Fishing, cloud gazing and sensing God’s presence

Deacon Mickey Friesen, 59, a St. Paul father of two, serves as director of the archdiocese’s Center for Mission and as a deacon at St. Thomas Becket in Eagan. A lifelong lover of nature, his goal is to see every state park in Minnesota. He often writes and preaches about the connection between faith and the outdoors.

Q) Tell me about your childhood in Rosemount.

A) We lived in a cul-de-sac, and the end of our backyard was the cornfield. It was an era when we had lots of unstructured time. After breakfast my mother would say, “Get outside and don’t come back till lunch.”

We used to have big baseball games there. If you hit the ball in the cornfield, it was a homerun because you had to stop the game to search for the ball.

The backyard was our little world. The things you could make up! That in itself was the source of many good memories. In the summertime, we’d dig around in each other’s window wells looking for salamanders.

Q) Then you moved to Apple Valley.

A) We were close to Risen Savior Catholic church where Apple Valley and Burnsville meet. Where that church is (now) used to be woods and a prairie owned by a farmer. A sign said, “Do not trespass.” We’d sneak in there and play in the woods. I had a fort right where the church is. There was a big snake den right in that spot. We’d play with the snakes and go fishing in the lake — we’d dig for worms and catch bullheads — and then if the farmer would come, we’d dive into the woods to hide.

Q) How did that freedom benefit you?

A) You learn how to trust yourself early. We didn’t look for help. When we played sports, you’d get 15 guys, picking teams and working out conflicts. You have problems, you get hurt — well, there’s nobody else there, so you figure it out. And there was no fear. The world was not a scary place. It was a place of adventure.

Q) What’s your earliest memory of the outdoors?

A) I have a distinct memory in the summertime, when there was nothing going on in a day, I’d sit on the side of the house in a lawn chair and I would look up at the clouds. I’d be enamored. I could look up at them for an hour. There was a lot of space for that. What would you do if there was nothing to do? You sat and looked at clouds!

Q) That embodies what so many overscheduled kids miss out on today.

A) I’ve thought about that before. I do feel sad for my own children that they didn’t have more unstructured time, the freedom to be able to wander. What gets lost is that ability to explore and the sense of wonder about life. In a digital age, instead of just immersing themselves in nature, they want to take a picture or capture it, post it. There’s a desire to control the moment as opposed to just entering into it, giving yourself over to it. I wonder sometimes if not handing yourself over in little ways makes it harder to have faith and trust providence, that it’s OK, that you’re not alone. To me, that’s everything: being able to trust that presence.

Q) When did you first make the connection between nature and faith?

A) I was in the Air Force after high school, stationed in Germany, and I started jogging on this trail that goes along a babbling brook. One day, all of a sudden, the sun hit the trees and the water in a way that everything started dancing. It was so amazing I had to stop. I felt this profound presence of God in that moment. It probably lasted 30 seconds. It just took my breath away.

You read a psalm like 139 — You’ve searched me and you know me and you know when I sit and stand — and you hear about all these places of creation giving praise to God, and all of a sudden, those words have meaning. I’ve heard it said that creation was God’s first word, the word that became flesh. The older I get, the more I understand that — You’ve been talking to us all along, forever. Just when you think you’ve heard enough, there’s more. That’s the nice thing about it: There’s more.

Q) I love that.

A) One of the things I thought I wanted to do is to be a bird watcher. I love the birds. I got binoculars and tried to find birds, but I got so stressed out. I could hear the birds, but I couldn’t see them. It got so stressful I quit.

Then I met this fellow who was legally blind and he was a birder. I asked how he could be a birder if he can’t see them. He said, “I look with my ears. I know what the sounds mean.”

That changed everything! I’m not a bird watcher, I’m a bird listener.

Q) That feels like a metaphor for life. We get in our heads, we try to force something and it doesn’t work, then we learn to let it go and lead with our hearts.

A) My daughter gave me a bird app where you can listen to the sounds. Now, I can recognize birds by their sounds. When I was doing chaplaincy training at a nursing home, I’d visit a woman with dementia who couldn’t speak. In her room were all these holy pictures and then all these bird pictures. Cardinals everywhere. We couldn’t communicate by talking, so I turned on that little app and we listened to the birdsong. We communicated on that level. Then we would share Communion together. That’s one of the most beautiful sharing of Communion I’ve ever had. She couldn’t talk, but when I would make the Sign of the Cross, she’d chime in.

Q) Cardinals are significant to many people!

A) After Mass, so many people come up and say, “Oh, the birds!” There’s something about birds. There’s something very spiritual.

Cardinals are symbols of messengers of God. They are known to be those who have gone before. In the church, we have cardinals. It’s the same idea: They wear red and are messengers of God.

Creation and the liturgy and our faith and our life — it all comes together in those little moments.

Q) You’ve written about that wonderful Rainer Maria Rilke poem: “have patience with everything unresolved in your heart … and live the questions.”

A) For me, I’ve only had one question in my life, and it goes back to my mother’s death. She died of colon cancer when I was 14. I was forced to ask the question: Where are you? Where was she? Where was God in all of that?

When I was in the military, away from home for the first time, I was lonesome on many levels and struggling with this idea of God being really present in the Eucharist. I didn’t get it anymore. I asked the priest how is God present in this little piece of bread.

He said, “Well, you know, that is such a great question! And the Church thinks this is really important. So if the Real Presence is as good as the Church says it is, it can take it. Don’t settle for a cheap answer, Mickey. Stay with the question.”

Q) “You’re on the right track. Hang onto that question.” That’s so affirming without being a convenient or simplistic answer.

A) He could’ve just given me a catechism answer, but my question was deeper. It was coming from grief, my relationship with my mother, all that was together. He heard my question really well and didn’t dismiss it. “Stay with it.”

When my son Noah was 10 or 11, he started asking all these questions about sex and becoming a man. For whatever reason, I said, “Oh, you deserve time. We should take some time.”

We went on a four-day fishing trip to Glacial Lakes State Park. While you fish, you talk. Or while you’re playing cards, you talk. We went so deep.

Q) What do you know for sure?

A) I know for sure that God is here. God is present. So, I don’t ask the question, “Where is God?” anymore. Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking the question of “where” and the only question I ask now is “how.” That’s all that matters at this point. And I might be surprised. It might be a bird!

Those early years of wonder — the older I get, in some ways you come full circle. I’m still that kid in the lawn chair, looking up and saying, “How are you present in all of this?” That’s still the one thing that I know is true.