Wholistic Well-Being
Photo Credit: Chris Townley Adventures
Dr. Chris Townley has been a trusted friend, ally, colleague, and pastor for over a decade, faithfully engaging in the good, hard work of justice and community building. As Erin confidently affirms, "He’s the only White man I trust." We are honored to have him serve as a Board Member of BLK South.
Wholistic well-being, as a value, can often feel ethereal. What makes us whole? How does wholistic well-being weave through the diverse parts of our humanity, our mind, body, and spirit? And more complicated still, how is our wholistic well-being enlivened by the multifaceted and complex creation we live among?
Recently my wife and I were exploring the old growth forests in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska. Our time among these ancient trees, predominantly Sitka spruce and western hemlock with some nearing a thousand years in age, coincided with Pink salmon spawning up the freshwater streams in the region. This was not the first time we’ve witnessed the feat, but this was the first time it twisted forth a new sensation within my being, something guttural.
To use a fishing pun, I was caught up by the salmon graveyards lining the streambeds, carcasses entangled in downed trees or floating upside down in an eddy. It is a sight to behold (and something even more to smell!), but the unrelenting determination of the salmon wafted its way into my soul. These salmon have returned to the place of their birth to offer themselves (by way of their eggs and their sperm and their lives) to the development of a new generation of fish. After living free in the ocean they embrace their season to die so that others may live.
At the risk of over-sentimentalizing the salmon spawn, it was a wonder to be reminded that their life and death is intertwined with the wholistic well-being of the entire old growth forest. In fact, as photographer David Herasimtschuk writes, “As humans, our everyday lives are sustained by the behaviors and interactions of forest organisms.” When reckoning with our own, personal well-being we often have a tendency to neglect our relationship with the place where our feet touch the ground. This is the result of a prevalent Western worldview notorious for disembodied living.
Herasimtschuk makes a similar observation as he continues, “Yet, because these processes and relationships occur in places and at scales rarely observed, our connection with forest biodiversity and the role it plays in nurturing our well-being often goes completely unnoticed.”
Give us eyes to see, I pray.
The beautiful complexity of the natural world inspired reflections on the unseen and unexplored depths of my own well-being. I would never have guessed a decaying salmon head might spark such meaningful evaluation of my own life. Maybe I’m reaching here, but I kept thinking of “a grain of wheat” from John’s gospel. The Message version of John 12:24-25 reads like this:
Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.
The Pink salmon we witnessed allowed themselves to be planted in the ground, where they become “more than a grain of wheat.” These salmon and these trees have been teaching me, we need each other, they whisper with the force of their lives.
In light of decaying salmon heads, 500 year old Sitka spruce, fertilized eggs in a streambed, deadfall mothering new plant life, and the flowing stream at the center of it all I can’t help but see the beauty of wholistic, reciprocal love in the rhythms of the community of creation. God’s visionary design for wholistic well-being.
Photo Credit: Chris Townley Adventures
So, may we inquisitively ask ourselves, after praying for eyes to see:
What factors into my wholistic well-being and the wholistic well-being of the community of creation I live alongside? What has gone unseen, unnoticed, unnamed?
And if such contemplation seems stunted, perhaps a walk outside is in order to witness afresh the interrelatedness of God’s good creation.
– To further explore the well-being that includes the whole community of creation check out Randy and Edith Woodley’s newest book, Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Lead Us to Harmony and Well-Being.
