Ghost Pipe - Rev Kathryn Nelson

Ringing our campsite at Sawbill Lake were tall white pines. At night around the campfire, you could look up at their magnificent branches creating a canopy over you. Through this canopy the stars shone bright and the call of a loon echoed across the lake. It was truly breathtaking.

In the morning I went to look closer at these incredible trees and I noticed something I had missed in the darkness. All around the base of the trees were clusters of ghost pipe. I had never seen so many in one place.

I mistakenly assumed that ghost pipe were mushrooms. When I got home, I learned that they are actually a perennial woodland flower. They lack chlorophyll which is why they are completely white from stem to flower.

I also learned that ghost pipe get their nutrition from mushrooms and trees. It is a mutual relationship between the fungi, tree roots and the flowers. Ghost pipe attaches itself to the fungi and grows in this way. These flowers are somewhat rare, needing just the right soil, fungi, trees, moisture, and shade to grow. Beauty is created only because of this deep mutuality.

In pondering the intricate connections of the ghost pipe, I thought about Frederick Buechner, Presbyterian minister, and author of 39 books, who died on August 15^th. He often wrote about the necessary mutuality of the relationships we share. I quoted him so many times in my sermons. One of his most famous quotes was “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

Buechner in his younger years often was pictured smoking a pipe. I thought of this as I looked at Tim’s pictures of the ghost pipe from our campground. I think Buechner would agree with the lessons of the ghost pipe. We need one another as we make our way and there is so much grace in every day if we take the time to notice.

Buechner wrote this in, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”