit with the unknowing for a while without having to control the world around us through analyzing, defining, and putting things into neat categories.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about the knowledge of the soul, and he said that trying to define it is like capturing a bit of air in a small phial when the whole atmosphere belongs to us.

I find systematic theology to be close to the same thing. We put God and Jesus, heaven and hell, salvation and justification, creation and eschatology into chapters and subsections with Roman numerals and large indices. We write essays and dictionaries and books. We preach sermons and do podcasts. And even now, two thousand years later, we have only scratched the surface of the knowledge of the Divine.

How small we are! And how delusional to think that any of us have enough correct theology scraped together to label anyone else a heretic. Who am I?

Where is the wonder? Where is the awe?

Sit with me, tell me of your love of God, and marvel at the unsearchable riches of God’s ways, and that will be enough. Show me your love for your neighbor measured by your love for your enemies, and that will be enough.

Why do we always have to name things? Why do we always have to be in control?

Isn’t enough to be known by God?

“Snowy Night” by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.