illustration by Barry Falls/heart agency
“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed Chelsea. My eyelids slammed open with such speed and force that they momentarily shifted my eyebrows high enough up my balding pate to qualify them as hair implants. I looked across the bed at Linda, who was desperately trying to get her eyes open and free herself from Bud's embrace so she could run into the living room to see what on earth was the matter. Both Linda and I were trying to speedshift our minds through every possible emergency that could happen in and outside of our house. And then Chelsea continued: “What's a moose doing in our back yard?”
Moments later the four of us were peering out of our picture window through the soft winter light of dawn at a large cow moose. Obviously heavy in calf, she was standing in the middle of a grove of Saskatoon berry bushes just a few metres from our deck. Bud uttered a low guttural Lab opinion concerning the propriety of the situation. “Shut up, Bud,” I said. “You'll spook that old swamp donkey and we are not through spying on her yet.”
It was a surprise and a rare gift. Though I see countless moose in my frequent bush forays, and though moose are never far from our house on the edge of Lac la Hache, we had never had the privilege of watching one from such close quarters and for such an extended period of time. Eventually Chelsea had to continue to doll herself up for her trek through the snow to catch the school bus and a day of slogging it out in her last year of high school. She snuck away from the house using the side door so as to not spook the old cow. Linda, Bud, and I continued to spy on the moose from the warm comfort of our living room. We could see from her tracks through the snow and ice that she had come onto our property from the island a kilometre or so across the lake. The high-protein Saskatoon berry browse on our property had attracted her. And that was what she was doing, just browsing around the Saskatoon.
But it was the way she browsed that surprised me most. It was an intentional, methodical, gentle, twig by twig massage. We watched as the large soft gentle nose of the moose, like the warm soft felt of a horse's muzzle, sought out a long Saskatoon twig. She carefully wrapped her soft mouth around the twig and then slowly slid her mouth tenderly up the twig, bending it very gently, all the way to the very tip. There she clipped off just the bud. She worked one twig at a time, slowly, pausing between each bud to chew thoughtfully as she gazed out on the frozen lake. The whole process was filled with serenity. And the tranquility of the moment was enhanced, when after she had pruned her fill from the Saskatoons, the old moose located a bed of soft snow protected by some aspens. There she bedded down to ruminate and rest, the steam from her warm breath and large body wafting softly all around her.
After an hour or so in her bed, a dog barked down the road from us. It was enough to steal the peace she required. The old cow moose stood, and with one last thoughtful survey of our deck just a few metres away, she hastily trotted off towards the island across the lake. All that was left were her tracks in the snow and a trail of moose-malties spread down the middle of our yard to the lakeshore.
The morning moose show was over so I got dressed, kissed Linda and Bud goodbye, and wandered out the door to my pickup. “What a wonderful surprise,” I said under my breath.
I kept coming back to the wonderful surprise of that old cow moose for the rest of the day. First of all it was the moose herself that bought me back. And then it was the phenomenon of surprise itself.
It began to strike me how much of the life of Jesus and the spiritual way of following Jesus has surprise nestled in it. Mary conceived and birthed Jesus, and it would be an understatement to say that she was surprised, not to mention Joseph and both of their families. What everyone said about Jesus as a child was a surprise. His first miracle of turning water into wine certainly turned a few heads, as did every miracle he did after that. What he said was always surprising, especially the way his parables turned out. What he taught and what he expected of his disciples certainly surprised them. The twist their lives took and where they ended up later in life as they followed Jesus was a surprise. The resurrection of Jesus was surprise par excellence, followed closely with his ascension. Surprise seems to cloak every aspect of the life of Christ and the life of discipleship as it is portrayed in the Bible.
And if my life as a follower of Jesus is anything like yours, surprise is certainly persistent and consistent throughout. Many have postulated that prayer is what punctuates the life of following Christ and Christian spirituality. Prayer is certainly central to the Christian life, but really I think it is surprise and the willingness to be surprised that punctuates the Christian life. In fact, it seems to me that prayer is predicated upon surprise.
What a difference it would make if I would embrace surprise as core to my faith, discipleship, and spiritual practice. And no, it is not an oxymoron to expect to be surprised; it's a whole way of life. Consider, if you will, going to church on Sunday expecting to be surprised rather than demanding routine. Consider prayers that expect surprise rather than demand answers in accordance with prescriptions. Consider reading Scripture expecting to be surprised rather than pondering proof texts. Consider Christian fellowship that expects to be surprised by Jesus actually showing up in the midst of a couple of guys walking down the Emmaus road, rather than one that is so overwhelmed by the current crisis that Jesus is not recognized till he's gone. Surprise is pregnant with possibility for the Christian who is willing to embrace it as core to his or her belief and practice.
But there is a problem. The willingness to be surprised means giving up the self-serving privilege of being disappointed. If I am honest, this does not sit well with me. I am a product of my culture and it seems to me that the 21st-century Western world demands predictability. Surprise is almost considered an anathema. I have done all that I can to expunge life from even the slightest whiff of a surprise. I schedule everything on my BlackBerry, and get really cranky when someone plucks my BlackBerry. God help the nimrod who doesn't phone first before visiting. Take a chance? No way, I want guarantees and warranties on every little thing. Even the Christmas tree has become a victim, adorned with presents I have picked out for myself. And if there is a hint of a surprise in the offing, even around something as trivial as a birthday party, I will stoop to the level of Hemlock Sherlock to put the surprise to death. In almost every realm of Western life and culture, surprise seems to be considered the enemy. It would never do if life didn't live up to our predictions and expectations.
We demand knowing rather than surprise and mystery. Perhaps this is all part of the age-old temptation to replace God, to become gods ourselves as in the Garden of Eden and at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 2 and 11). But it always has been, and always will be, God's business to know and our business to be continually, if not willingly, surprised. I think this is at the very core of being still and knowing God (Psalm 46:10). The thing is, for we who hang our hat in the Western world, it requires a major attitude shift, a real conversion.
