I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Callie J. Smith’s reflection On Birch Branches and Everyday Reminders.
A birch tree reaches out over the White River at a point very near my favorite bike trail. A clear view of it opens up from the hilltop north of an interstate bridge. From there I see many branches of many trees, but the birch’s vivid white bark often catches my attention.
I first noticed the birch during the pandemic. Though an introvert who enjoys solitude, even I found the isolation of lockdowns to be difficult. That bike trail let me get out.
Greeting strangers, meeting friends at a social distance, even wandering out alone to practice – that trail let me reach out into the world at a time when I needed to feel connection. And one day, as I paused to catch my breath on top of the hill, I noticed those birch branches reaching out over the river. Hearing gentle sounds of flowing water, seeing vibrant white bark reflecting sunlight, I felt myself in the middle of something larger and more wondrous than I was usually aware of, as if our reaching had been rewarded. I whispered, “thank you.”
I got out to the trail every day that I could. Cycling alone one early November afternoon, I reached the hilltop while thinking of a supervisor who’d made our office’s pandemic-time adaptations (which included plenty of floundering) feel very kind. Gazing out over the landscape of newly bare trees, my eyes landed on the white trunk of the same birch tree. I found myself repeating, “Thank you.”
That two-word prayer kept happening. Chasing after a cycling friend one morning before work, still not able to keep up with him but not falling quite as far behind as I used to, I didn’t even take time to pause at the hilltop, but I glanced up briefly to the white branches bright with morning sun. “Thank you.”
Even winded, racing up the hill one day in desperate need of catching my breath, I stopped. Granted, the first thing I did was look behind me and make extra sure that my pursuer had given up. It was spring, and I’d cycled past a goose’s nest. An aggressively protective bird had flown into my side and knocked me off my bike. I’d gotten up and held the bike frame between us to keep the goose’s pecking beak away from me until I could put some distance between us. When I finally had the space to mount my bike, I pedaled fast. I reached the hilltop by the birch with a creeping realization that I could have gotten hurt much worse than I had. But I hadn’t. My deep exhale felt like a very visceral, “Thank you.”
Each of those grateful moments by the birch tree felt meaningful, and I noticed over time how they added up to a habit, a practice repeatable in its simplicity. Birch trees are, after all, quite common in the midwestern United States where I live. Just the other morning I made my way to the dentist’s office, and as I thought anxiously about what procedures the dentist might do, a flash of white drew my gaze from the road. Birch trees. Several slender white trunks rose within a woods along the river. Picturing another birch tree, my mind shifted. Having the resources for a dentist’s care was, after all, no small thing. It was a thing, in fact, which could offer me a little comfort, could even call forth a bit of gratitude.
My inner monk has been enjoying how something as mundane as birch bark could become so meaningful. Attention-grabbing, this reminder dwells not apart from but embedded in the places and rhythms of my own little corner of the world. It points me toward important things like gratitude and goodness. Call it divine presence, call it movement of the spirit, call it life made whole, I believe there is a persistent goodness in this world that works with the steadiness of tree growth and sometimes even appears as wondrous as white bark in the sun. Some days the birch branches point me in that direction, and I find myself saying, “Thank you.”
Callie J. Smith is a clergy person in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who resides in central Indiana. She blogs about everyday spirituality at CallieJSmith.net and is finishing her first fiction trilogy called The Sacred Grounds Novels.
