Let’s be clear. I never meant to break the law. I was simply doing what I always do when I travel. I pick stuff up…stones mostly..with the occasional shell. Walking on beaches and over landscapes that usually connect to my spirit in some way, I see an interesting rock and I can’t resist. Before I know it, my pockets are weighed down with geological specimens that act as very inexpensive souvenirs. That occasional shell? That’s where things got interesting.
Three months ago I returned from a wonderful pilgrimage to Scotland. This was followed by another sojourn into northern Wales. Along the way I picked up stones and a shell or two. I kept these treasures in two separate plastic sandwich bags and tucked them into my luggage for the trip home. A day or two after being back in Minnesota, with sleep still escaping me at the proper times for this side of the Atlantic, I decided to put the stones in a small bowl of water so their colors would remind me of the water and beach in Scotland where they were collected. Among the stones was one shell that had caught my eye, a snail shell with lovely deep, blue whorls. I placed the bowl on our living room coffee table and went about my days.
On a Friday afternoon I bought some autumn flowers and filled a vase with the intention of placing them on the coffee table. Moving the bowl, I felt my hand become kind of wet…and a little slimy. Placing the bowl of stones on the dining room buffet, I went back to place the vase of flowers on the table. And then I saw it, the shell was moving. I had transported a snail…a Scottish snail…and it was alive! I quickly got it back to ‘its’ bowl and its fellow travelers and proceeded to observe its behavior. How its eyes were at the ends of very long tentacles. How it slithered around the edge of the bowl. How its body was a lovely spring green accompanied by the swirling shell. Friends, over for Friday evening dinner, also spent time watching it. I laid some butter lettuce in the bowl and it nibbled away…I could actually hear its chewing.
It all seemed some strange miracle to have transported this live being in my luggage. It survived against incredible odds and now I felt responsible for it. Over the next days I found myself checking on it. Was it eating? Was it still living? And what could all this mean, that this small creature had become an extension of the pilgrimage that had fed my soul and reminded me of the ways in which pilgrims had traveled ancient paths in order to have a closer walk with God?
Since the snail has come to live in our house, I was reminded of a book I read some time ago called The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. A woman in precarious health is given a plant in which she is surprised to find a snail living. She allows the snail to be her teacher as she observes its slow, intentional movements, how it labors, how it rests, how it takes its time and moves with courage over and around its surroundings. I pulled out that book and saw these words: “Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day.”(Sir William Osler, physician, 1849-1919) Wise advice.
Advent begins this Sunday. This season which has become my favorite of the Christian year calls us to slow down, to pay attention, to be awake to the slow work of a God…sufficient for the day… that is always present though we are often moving too quickly to notice. In these dark December days, the call of the Holy is to go inward for a while, to practice reflecting on our own slow work that makes God’s presence known in this precious world. It is a countercultural way of living given our consumer, media saturated world. But countercultural has always been the Way of Jesus.
This Advent season I have a new mentor in the art of slowing down, of understanding what is sufficient for the day. I did not mean to choose this teacher and I did not mean to carry it far from its home. But here we are. Together. I have named it Columba.
