Near the office where I work, there is a red fox family that lives in a field. I first encountered one of them at night in the parking lot. She was walking across the way, likely on her way to hunt, and took a moment to glance at me. There was such beauty in the encounter. I had been sitting with a difficult process at work and had just come out of a long meeting. When I saw that fox that night, I felt a feeling of peace. It’s as if she was heralding good news. Just seeing her felt like good news. A fox! This fox! Here. Now.
From then on, I kept an eye out for her and finally noticed her or another fox in a nearby field. Ah – they lived nearby. Then it became a practice to look every time I came. Once, I saw one standing over the body of another, dead, in the field one day. Was I witnessing grief? Another time, I saw one lazing on the big round hay bale at the forest end of the field, with the ease and confidence of one who owned the place. I was so taken by that sight that I brought my daughter by the next day and there she was, lazing again, but this time with two kits frolicking in the field below her! My daughter was extremely delighted.
I haven’t seen them for a while and I miss them. I am grateful for a window into their beautiful lives. They felt like my foxes, but not in a possessive way, rather in a way where I was able to love this particular fox family. I felt how this deepened my appreciation of all foxes who hunt, herald peace, grieve, lounge and play.
The same has been happening with a young buck in the woods near my home. When we spot him, I hold the dog. He stands watching us, too unafraid. I speak to him, telling him to run, it’s okay. He waits until we walk closer. His stubby antlers grew exponentially within one week.
There are particular trees that I love. Particular wild flowers at the end of a winding path I walk almost daily. These are the beings that bring my heart closer to this earth and to loving it better and more authentically.
If I say I love my neighbor but can’t name a single one of them, how deep is my love?
Love is the beautiful abundant thing that operates in particularity. Like in The Matrix Revolutions when Neo meets the architect of the matrix and has a choice between saving the world or saving Trinity, he makes the choice to save the particular one he loves, which is foundational to how the rest of the story plays out.
The future is built on the particularity of our love. It will help us find our way.