Fritz Hull, with his wife Vivian, co-founded the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island off the coast of Seattle. The Institute holds conferences and events that explore the human connection to the natural world. It was originally founded as The Chinook Learning Center in the sixties and has gradually evolved into a center attracting leading ecological thinkers from all over the country and the world. The following excerpts are from my interview of him.

I asked Fritz about thoughts he might have on finding a calling and sticking with it. He talked about some seemingly unconnected events in his life that led to the discovery of his calling.

I have chosen to live here because I was determined to bring together the things that I love. I determined that very early. I lived in India for a year and Iran for a year. I knew all that time where my heart was. And my soul’s territory. As much as I loved many of the places that I visited, or actually lived – I actually loved living in Iran, -- I knew that I was meant to be here on Whidbey Island. In my journals during those travels I wrote that I would bring together all the parts of my life. I thought I was capable of doing that – of working with people, in the natural world, dealing with issues of deep spirit and of service. Spirit and service, the inner life and the outer life, in a natural context. And that my work was to gather people together in the natural world, to go deep together, and to understand our responsibility, and take responsibility for what has heart. And that is how I see my work.

And my calling was to do it here and in an inspired way. It is like that classic text out of the Sermon on the Mount: Seek first the kingdom God, and God’s righteousness, and all things shall be yours as well. It is like do the one thing and what you really need will come to you. The teaching of the wise men through the centuries is to give of yourself wholeheartedly for a higher purpose, for the sake of others, and what we give to others will come to us.

And then, one summer, I was working on an old farmhouse we bought for what became the Chinook Learning Center. It was dilapidated and abandoned. I spent a whole summer building windows in the downstairs so we could meet inside of this old thing. I was thrilled to be working physically doing carpentry. I just love that stuff. And I was right there looking out at the fields and the forests, I was standing under a great western white pine that smelled so beautiful, and in the sun on my body, working hard, but what I found was that I kept stopping my work and looking out at this field. I had no idea why I was so entranced by the fields and the intense blue of the sky. And the top of the green fir trees against the blue sky. And the yellowing grass against the green.

I was absolutely entranced by it. All summer long. This seemed to be the path of my life, and I asked why does my Christian tradition as I learned it say nothing of this. Why has nature been dropped from the agenda of theology and is not a part of contemporary Christian spirituality? In fact most Christian spirituality is opposed to nature. It is afraid of nature. Because nature might compete with what they call the “Centrality of Christ”. Which is a false dichotomy.

That was the turning point of my life. I realized that I had was either going to stay with the conventions that I had learned, or I was going to be truly radicalized by the beauty of what I was simply looking at on this ordinary piece of land back in the forest on an island. That is what did it.

“What makes our heart sing? Where do we find that lilt in our hearts? What nourishes us? What makes us smile? What makes us thankful?

That is your calling. . . There is the sacrifice, but there is also the call. The call is not general, but it is a call to me, to my life. It is a graceful and yet demanding call. That is the harsh demand of it, and at the same time the promise that we are going to be okay. Grace.

I asked Fritz whether or not it had been difficult to stick with the calling through the inevitable ups and downs.

            “Staying with it over the long haul has in fact brought me happiness and Vivian our happiness. And that means staying with it in times of unhappiness. Riding out the storms, the times of bewilderment, and hanging on and staying with it. Coming through those periods, there is a confirmation, and that inner confirmation brings the happiness that makes it feel all worthwhile.

            “To me it comes from Spirit. It comes from relationship with the mystery.

            “It is like watching a young person grow up, watching things come into their fullness, watching things come into their time. It is how you nurture processes and individuals and help bring things into their right time for flowering. After experiencing it enough times, you learn to expect that spring follows winter. It will happen. And it will happen probably in a way that you will have forgotten how beautiful it is. It is happening right now in these woods. We have had a rough spring.

            “It is like staying with something and moving through the seasons. It is allowing all the time that is needed for things to come into their own. To their moment of flowering, of opportunity, and to be there and intersect that opportunity, to be taken and lifted by that opportunity onto the next one, which will then include the next dark time. Probably. No doubt. There will be more bewilderment.

            “It is a surrender to the call. It is a graceful and yet demanding call. It requires a wholeheartedness. That is the key. It is the opposite of an energy leakage, or things drifting off or being bleached away or being stolen from you. Energy leakage is the opposite of wholeheartedness. It is whatever it is that drags me down and sidewards and steals my energy. It steals my devotion. Devotion is wholeheartedness.

            “There is a great line from Annie Dillard which I love. She says, “The thing is to stalk your calling in certain skilled and supple way. To locate the most tender and live spot, and plug into that pulse.” Isn’t that great? It is from the story of the weasel.”

As I often do, I asked Fritz if there was a poem or quote that he drew inspiration from. He read me a quote that he has been carrying in his wallet for twenty years:

My Heart Soars

The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea,
speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars,
the freshness of the morning,
the dew drop on the flower,
speaks to me.

The strength of fire,
the taste of salmon,
the trail of the sun,
And the life that never goes away,
They speak to me.
And my heart soars.
- Chief Dan George, chief of a west coast Canadian Salish band.

Then he said:

            “You can walk the forest and do exactly the same thing. It may seem odd at first, but you get on speaking terms with everything. You do that with animals, and you do that with little bugs and you do that with everything. It simply means you are aware, you are opening, you are noticing, you are standing with something. It is relationship. Community. That is what will save the world. It is communion that will save the world. Communion with beauty.

            “In the 1960s I was working on the old farmhouse. Dilapidated and abandoned. I spent a whole summer building windows in the downstairs so we could meet inside of this old thing. I was thrilled to be working physically doing carpentry on this old house. I just love that stuff. And I was right there looking out at the fields and the forests, I was standing under a great western white pine that smelled so beautiful, and in the sun on my body, working hard, but what I found was that I kept stopping my work and looking out at this field. I had no idea why I was so entranced by the fields and the intense blue of the sky. And the top of the green fir trees against the blue sky. And the yellowing grass against the green.

            “I was absolutely entranced by it. All summer long. This seemed to be the path of my life, and I asked why does the Christian tradition as I learned it say nothing of this. Why has nature been dropped from the agenda of theology and is not a part of contemporary Christian spirituality? In fact most Christian spirituality is opposed to nature. It is afraid of nature. Because nature might compete with what they call the “Centrality of Christ”. Which is a false dichotomy.

            “Beauty a gift, a grace. A system, a reminder of truthfulness. That grace is always there. That is why I go into the woods. That is why I lie down on the grass. It is a presence of grace.  It is the beauty of the natural world that to me is healing, that is informing. I think that our engagement with beauty, our intimacy with beauty, will save us. It requires more than a vague awareness. We have to seek harmony with it.

            “But there is a however. That is the hard part. Nature is not a demanding lover, but abuse cannot be tolerated beyond a certain point. The natural world can absorb our abuse to a point, and then the systems break down. The spirit of grace is remains, but the system stops functioning.