Gratitude Grove

This reflection was written for the Beacon newsletter of Christ Episcopal Church in Sausalito CA published on September 17, 2021. (Another version was published in the September Chronicle newsletter of Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA).

Gratitude Grove

Welcome to Gratitude Grove, a moment for reflecting on ways we are grateful for our spiritual family and CEC community. This month Fr. Daniel London, our dear friend and guest presenter during last year’s Stewardship program, took a moment to share a recent experience that flexed his spiritual muscles. Read on to learn how Fr. Daniel embraces the act of expressing gratitude; a healthy and life-giving practice to count our blessings.    About this time last year, I was meeting with the stewardship team of Christ Church Sausalito on zoom as we were preparing for Consecration Sunday 2020. We began each of our meetings by sharing blessings for which we were feeling especially grateful. In the face of COVID, destructive wildfires, and an impending presidential election, this simple act of counting our blessings effectively shifted my outlook and infused me with hope. Now that the delta variant has thrown a wrench into many of our regathering plans, I feel a hunger for that same hope and thus a call to deepen my discipline of gratitude and flex those same spiritual muscles I was building last year with you. One of the blessings I celebrated last year which continues to fill me with gratitude today is the cool, maritime climate of Humboldt County, which is not unlike that of Sausalito. A couple weeks ago, I had a close encounter with a nearby wildfire that filled me with a renewed sense of appreciation for the ubiquitous Humboldt fog (not the cheese). At the end of August, I drove about an hour east of Eureka to the town of Willow Creek for a two-night prayer retreat. When I left Eureka, the temperature was about 55 degrees and the air was cool and misty; a typical Eureka day. When I arrived in Willow Creek, the temperature spiked up to 90 degrees and the air was disturbingly dry, smokey, and toxic due to the nearby Monument Fire. Fortunately, the small cabin where I stayed had air conditioning and sufficient insulation. On the last night of my retreat, I prayed Compline in bed, and felt particularly moved by the Antiphon prayer prayed before and after the Song of Simeon (Nunc dimittis): “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace” (p. 134, 135). After closing my prayer book and snuggling under the sheets for a restful sleep, I noticed an alarm on my phone informing me of an immediate evacuation order by the Sheriff’s department for people living in the Willow Creek area due to the growing Knob Fire. As I began to look on my iPhone map to see whether I was in the evacuation zone, all the power in the cabin suddenly shut down. I had no cell phone reception at the cabin, and now I had no internet or air conditioning or light. I would have felt only slightly inconvenienced by the power outage if I hadn’t just learned that I was likely in the middle of a fire evacuation zone. I thought, “Well, I could go to bed and simply trust that God will indeed guard and protect me in my sleep or I could grab a flashlight and start packing up my belongings.” Since I was leaving the next morning anyway, I thought that I might as well play it safe and not tempt God, especially since I was completely incommunicado and in the dark, literally. After packing the car, I drove to a nearby bar called RockSlide Bar & Grill to see if anyone there had more information about the evacuation order. I was wearing my face mask not only for COVID protection but also as a filter for all the smoke in the air. However, no one else in the area seemed to be wearing masks at all so I was clearly marked as an out-of-towner when I walked into the bar and asked if we were in the evacuation zone. The people were friendly and cavalier, but not particularly helpful in their replies: “Honestly, we’ve probably been in an evacuation zone for several weeks now!” and “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. If you burn, we’ll all burn with you!” And then the bartender told me that even if I wanted to drive back to Eureka, I probably wouldn’t make it since the roads are often closed at this time of night. Since I had already packed my belongings and cleared out of the cabin, I decided to head west on Highway 299 to find out for myself. As I drove through Willow Creek, I saw the glow of the Knob fire spreading on the mountains beside me. My concern turned into anxiety when a truck in front of me slowed down and stopped in the middle of the highway and then made a sharp U-turn. The air became smokier, and the blaze of the fire grew brighter as I approached a one-lane, unpaved construction zone. I wondered if I made the wrong decision by leaving the cabin, if I had left one bad situation for one that was much worse. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. I felt that many of the prayers I had been praying over the weekend had been preparing me for this moment when I had to entrust myself fully to God. My prayers then extended to all those whose cars and homes and bodies were affected by the Knob fire as well as the other major fires ravaging the west and the waters flooding the east. I was reminded of a line from The Cloud of Unknowing in which the anonymous author says, “Be prepared for your heart to be set aflame by the wildfire of God’s love.”* It was hard for me to see God present in the fire that was consuming and destroying so much of the stunning landscape, but I felt invited to trust that God was indeed a consuming fire of love, purifying and refining our hearts, compelling us to let go of our idols of false security, and calling us to be grateful for all that which we take for granted. As I turned a corner, I saw several emergency vehicles, flood lights, and armed officers standing by the road. I rolled down my window and asked an officer if the road up ahead was open so that I could return to Eureka. I was relieved when he said, “Yes! Drive safely.” After about 30 minutes of driving west, the temperature dropped about 40 degrees and the smoke was replaced by the refreshing Humboldt mist. When I arrived safely home, I crawled into bed and opened my prayer book again to page 135 and smiled as I prayed, “Lord, you now have set your servant free to sleep in peace as you have promised.” I then fell asleep, counting my blessings instead of sheep, feeling especially grateful for the clean air and cool climate that protects us and refreshes us along the coast of California. *See The Cloud of Unknowing Distilled (Apocryphile Press: Hannacroix NY, 2021), 32. Another English Medieval poet and mystic named Richard Rolle wrote a book a few years before The Cloud of Unknowing titled Incendium Amoris, which means The Fire of Love. Also, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls God a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).