The Forest Keeps Time

 

What in nature appears insignificant only because it moves on a timescale I rarely notice?

That question found me before I had an answer.

I wasn't looking for philosophy. I wasn't searching for theology. I was simply watching the world outside my window and wondering how much of life I miss because I insist on measuring it by my own clock.

We celebrate what blooms overnight and mourn what fades too quickly. We measure success in weeks, healing in months, and dreams in years. Nature seems uninterested in any of it.

A tree doesn't rush toward the sky.

Moss doesn't compete with the oak.

Roots disappear deeper into the earth long before anyone notices the branches reaching upward.

Maybe that is why forests feel ancient. They refuse to hurry.

It occurred to me that perhaps what I call stillness is simply movement unfolding on a timescale I have never learned to see.

A fallen tree appears lifeless, yet beneath its bark another world awakens. Fungi weave unseen threads. Insects carve delicate passages. Seeds find shelter. What looks like an ending quietly becomes the beginning of countless other lives.

How often have I mistaken hidden for absent?

I sometimes wonder if these thoughts come because my mind has always wandered differently. Living with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has often meant seeing patterns, asking questions, and lingering on ideas that others pass by. Some thoughts deserve skepticism. Others deserve patience. Over time, I've learned not every unusual thought is a revelation—but neither is every quiet observation an illusion.

Sometimes a forest is simply a forest.

Sometimes it is also a teacher.

The older I become, the less interested I am in proving which is which.

Instead, I find myself paying attention.

Perhaps faith begins there.

Not in having every answer, but in noticing.

Not in demanding certainty, but in trusting that silence can still speak.

The forests do not preach sermons. They simply keep growing. Rain falls without applause. Roots reach downward before branches reach for light. Seasons return with remarkable faithfulness, asking nothing from us except that we notice.

Maybe creation has always been speaking in a language slower than our lives.

Maybe that is why we miss so much.

We have become fluent in urgency and nearly forgotten patience.

I still measure my days. I still wrestle with my own mind. There are mornings when clarity feels close enough to touch, and others when it disappears into the fog. Yet the forest remains unchanged by my uncertainty.

It keeps time.

Not by clocks.

Not by deadlines.

But by growth.

By seasons.

By endurance.

By quiet resurrection hidden beneath fallen leaves.

And perhaps that is the lesson I needed all along.

Not that life must move faster.

Not that every mystery must be solved.

But that what appears insignificant may simply be unfolding according to a rhythm older than memory—a rhythm that has never forgotten its Maker, even when I struggle to remember mine.

So tonight I leave you with the same question that found me:

What in nature appears insignificant only because it moves on a timescale I rarely notice?

You may discover that the answer is not waiting in a book.

It may be waiting beneath your feet.

                                                                                            --JHF