Strength and Awe

Recently, I took a leisurely stroll through the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Our small group began in the Garden of Fragrance, where the rich aromas seemed to invite us into worship. From there we wandered through the rhododendron garden and then on to the redwood grove.

Since I live across the street from a vast redwood forest and had just hiked there days before, I didn’t expect to be particularly moved. I was wrong.

As we stepped into a small clearing encircled by towering giants, I let out an audible exhale. In the center stood benches—like the kind you’d find in an art gallery. A woman lay on her back on one, gazing up into the canopy. Around the edges were low park benches, unusually close to the ground. Sitting there, I felt both rooted in the earth and dwarfed by the magnificence above.

As I settled in, basking in the energy, beauty, and wisdom of the forest, I remembered a recent conversation with a friend whose child is autistic. She described a particularly difficult day when her 11-year-old was in profound emotional dysregulation. In her research, she had learned that the best way to help her daughter regulate was to get lower than her.

“Physically lower?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I lay down on the ground as she flails. And eventually, she joins me.”

That image stayed with me. Lowering.

In the forest, lowering felt like humility—an acknowledgement of the majesty of the trees and the God who made them. With the child, lowering became an act of strength—bending low to help someone find their grounding again.

It feels like the downward mobility Henri Nouwen speaks of in his book Here and Now. 

“This is the way of downward mobility, the descending way of Jesus. It is the way toward the poor, the suffering, the marginal, the prisoners, the refugees, the lonely, the hungry, the dying, the tortured, the homeless–toward all who ask for compassion. What do we have to offer? Not success, popularity, or power, but the joy and peace of the children of God.”

Could it be that lowering is a posture of both strength and awe? I think so. In fact, I believe awe itself is a form of strength, for it can only arise when we’re unafraid to recognize something more beautiful, pure, and lovely than ourselves.

This posture of lowering—of humility, strength, and awe—feels essential to the work we’re doing through DeepWell. Whether we are walking alongside women leaders in seasons of burnout, holding space for communities in conflict, or creating resources that nourish souls, we are continually invited to bend low. To listen. To ground. To make space for what is greater than ourselves.

My hope is that as we deepen this work together, we will not shy away from the power of lowering—but embrace it as the very place where transformation begins.