At the beginning of the 2020 documentary, “My Octopus Teacher,” filmmaker Craig Foster tells the story of how he had lost his love for life. He’d sort of lost who he was. Burned out from his work that had taken him all around the world, and deeply depressed, he goes back to his South African home to try to reconnect with what really matters in his life. He couldn’t find it. To try to shake himself out of his mental and emotional stupor, he went out into the cold and unforgiving waters of the Atlantic, where he would free dive, holding his breath for minutes at a time, diving deeper and deeper into the kelp forest, blocking out everything else in his life that he simply couldn’t fix, until one day, he met an octopus.
Somewhere around the year 2020, I was tasked with bringing a dead congregation back to life. Peters Creek United Presbyterian Church had experienced a deep schism about thirteen years prior, and had been undergoing years of litigation since. Half the congregation left the Presbyterian church and felt like they had a right to the building and all of the congregation’s assets. The remaining congregation had dug their heels in, refusing to let go of any of it without a fight. Needless to say, after years of meetings with lawyers, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, trials, retrials, and appeals, the congregation had dwindled to about five faithful members, a small group of stubborn Presbyterians who loved their church and held out hope for a timely resurrection in their midst. After all, if Jesus could feed five thousand with five loaves of bread and a couple of fish, what could he do with five dedicated, and did I mention stubborn, Presbyterians who were ready to do anything it took to bring new life to this neighborhood church? I was ready to give it my all, my everything. I was going to try all the experiments and make all the connections and work and work and work until I figured out what worked. I was going to give my best sermons and be my most exuberant self and draw in the crowds with my quirky, yet bubbly, personality. And then, of course, Covid hit.
At first, Craig kept his distance from the octopus, only wanting to observe her from afar so as not to disturb her way of life. Thinking that she was fearful of him, but still curious about this strange marine animal, he left his camera at the bottom of the sea floor, and rose to the surface for some air. Curious, the octopus creeped out of her cave to explore the strange object. The camera records her using the suckers on her tentacles to feel out what this oddity might be. When Craig returned to fetch his camera, he was surprised to find her nearby, watching him, seemingly without fear. Day after day he went searching for the octopus, learning about the intricate details of the animals of the kelp forest, and the signs they left behind. He saw how mollusks leave delicate tracks in the sand, how the pajama sharks gather together to feed, how the fish seem to school where the kelp grows thicker. And then, one day, he saw her. He saw her again, and began to follow her. He left all his cares behind. He forgot about his depression and anxiety, the mistakes he’d made in his marriage and with his son, and simply single-mindedly pursued this strange creature that was so unlike himself.
Lots of folks told me that I had been hired to do the impossible. They told me that I needed to be kind to myself when I didn’t see growth in the church, that I needed to be patient, and maybe even a little bit resigned to the fate of this already dead church. And what with Covid, it wasn’t like I could go knocking on doors to invite them back to church, I couldn’t throw a big tent revival to bring the neighborhood back together, there just wasn’t much I could do but watch, and pray, and wait. My anxiety was through the roof. How on earth was I going to save this church? Time - and money - was running out. But all I could do was take some online courses, read some books, I started some spiritual direction, I sat alone in my office and watched the deer yank crabapples from the tree in the churchyard. And my world got smaller. I did one thing at a time. After all, what else could I do? I felt completely useless.
The octopus got used to Craig’s presence. She grew curious, and floated closer and closer to discover more about his strange appendages, the weird mask over his eyes, the odd way he would swim to the surface and then come back down again. He reached his hand out to her and she wrapped her tentacles around him, both of them exploring this strange other. He watched her hunt, watched her play games with the fish, watched her change colors and fit herself into the tiniest cracks to protect herself from predators. Deep under water, he became single minded, and as the waves and his life crashed above him, he let himself go down into this strange otherworld, watching and waiting for this one common octopus to arrive, to teach him something new.
As soon as this pandemic was over, I’d be able to get back to work. I’d be able to fix this church. I’d gather all the people and preach my little heart out and wrestle this little church from the ashes. As soon as we got through this, I’d really get to work. Until then, I’d started putting out seed for the birds in my front yard. I’d watch the sparrows hop between the feeders, quarreling over the best perches and the tastiest kernels. I saw the piles of discarded sunflower hulls accumulate on the ground. Meanwhile, I preached to five people in a church that once held hundreds, Sunday after Sunday. I learned how to be quiet. How to watch. How to wait.
How was it that Craig found himself by observing and relating to a creature so unlike himself? How was it that he’d reach this intense focus each time he dove under the water, where time stood still, and he became singularly passionate about simply watching this strange cephalopod go about the rhythms of her life? By focusing on this one creature, this one strange thing, this completely Other creature, by giving his whole presence to it, he entered what psychologists call a “flow state,” where he, himself, disappeared, and all that exists is what is right now, a small octopus in a kelp forest just off the South African coast. Had he, somehow, shed his distractions, his self-definitions, his accolades and achievements, his laurels and masks, and simplified himself down to this one thing - just one man watching one octopus, day after day after day.
When people enter this “flow state,” they don’t experience many thoughts about themselves or about their performance. In some ways, they sort of “disappear” into the fullness of what they’re doing. They lose track of time. They forget where they are. They lose their egos and identities. They lose themselves. The hull cracks open. The shell falls away. The seed dies. We are so fully ourselves that all our masks disappear, our scales flake off, and we are just here in the present moment, where we’ve sloughed off ourselves to the extent that we’ve just disappeared, and all we have left is nothing more or less than exactly who we’ve been created to be. Craig Foster calls this connection through otherness “remembering that we are wild.” It doesn’t happen all the time, and when it does, it’s only for the briefest of moments, but it’s this place where we let expectations and distractions and labels and our egos fall away and we realize that we are connected to the great Source itself: God - that unifying intelligence that keeps us alive from one moment to the next. Craig experienced a kind of death to himself, a re-wilding, a singular focus on something so completely other than himself that through it he found himself.
“Anyone who loves their life will lose it. And anyone who lets go of their life, for my sake, will keep it for eternal life.”
The church did die. The congregation dismantled. My job was dissolved. I’d failed. The seed fell to the ground and died. And even today we’re still waiting for the fruit to come of all this brokenness and hurt and pain and death of a church. But there are still those sparrows that come to my bird feeder. There’s still the quiet I’d learned to hear. There were five dear presbyters that I’d learned to love. And maybe, most importantly, there was the death of my self that thought that saving the church was all up to me. There was this seed of myself that fell to the ground and died, that seed that thought I had the power to control outcomes and resurrect communities if I just worked hard enough, if I just believed more, if I just gave more of myself to it.
After 304 days straight of visiting this octopus, Craig Foster watched her slowly dissolve her life in to the thousands of fertilized eggs that would be her only legacy. It took everything she had left to bring these new lives into the world, and of the thousands, only a few would survive. She’d given her life for life, and when she was done, she let go. She floated along with the current until a shark snatched her away. And that was it. Craig swam home. And he began to write the whole heartbreaking, life-giving story. A simple story of an octopus who, simply by living, helped a man lose his life to find it again.
“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single seed, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And what is hidden in the fruit? More seeds. More seeds to fall to the ground and die, more seeds to bear much fruit. Dying seeds become fruiting plants that form seeds and fall to the ground and die again. And around and around it goes.
Craig Foster takes his son out for dives now. He teaches his son what the octopus taught him. One day, just under the surface of the water, they found a tiny octopus, who curiously, wrapped its tentacles around their fingers. A tiny octopus who looked curiously familiar.
There is a flow we all enter, a kind of self-less energy that overwhelms us, and all that is not us — all the expectations and assumptions and shame and regrets — falls away, we’re cracked open like a seed, and that is where we find ourselves again. This is the invitation of Jesus. It’s not an invitation to work more or try harder, it’s not an invitation to hate ourselves, it’s not an invitation to martyrdom or self-immolation, or to make ourselves so small that no one can see us or hear us or know that we’re there. It’s not even primarily and invitation to escape this world for some better reality up in the clouds. It’s an invitation to dive deeper into ourselves, to watch, to wait, and to love so fiercely that we can be nothing outside of what we love. It’s an invitation to enter the flow, that place where we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. Our truest selves. The selves that are cracked open, broken open, loved open, and opened up to be exactly who God has created us to be.
Where is your octopus? That one thing that calls to you, that brings you so much to life that you can’t help but forget about your life, you can’t help but forget about your self so you can give your whole self to it that it might live? Remember when you had that? Remember what it felt like? You, being so very you, that you forgot about…you. It’s time to swim into the deep waters to find it again. It’s time to swim into the deep waters to lose, and to find, yourself again. This is the call of Christ.
Thanks be to God.
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