December and the Silence of New Fallen Snow

by Reverend Paul O. Monson

A DESCENT into the silent world of the naked and the dead! Today the valley has a look of stark finality, though it is somewhat softened by a protective shroud of new snow. The falling snowflakes, which cover the dead leaves and grass, merely highlight the bareness of tree trunks and limbs forsaken by fallen leaves. The resulting pattern of black on white is reminiscent of a Japanese print. The gray sky frames it all, and the quiet completes the scenario of wooded silence. It is December in our valley.

Still, there is a cozy sort of beauty in this scene, not the least of which is its silence. It all combines to offer once more what I come here to find, re-creation, perception, and reflection.

I think also of a quote from Sigurd Olson's book, Open Horizons, which hangs in my office: "I think the loss of quiet in our lives is one of the great tragedies of civilization, and to have known even for a moment the silence of the wilderness is one of our most precious memories."

I am pleased to see the way my children take to this land and am thrilled as I watch them develop what I hope will be a sense of "land wisdom." I covet for them a mystic feeling for the land, which I have seen reflected in the lives of certain people. It is a feeling that combines love and respect with an intimate familiarity with the earth as their home.

I am reminded of a member of a former parish whose stature and bearing strongly resembled that of the white pines that had been the source of his livelihood for 70 years. At the age of 68 his erect presence created a deep respect for his strength and mirrored the dignity of both man and tree.

He often boasted that "I learnt my son all he knows." His fierce pride in a very physical life marked him as a "Zorba the Greek of the Wisconsin forest." Yet my most lasting memory of him is the day just before we moved when he took me and my family to a large tract of virgin white pine he owned and had preserved throughout his lifetime. We listened to him express his hope it would always be preserved, watched him lay his gnarled old hand with a lover's familiarity on his favorite tree, and gained a new insight into the term "man of the earth."

He has since completed his voyage of "ashes to ashes and dust to dust." And somehow I feel it was less of a transition for such a man than for so many others who have lost sight of the fact that we are made of the earth.

I think also of the summer I spent with an Ojibway community in northern Minnesota. There was an Indian at whose home I was free to call day or night. Many were the times I entered his dwelling late in the evening, enjoyed a wild rice casserole prepared by his wife, and then sat listening to his stories. Often my leaving and the dawn's coming were simultaneous. He would speak of the places and events that make for legends among people whose lives were dependent upon the water, land, and trees.

He and "the man who stands as straight as the trees he loves" - to quote my children's words - are among those who personify and make incarnate the phrase, "land wisdom."

Silence is a part of it all. Either the "silence of the wilderness," or that of a lesser wild area such as this valley protected by its walled ravines and now made even quieter by a fresh coat of snow.

It is such a fragile thing, silence. It can stand no competition and against such interruptions is an instant loser. Yet its value is greatly underscored by none less than psalmist who, quoting a Greater Source, once wrote, "Be still and know that I...."

Reverend Paul O. Monson is Senior Pastor, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Minneapolis, and a member of the Listening Point Foundation Board of Directors. He is also an old friend of Sig and Elizabeth Olson and devoted to Sig?s writings, wilderness spirit and philosophy. He is a leader in local and national church affairs, the Twin Cities Community, an active member of the Hennepin County and Minnesota Health System Medical Ethics Committee, a frequent participant in ecumenical events, speaker, writer, organizer, and participant in church and community-related events too numerous to list.

In his more private life, Paul is a voyageur of many lands ,inner and outer, and has led numerous canoe trips for all ages into the BWCA, and down the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers. He owns a Listening Point of his own at North Fowl Lake north of Grand Marais. He writes, "For nearly all of the 79 canoe trips I have led I have made it a point at campfire time to share some of the spiritual vision Sig saw in the natural world around him hoping it might reinforce their respect for the created and interdependent world."

A sentence from Open Horizons on silence inspired him to write his own thoughts originally published December 12, 1973 in "The Golden Nugget."