We were lovers who … decided to make the world a better place by slowing down long enough to pay for its improvement—by paying attention, the reverent, even holy attention of love. —Brian McLaren, The Galápagos Islands
Brian McLaren considers how paying attention to tortoises is a form of love:
At each place, [my companions and I] experienced sustained moments of shared, focused attention, so shared and so focused that we forgot ourselves. For significant periods of time, we were drawn out of ourselves into the observation of another, as in another species.
We were thoroughly engrossed by tortoises….
There they were—there we were. Intrigued. Drawn in. Enchanted. For minutes, even hours at a time. Whether in the wild or in a breeding center, we surrendered ourselves to them, to their habits, their pace, their well-being, to seeing the world in light of their needs and interests.
We had given our hearts to these unique creatures that are unique features of this unique world.
The great novelist Marilynne Robinson was once asked by an interviewer, “What single thing would make the world in general a better place?”
She replied, “Loving it more.” [1]
And then the revelation comes: in loving these unique creatures that are unique features of this unique world, we were making the world better.
I do not doubt this in even one neural synapse of my brain….
Our attentive experience of self-forgetfulness and whole-hearted tortoise observation was, in a real way, ecstatic. We were taken out of ourselves in the contemplation of a creature so different from us in many ways, yet like us in others. We had fallen out of our normal concerns and into love, you might say. Or risen into love. Or embarked upon it. Or leapt into it.
Perhaps the old phrase (thanks, Kierkegaard!) “leap of faith” … would be better rendered a leap of love.
I know that both Jesus and Saint Paul said that our faith would save us. And I get that. But I wonder if it is equally true to say that if we are to be saved, it will not be by faith alone but by love as well. After all, didn’t Jesus say that love is the one greatest command, and didn’t Paul say that without love, nothing else we have (including faith that moves mountains) amounts to a hill of beans?… Maybe love includes as a given the kind of faith that really matters. That would certainly be the case if another voice in the New Testament was correct when he said, without qualification, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16).
Could that be why … [many people] join one another, and perhaps even join their Creator, in loving these creations, these tortoises…?
I gaze with human benevolence and with a deeper human awareness … of our profound, inescapable kinship.
I gaze with love.
And somehow, the world is made a little better.
References:
[1] Lisa Allardice, interview with Marilynne Robinson, The Guardian, July 6, 2018.
Brian D. McLaren, The Galápagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2019), 203–205, 207–208, 221.
Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, love and reeds (detail), 2021, photo, Los Angeles. Click here to enlarge image. We love nature as a friend, holding it gently and developing a relationship through our bodies.
Story from Our Community:
All my life, I have found solace in nature. My altar became the woods and the stars at night. I [had an] … abusive mother and although much of my life has been filled with grace, I still struggle with the physical and mental effects of trauma. But God makes everything beautiful in its own time. I am now beginning to realize that I am grateful for my trauma. It keeps me close to God’s ever-present love, and the acceptance that life is always both/and.
—Beth M.
