Consider the Strawberries...

They Neither Sow Nor Reap, But They Have So Much to Share

In his books Sex, Ecology and Spirituality and A Brief History of Everything, philosopher Ken Wilber suggests that nature mysticism is the “lowest” form of mystical consciousness. Thankfully, nature mystics themselves do not seem to have gotten the memo, and so they continue to offer the earth community plenty of amazing wisdom, wisdom both humble and awe-inspiring.

For example, I so appreciate the wisdom of Potawatomi botanist, author and spiritual teacher Robin Wall Kimmerer (b. 1953), who offers a beautiful meditation on fostering a healthy relationship between spiritual wisdom and the natural world in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. She invites us into the visionary knowing and abundant beneficence that can come to us through something as simple as the ordinary strawberry:

Strawberries first shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery—as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source.

When I read these words, I think rather ruefully about how so many practicing Christians have very little understanding of a concept like grace. We are so caught up in a world where everything must be earned and where concepts like fairness and even equality are intertwined with notions of worthiness or deservedness. But Jesus understood that divine love (grace) flows even to us (and others) who do not “deserve” it… and clearly, strawberries (and wisdom teachers like Robin Wall Kimmerer) understand this as well.

“Your only role is to be open-eyed and present.” What an invitation — and how deeply contemplative. There’s an old Zen saying: “Quit trying; quit trying not to try; quit quitting.” May we all learn to release the compulsion to try to prove ourselves worthy of love (divine or otherwise), and instead simply give ourselves to the flow of love given and received. Then we will be like Jesus’s lilies of the field… or like Robin Wall Kimmerer’s strawberries.