A walk in the woods (shaupeneak ridge)

At the foot of Shaupeneak Ridge, before the climb begins, there is a field that rolls out like a great green sigh. Not flat, not orderly, but rumpled with small hills and dips as if the earth once shifted. Here where the ticks dance in the tall grass, before the trees gather to form the mountain’s spine, you are still in the realm of open sky and song. The birds love this place. The air rings with them. Each species seems to have been given its own sheet music, none playing the same notes, but none clashing either. Somehow, it holds together. I thank Christ. This morning I stood still in that field and thought of what Jesus said: “Look at the birds of the air…” (Matthew 6:26) He didn’t say to glance at them. He said to look. To consider. To study them. For they themselves are living footnotes to the Sermon on the Mount. It struck me how all their songs rose at once, each voice layered upon the next, none taking center stage, and yet no single voice lost. It reminded me of the sound of a church when people are praying quietly at the same time. Not speaking in unison, but murmuring soft, individual utterances sent heavenward, rising like incense, distinct yet united. They do not worry about outcomes. They do not compete for applause. They simply sing because they are alive, and they trust that God will provide. That their Creator will feed them. Jesus did not say they were lazy. He did not suggest they had no work to do. In fact, their lives are filled with motion. building nests, feeding their young, avoiding hawks, calling out at the break of day. But He said they do not worry. Their activity is not born of anxiety, but of design. They live as they were made to live.They don’t hoard. They don’t build empires. They sing.

And then beneath all this song, came the distant sound of the train. It echoed faintly up from the bottom of the hill, a deep and rhythmic rumble, pulsing through the ground. It did not seem angry or malevolent. But it was foreign. Its voice was not one of song but of force, machines were never meant to lead us.  The birds are bound by their biology, and their limitations give them grace. Machines have no such bounds. They are built for scale. For replication. For  conquest. A train is not concerned with the soil it crosses, nor the towns it passes. Its goal is to move, endlessly, efficiently, regardless of what’s in the way. In this way,  Modern life has become built around such machines. Industrial farming, for instance, replaces the hands of a farmer with chemicals and engines, turning soil into a substrate and food into a commodity. The work once done in communion with land and weather is now managed from spreadsheets, and pesticides. It displaces people, disconnects communities, and deadens the land. If you must kill a man, you ought to feel his blood on your hands. If you grow a crop, your hands should be dirty.

If you make love, you should be prepared to raise a child. But machines don’t feel. They have no blood, no dirt, no consequences. Christ never promised to industrialize the world. He promised to redeem it, and he has redeemed it. His promise is already fulfilled. So we must be cautious. We must reclaim a human scale. one where things can be mended, not discarded. Where neighbors matter. Where food is known, not shipped. Where sons learn to hold flashlights for their fathers. Where grandsons hand them tools. That’s how knowledge stays alive. That’s how love stays practical. not by growing into a machine, but by remembering that it is a body, with many parts, each dependent on the other, and none designed to run without a soul. Scale is one of the great unspoken forces of our age.We’ve been trained to believe that if something can grow, it should and if it can’t be replicated, it’s probably not worth much. But nature doesn’t think like that. Neither does Scripture. Modern industry has little patience for this. It wants yield, not intimacy. It wants control, not care. People often don’t realize every act of kindness costs someone something, even in that thing is time or patience. Machines don’t know their limits. Creatures do. In a creaturely life, you have to deal with things like weather, fatigue, failure, and interdependence. You need neighbors. You need patience. You need humility. But in the machine world, those things are liabilities. Relationships are slow. Craft is inefficient. Local knowledge is too inconsistent. The goal is to override. A local pastor choosing to disciple 10 young men slowly over 5 years instead of using a fast online program? Inconsistent. A farmer in the Hudson Valley using a traditional planting method passed down in the family? Inconsistent. Those things can’t be scaled, patented, or mass-produced. They require personal presence, memory, and place-based wisdom, and that slows the machine down. And what happens to a faith that imitates the machine?It becomes cold. Fast. Shiny. Impressive.But it no longer has dirt on its hands. It no longer knows how to plant, wait, suffer, or mend. 

As the sound of the waterfall grew louder, I followed the trail deeper into the woods. The light thinned, filtered through leaves like stained glass, green and trembling. What had begun as a leisurely walk in the field now required attention. The terrain was uneven. Roots arched up like veins in the earth, and the rocks seemed to shift underfoot with each step. The narrowness asked something of me. It required my body, not just my thoughts. The bugs found me not long after. I had stopped for a moment, still as a stump, when they began to swarm.  tiny midges, mosquitoes, the persistent hum of insects performing their own kind of song. They didn’t seem malicious, just thorough. In the modern world, we tend to see insects as irritants. But they are reminders: that to be alive is to be exposed. Vulnerable. That there’s no such thing as a “clean” experience of nature. That this world is in fact fallen. That we do in fact need grace. As i looked at the waterfall, not towering, but alive. Pouring over a moss-covered rock wall, cascading down in thousands of shining threads.  at the base, mist and sunlight collided in such a way that a small rainbow had formed scattered across wet stones and green moss, flickering and shifting with every breeze.  And I thought of how God’s covenant with Noah was marked not with iron or empire, but with a bow of light and color. The sound of the water was unlike the sound of the train. It had no destination. It was not trying to get anywhere. It simply was. Constant. Peaceful. Ancient. the bugs didn’t matter. The climb didn’t matter. 

From the waterfall, the trail steepened. The air grew warmer, and the woods seemed to thicken before thinning again.  Sweat gathered.just the steady pull upward and the occasional glimpse of light breaking through the canopy ahead. The ridge opened like a curtain, revealing a wide, stilled stage of sky and river. I had reached the overlook. Far below, the Hudson stretched. broad, slow-moving, edged with trees and distant roads. From this height, the towns and train tracks looked like etchings, not intrusions. The machines were quieter up here. Ravens circled above, black against the pale blue. They were massive almost prehistoric in their grace. Not fluttering or frantic, but steady, cutting arcs in the air like calligraphy. Their cries were sharp, strange, not quite beautiful, but real. Unmistakably characteristic. In Scripture, the raven is the first bird released by Noah after the flood (Genesis 8:7). It flew “back and forth” until the waters dried. It doesn’t return to the ark like the dove. It lives in the in-between.It is a creature of mystery and margin. 

I didn’t stay long at the top.So I turned back toward the woods, back toward the trail, the waterfall, the bugs, the birds, the field, and eventually, the road. My steps were quieter now. My thoughts less full. Not because I had solved anything, but because I had remembered something In a world of machines, we must learn again to live as men.

Not just as thinkers or users or consumers or voters or critics. but as creatures. Tired and tender. Rooted and reaching. Dependent and beloved. Feeling creatures created by a creator.