Skunks, God, and This Present Moment

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

                        Wendell Berry

 

            Early this morning, when the sky was beginning to lighten in the East, but dawn was not quite upon us, I was up, saying “good morning” to our cat, Jolene, and I happened to look out the window at our front yard. There, close to our front porch and right by my daughter’s car, was a strange looking critter. At first, I thought it was a cat or maybe a little dog. But the tail was so big and bushy, I thought that it could not possibly be a cat or dog. It was even bigger and fluffier than Jolene’s tail, and she has quite the floofy one.

             Something about that tail looked familiar. It looked like a skunk’s tail, but the tail and the back of the critter were so ghostly white, I didn’t think it could be. I thought skunks only looked one way. Of course, my knowledge of skunks comes primarily from Bugs Bunny and Pepe LePew. Don’t all skunks speak in a cheesy French accent and try to harass cats who, because of an unfortunate encounter with paint, look like skunks?

             Because I carry a small computer in my pocket in the form of a smart phone, I looked up different types of skunks. That was a skunk all right, and it was rooting and digging in our yard. I wasn’t sure what I needed to do. I went back to our room, tempted to wake up Brent, but thought better of it. In a few minutes the sky was completely light, and when I returned to the window the skunk was gone.

             Clearly, we need to make sure our home does not hold enticements for skunks, but I suspect that they will come around some no matter what we do. But while I was thinking about that skunk, I couldn’t help but think about this poem by Wendell Berry. It is a favorite poem of mine, and I often turn to it when I need a reminder about what matters in life and what does not. I doubt that little skunk was worried about grief or loss. Certainly, it would have been on alert for danger, and it has a magnificent defense system built into that bushy tail. But it was not having an existential crisis while it was digging for food. I’m pretty sure it was not questioning its purpose in the world or if anything it did had any real meaning. It was not worrying about the polarized state of politics or Covid or what kind of world its offspring would inherit. In other words, it was not worried about any of the things that I worry about on regular basis. It was just doing what skunks and other animals do – trying to find food and make it through another day.

             We are all creatures and creations of our God. Yes, even that skunk. But the difference between the skunk and other critters and us is that we can reason and think at higher levels. Most often, I would say that is a good thing. But there are times when my thinking and overthinking seems to cause more harm than good. There are times when my worries and anxieties about my life, my family’s life, our lives together, take hold of me and I find myself staring out the front window in the early hours of the morning instead of sleeping soundly. So, maybe there is a lesson to be learned from Berry’s poem and from that skunk – and other creatures too – maybe we need to learn just to be sometimes. We can call it being present in the moment or being still and at peace in the present, but whatever we call it, we need to find ways to practice it. At least I need to find those ways. Because spending too much time trying to gaze into the future, worrying about what may come, anticipating grief only serves to make me miss what is right in front of me.

             May all of us spend a little more time in the here and in the now, just being, present in the present. Thanks be to God for all of God’s creatures, even the skunks.