This year has been the year of the owl for me. It started last spring when I noticed a large owl often perched in two or three specific trees along a trail that I usually walk. One day, tucked high in the hollow of a dead tree, I saw what I thought was a small set of owl eyes. Daily for several months, I would stop to greet the baby owls; it turned out there were three owls in the "owl hollow." They eventually left the nest but stayed close by; another select set of trees became their favored hang-out in the early days of summer. As the days lengthened and grew hotter, the owls became harder to spot, but not impossible; they were spreading their wings and finding new territories. Now, in late fall, there is no predicting where I'll see them, but almost daily, I'll find an owl perched high up in a tree somewhere. I always stop, and I always gently bring my hands to prayer position (as they say in yoga) and bow, "I bid you peace" or "the Christ in me bows to the Christ in you."
Here's the thing. Spotting owls almost always requires nuance. The Cambridge Oxford dictionary defines nuance as:
a very slight difference in appearance, meaning, sound, etc.
a quality of something that is not easy to notice but may be important.
Owls are made to blend into the trees. Somedays, I know I've walked right past an owl without knowing. I've spotted the owl other days, only to blink and then lose it until I scan again. Owls often hide in plain sight. Owls are not easy to notice, but when I see one, it always feels important and sacred.
Last week in this newsletter, I shared this quote by David Dark.
I want very badly to challenge the ease with which we succumb to the false divide of labels, that moment in which our empathy gives out and we refuse to respond openhandedly or even curiously to see people with whom we differ. As I see it, to refuse the possibility of finding another person interesting, complex and as complicated as oneself is a form of violence. At bottom, this is a refusal of nuance, and I wish to posit that nuance is sacred. To call it sacred is to value it so highly that we find it fitting to somehow set it apart as something to which we're forever committed. Nuance refuses to envision others degradingly, denying them the content of their own experience, and talks us down tenderly from the false ledges we've put ourselves on. When we take it on as a sacred obligation, nuance also delivers us out of the deadly habit of cutting people out of our own imaginations. This opens us up to the possibility of at least occasionally finding one another beautiful, the possibility of communion. [...] It could be that there's no communion without [nuance].”
― David Dark
I like to encourage people to notice when a passage has an invitation and to stay with it. I'm staying with it. The word nuance has been shimmering, sparkling, and challenging me all week. Every day this past week, I've read something about nuance. When a word or concept is working so hard to be noticed, I think it's worth taking the time to find out why.
What if nuance IS sacred, as Dark suggests?
Sacred1 means something set apart, fundamental, holy, having a special connection to the divine.
Nuance as sacred feels like an invitation to slow down and go deeper. It's an invitation to find the common thread. To see the subtleties, to find what's similar rather than what's different. To notice the small but significant differences.
When I'm on a walk, and I'm scanning the limbs and trees, trying to find the body of an owl that blends right into the bark, trunk, and branches of a tree, I'm practicing the art of nuance. I'm trying to find what is subtly different from everything around it. When I see the owl, it's always, every time, sacred. Each time I greet the owl, I'm reminded of our connectedness. I am reminded that I share my place with not only my human neighbors but my nature neighbors.
While nuance is essential when it comes to spotting owls. There is a more significant invitation to the art of nuance, that is, to be a nuanced listener. To engage with social media, news, and my neighbors practicing the art of nuance.
Maybe even more challenging is to engage with my own thoughts with nuance. I've heard wise heart-centered teachers say, "don't believe everything you think." It jumps out to me every time I hear it because, well, it's so easy to believe everything I think. Nuance invites us to dig deeper. Scan further. Ask a few more questions. Look for the contours, the shadows, the opposite.
The art and practice of nuance is not easy. It's challenging. It requires intentionality and a pause. It requires humility to not believe everything I think. It's a practice to ask more questions, to look deeper, think deeper. I know that I'm just getting started.
Spiritual Director Training Update:
When I started this newsletter, part of the idea was sharing and processing what I was learning in my Spiritual Director Training. I don't often explicitly share. It's been more implicit. (For instance, I didn't share in the essay above about the current reading I'm doing on Spiritual direction is about listening and living with nuance (even if the word isn't directly used.) Or how in a recent supervision session I was a part of the power of nuance really shifted me towards some forgiveness and healing that was holding me back.)
Last week I officially completed the first year of training. It's been a genuinely transformative experience. I've learned so much from the readings, my cohort, trainers, and those brave friends who have been willing to let me walk with them as a very novice Spiritual Director.
As I begin the second year of formation and training, we've been given the green light journey with others in Spiritual Direction. If you are interested in Spiritual Direction, I created a FAQ using many common frequently asked questions about Spiritual Direction which really includes much of my developing understanding and guiding beliefs about the practice of Spiritual Direction.
Please reach out after you've read my FAQ if you would like to schedule a time to explore if Spiritual Direction with me (or one of my cohort or other Spiritual Director friends) would be something you'd like to add to your calendar in 2022.
Download information on Spiritual Direction Here
Listen with nuance. Maybe it's finding a song from your youth that was a favorite, listening to the message, the words, the beliefs. (I did this with some Christian music from the '90s...Wow-the phrases were catchy, but the theology was.....not good. It was actually really a great practice of listening for and with nuance.)
Walk with nuance. What can you find hiding in plain sight in your yard or neighborhood when you look just a little bit deeper?
Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans
I loved this book. Rachel Held Evans died suddenly and tragically a few years ago. This is a collection of her last essays/book in development that she was writing prior to her death. I think I like her writing so much because she went from evangelical to Episicoplian (just like me!) She was wise beyond her years and truly excelled in the art of nuance.
I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
THEME: Nuance (of course)
Most of my opinions are not as informed and well rounded as I would like. I have to be humble enough to accept that I don’t know enough. If my goal is to understand something true, then being challenged is a good thing. We need to be challenged occasionally and to get out of the echo chamber that is your own philosophical group or your own confirmation biased mind. The alternative is to only be able to hear one narrative and for those who oppose that narrative to be silenced, or to have uncivil debate by two polar opposite opinions. Truth is usually found to be hidden in a field of nuance and, as Albert Maysles said, “Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy
“Practice of nuance means asking painful, difficult questions—questions that might reveal something new or bring a position into different relief or otherwise illuminate our perspectives.”
― Sarah Stewart Holland & Beth Silvers, I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations
“When everyone says the same thing about some complex topic, what should come to your mind is, 'wait a minute, nothing can be that simple, something's wrong.' That's the immediate light that should go off in your brain when you ever hear unanimity on some complex topic." (The Ezra Klein Show 2021/04/23)”
― Noam Chomsky
FUNNY NOTE: I looked up sacred in the Cambridge Oxford dictionary, the example of the usage of the word: The owl is sacred for many Native American people. (What? Owls are the example!!)