Birdsong and Eventide and Other Works
by Bethany Peck
BIRDSONG AND EVENTIDE
The pain rouses me
I awake to another morning
not ready to start another day
faced with nothingness
wondering how many steps I can go
I must dig deep
will myself to go on, to walk
I lay there, contemplating
how?
And then I hear it
the birds’ song
the chatter and chirping
sweet singing
little creatures that you take care of
sparrows that you hold in your hand
hope for the day
•••
The day wanes
I turn out the light
still in bed
pain still present
but the colors of eventide fill my window
blue fades to deep
a few wisps of pink and purple
I wait and I watch
and I pray
the serenity of the sky fills me with peace
your peace
I have survived another day
you have faithfully carried me
and now I rest
•••
On one particular evening
birdsong and eventide
collide
the night is cool yet a warm breeze blows
cardinals
doves
starlings
geese
an orchestral evening with a canvas of color
stillness and serenity
these gifts are mine
IMAGINATION IS NOT JUST FOR CHILDREN
A year of tears
of wondering why me,
what if’s that haunt me
through the long and lonely nights.
My heart is filled to burst
with longings and desires,
and all it takes is a tap
from the hammer of hardship
and it breaks — again —
into a million pieces.
Will I allow those longings
to bubble again?
Only to live in the fear
of anticipation of another undoing?
I force myself to choose repair,
the longings —
the desires of the deep —
burned in my soul by my Creator
are a hint of hope to keep me going.
If I can just get through today,
tomorrow can wait.
FINDING GLADNESS IN THE GLEN
The low hum of cicadas filled the air as I followed a well-worn path at a local conservation park. Along with the cicada song, crickets, and chattering kingfishers, the gentle flow of a nearby stream created a soft, bubbling melody that all sang the symphony of a summer day in the woods. An audience of swaying sycamore, beech and oak trees lined the trail, interspersed with dense brush, lush with green. The vibrancy and abundance piqued my heart with longing.
I walked alone that summer day. I could probably even move with eyes closed, having traversed the trail before me so frequently. The park is called Harford Glen, just a few miles from where I live and grew up. It’s a park that my parents brought me to as a girl, where I have some of my earliest memories of nature hikes with my parents, and grandparents. A place of formation for the nature-loving person I would become. When I returned to my hometown, after nearly 15 years away, with a broken heart and a suitcase full of dashed dreams, this park welcomed me back to heal in a place of familiar safety.
When I first returned home, the landscape of my soul felt nothing like the beauty I sought there in the woods. I described it as a bombed-out warzone, with little life left. My marriage had imploded after a devastating season of betrayal, and it felt as if that fire had burned everything in its wake, leaving only ashes and charred memories; hope felt distant. After some rebuilding, I left home again, but then experienced a season marred by chronic pain, job loss, and back surgery. My prayers cried out for clarity on where to live when everything came crashing down the second time, all while the world descended into a global pandemic — more wreckage to obscure the horizon. So I moved back home again. I guess the Lord wanted me close to Harford Glen.
A glen is a valley. Usually long, with sloping hills on either side. It’s an apt description for the park. Merriam-Webster defines a glen, as “a secluded, narrow valley.” There are trails that head up the hills at Harford Glen, but I usually stick close to the valley. It’s where the stream meanders and the sound of the water always calms me. I’d grown accustomed to life in the valley. And walks in the woods alone. Which to some, may sound strange or anti-social, yet those solo treks were a balm. And I wasn’t completely alone — I typically had my two dogs with me as quiet companions, with a knack for making me smile. If only for a respite to breathe fresh air and calm my body, these hikes became a conduit for healing. They also allowed for uninterrupted time to be able to clear my mind, to think and pray, and to let my tears fall freely.
A clear mind to think, which my woodland wanderings through Harford Glen afforded me, some days felt like a blessing, and other days a burden. The Irish poet John O’Donohue once said that, “Each one of us is the custodian of an inner world that we carry around with us.” And how true, as it goes with us wherever we go, and each day we can do a sweep of it, or allow more thoughts to accumulate clutter. For years, my inner world accumulated broken thoughts, and was becoming more and more like a darkness in which I was lost. Anxiety and depression clouded my thinking, and I was always expecting worst-case-scenarios. As I would walk through Harford Glen, even on the most perfect of spring days with the natural world coming alive, the despair of my valley would overwhelm me and I struggled to see any hope for escape. I’d even become consumed by how things were likely to get worse. I not only would consciously dwell on disaster, but it felt as if it had become wired into me. I remember saying to myself, “life will never get better — I’ll never escape my pain.” That’s what trauma does.
Raised in the faith like I was raised in nature, I knew the word of God, yet I struggled to feel belief in the Lord’s promises to “heal the brokenhearted, and bind up their wounds.” Questions about the ways of God constantly played through my mind and I wondered about the whys and hows of suffering. Even worse, shame kept me disconnected and tried to convince me that I was outside of His love and blessings. Then more shame ensued with feeling like I was a struggling Christian.
It took me years to fully realize and accept I was suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. My brain had become accustomed to pain, and so I came to expect it at every turn — because I also had to anticipate it, to prepare physically and emotionally for any future pain, and how to avoid it. I once had a panic attack just by the tone of my father’s voice saying my dogs’ names, as I was overcome with the fear of injury to them, a brief episode ending with me in tears as a release of the adrenaline that had quickly coursed through me. Bessel Van der Kolk explains in The Body Keeps the Score, “the more neuroscience discovers about the brain, the more we realize that it is a vast network of interconnected parts organized to help us survive and flourish.” My heart wanted to trust God, but my brain was doubtful from past experience — and was actually trying to help me stay protected for the future.
I felt safest alone in the woods. So I kept escaping there — this creation of the God I questioned — not just for one season, but season after season. And I found that any silence I supposed of Him was necessary for me to hear His whispers through wonder. Sunsets that filled me with beauty, still waters that restored my soul with peace, even a champion oak tree hundreds of years old that reminded me of His faithfulness, were all stories that pointed me to Him. Even more incredibly, these gifts of creation can be instruments of healing for the nervous system. We’re learning more and more about how this planet is actually designed for us as humans to heal and be healthy. This is all the more important for those struggling with stress and anxiety, as Van der Kolk also notes that “after trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system.” More and more studies show how engaging the body in the outdoors can lower stress hormone levels significantly. Sunshine can increase the brain’s release of serotonin which helps with feelings of calmness and staying focused. Of course our ancestors probably didn’t need a report to tell us nature is good for us, but as I came to see a regulation of my nervous system through immersion in nature, I’d like to think I was becoming living proof of this science.
The rhythms of autumn, winter, spring, and summer also guided me through the years so that my painful experiences quite literally became further behind me. The seasons became my liturgy for learning to trust God’s redeeming work, through experiencing the cycle of death and renewal. Yes, the leaves will fall, but the bluebells will come back up in the spring. Time itself did not heal my wounds, and I don’t recommend telling someone living through grief that “this too shall pass.” But all of the uprooting and the decay in my heart allowed my suffering to become fallow soil, ready for seeds to be planted, slowly germinate, and sprout new life. I took my drawing pencils with me on hikes, and a notebook for writing, and over time my art and poetry fostered excitement and joy. The act of creativity in creation birthed a growing hope, as these new, good experiences fired neurons in my brain, forming neural pathways to expect joy, rather than fear.
And despite my proclivity for solitude in the woods, I wasn’t always alone. Being back in my hometown, despite my many attempts to leave, meant that I could be, quite literally, embraced by the loving arms of my parents. Desperate for help at first, I also found a support group that taught me safety in sharing and became my first haven for letting go of shame. Outside of that group and my family, in my early days of recovery, I had to force myself to engage in social activities. But slowly, slowly as my healing began to grow I found myself able to risk connection. Once it was an 11 year old who assuaged my social anxiety at a bonfire by becoming my friend and introducing me to all the animals on her farm. And there was the church fellowship group that met over a campfire, and welcomed all of us to lay down any masks that kept us hiding.
Friendships were being sown. My growing peace enabled conversations where I could share parts of my story and begin to feel my shame dissipate. Psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson talks about how shame is actually a “felt” sense in our body. And that when we are able to connect with other humans — in the flesh and with facial and body language from a posture of empathy — these connections work to integrate our experiences by reshaping our neural networks. Van der Kolk’s research is here too as he says that the communication of our experiences helps find meaning and gives us the “capacity to heal one another.” If Christ came in the flesh to heal us, doesn’t it make sense that as humans who bear His image and live with His spirit inside us, we can be his emissaries of healing to each other? I was learning to accept love, rather than fear rejection. And by staying in the same place year after year — just a stone’s throw from Harford Glen, whenever I did need time and nature to myself — friendships began to blossom. Rootedness allows life to grow.
On that afternoon of the summer symphony, I felt the absence of my dogs by my side. Just a few months prior, something of unthinkable sadness to me had occurred — one of my beloved dogs had died, very suddenly and unexpectedly. It was an actual worst-case scenario for me, losing a precious companion over the course of four stressful and heartbreaking days. And while the grief was strong, I was not incapacitated, knowing what I needed to do to be okay. I spent some extra time in nature those weeks after, and my family and church community embraced my grief. And I wrote a lot about my sweet Scout, trusting that time would indeed help assuage his loss.
As I walked that day, my pace was leisurely, allowing me to notice seasonal flora like the daylilies dotting the stream shoreline, a blaze of orange in a sea of green. I paused to admire their color and audacity — there is something about wildflowers that mesmerizes me. The boldness of beauty growing wild among thistles and thorns and fields of grasses; of annual persistence; of beauty that may go unseen to all but the bees and the butterflies. I smiled as I recognized that spirit of the wildflower within me — an awareness of growth, a long distance from the years of depression and bitterness. I found myself thinking of the good memories — of the many times my dogs and I had adventured and enjoyed the woods together here. A wellspring of gratitude bubbled inside me.
Instead of drawing on the recent trauma of Scout’s death and dwelling on the refrain of the bad country song I used to feel was on repeat in my life, a thought danced through my mind that stopped me in my tracks — it felt so good and so hopeful. Maybe, there will be new, good memories here. I let the warmth of that idea seep into me, and I smiled. I knew I was right. Hard things will continue to be part of my path, but there will also be goodness (maybe even a new puppy one day!) to walk the trail with me — forming a future of joyful living.
O’Donohue continues his wisdom on the mind by writing that our thoughts are the access point to our inner world and its wonder that opens one to an unlimited world of grace and compassion. As my body and brain healed over time through the beauty and surprise of both nature and relationships, my heart grew — with compassion for myself, but because of the love I was learning to truly understand from the Heavenly Father. A love so steadfast that I was never left alone through seasons of trauma and suffering; a love so deep that it works all things, even the things man meant for evil, for my good; a love so holy that it prunes the branches that won’t produce.
Thank God He tenderly cares for our wounds, healing through nature, time, and relationship — his created gifts — to overcome the impact of trauma, and bring peace to the soul. I still carry grief with me and some of my scars will never completely heal — in this life. But here now, He sent His light and His faithful care to lead me, and He will keep leading me to the holy mountain one day where he dwells (Psalm 43:3).
I climbed up the hillside that day, out of the valley in Harford Glen, and looked upon the view. A different perspective, with a brand new vista. The eagle that sometimes hangs out among the treetops was nowhere to be seen, but I felt my soul soaring.
BETHANY PECK
Bethany is a writer and photographer living near the beautiful Chesapeake Bay in northeastern Maryland. She loves nature and writes about experiencing God's love through creation at bethanypeck.org and on Instagram at @beautiful_purpose_writing. In her day job, she gets to write stories for local ministries in the Baltimore area. She and her dog Hunter stay active by hiking, kayaking, and enjoying long evening walks.