Patience Taught by Superior
Lake Superior is slow to change.
The surface temperature of the lake is easily in the 40s even in the early summer. This creates a cool breeze — a refreshing moment after a long hike on a warm June day.
By the fall the water has been warmed by the summer sun and despite the air getting crisp you may feel a warm breeze come from the lakeshore. When the first frost comes, you don’t have to scrape ice off your car quite yet if you park near the lake. If your car is a few miles inland, you do.
We all know the lake is always cold. The surface, however, never fully freezes over. The water retains too much heat and rejects the change of form.
Some say this aspect of Lake Superior may be contributing to the slowing down of climate change in the north — we still have moose in Minnesota. It won’t change the climate crisis, but it will slow it down.
If you spoke with me last fall I may have told you, with a good amount of confidence, that I would be moving to Duluth this year. I haven’t changed my mind, but I have slowed it down.
When I moved into this house two years ago, I moved into a neighborhood already inhabited with people I knew and trusted and loved. They’re the best.
New neighbors moved in across the street from my rental house this year. They’re the son and daughter-in-law of my sister’s next door neighbors, an uncanny coincidence. They’re the best.
I’m finally feeling connected and excited about my church community. I have so many lovely friends to rely on and offer my support to. It’s what I’ve been wanting for a long time.
My parents are close by. My sister and her babies are a less than a 10 minute drive away. My other sister and her babies are almost as close. My brother and his baby are close, too.
I want a lot out of my life. I want to be north, I want to move somewhere new. I want to live closer to where I long to be — but I want to make a slow decision more, I don’t want to neglect the good things I have in front of me more. The greatest longing of my heart is to be content.
Slow decisions. Gradual change. Cold when it’s warm. Warm when it’s cold. I think it’s a worthwhile environment to create.
I respect Lake Superior for its ability to maintain its true self despite the environment it is surrounded by. I want to be more like that.
I’ve known for a few years now that I will end up moving sooner than later. But I think like the moose, I’ll stay put for a little while yet.
Patience Taught by Nature
Emily Barrett Browning
“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contented through the heat and cold.
