One day recently, I stood near the 49th parallel in Saskatchewan—the Canada-U.S. international boundary. If you look closely at this photo, you can make out a fence line at the top of the hill, representing the boundary, and a Canadian flag flying atop the highest peak on this side.
I watched a hawk glide effortlessly back and forth between our two countries and thought about how different the experience is for a human being—now, more than ever.
I pondered the fact that all of nature and the rest of life on this planet know no such boundaries, and wondered which of us is wiser. No, truth be told, I didn’t wonder, because the answer is obvious.
Later, I stood on ground where, in the 1700s, First Nations people held ceremonies, the evidence of which remains in stone circles. In another part of this land that was, as yet, undivided by artificial borders, at the same time, men fought one another to establish dominance and build borders. Now, 300 years later, we are still fighting. I wondered again where the wisdom lies. But again, I didn’t really wonder.
The older I get, the more I look to nature for truth. Every morning, I say a prayer asking for wisdom, that I might use the day to the glory of the Divine and the glory of my soul and the glory of the earth. Nowhere in there is to the glory of man (or woman).
Somewhere along the way, we human beings have chosen to worship men and women and knowledge above all else. It doesn’t take much time spent in nature, away from all the noise, to realize the folly in this. Nature doesn’t obey our directives or respect the borders we lay out. Our backyard gardens teach us that.
But, no. We insist on worshipping celebrity and flash and our desire for bigger, better, faster and MORE of everything—while a hawk flies silently back and forth between two countries and the wisdom of the past whispers in the wind.