By Naomi Meints ’25, NVP Fellow

God has set eternity in the human heart

Ecclesiastes 3:11

This blog was adapted from a speech I gave last summer at Wilderness Canoe Base, a Lutheran camp specializing in guiding camping trips for teenagers through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Northern Minnesota. I never expected to be a wilderness guide, but this impulsive choice has definitely guided me and helped me understand my place in a big, wide world. The Boundary Waters have become a place for me to understand friendship, nature, and, oddly enough, how fileting a fish has taught me about God’s love. 

I’m currently a senior anthropology student at St. Olaf College. If you ever ask me what that is, or what I plan to do with that, I’ll probably respond with something like “I don’t know, I just really like hanging out with people.” Which is true, but really I mean that I like thinking about people, and what it means to be a person. I don’t know what a good answer to that question is. What I do know, is the times when you really feel like a person. I think I’ve had that feeling a lot recently. I’ve been working on humanizing the world around me. 

I talked a lot about this on the staff camping trip in June. I think we can become really separated from the humanity in the histories, experiences, and stories that surround us. While we work on loving, and revering, and preserving all that is natural and non-human around us, I believe we should reflect on how we experience our world as something deeply human. The structures that protect us from harm, tools and gear that aids us, and the words that guide us all started as a thought, an idea. Ideas are born from needs, but also pain, love, care, and other feelings all too familiar to us. You are always connected to those who came before you, and those who will come after you. Even in the deepest corners of the wilderness, you are surrounded by the results of centuries of life, human or not, in ways you may never see. 

While we work on loving, and revering, and preserving all that is natural and non-human around us, I believe we should reflect on how we experience our world as something deeply human.

Now, I’m going to pivot for a second and talk about fish. I like them. I think they’re cool. On this aforementioned staff trip, my group of friends was called “The Trout Heads.” Safe to say, we were big into fishing (we also shared a baseball cap with a fish plushie glued to the top). So, one night camping on Paulson Lake, our fourth long day in the Boundary Waters, I was feeling a bit tired, especially after nostalgically playing mermaids in the lake with my friends. So, I took a nap in the tent. I woke up to hear the most amazing phrase, “we have two trout!” Less amazing, however, was the realization that I was the only person who knew how to properly filet said trout. And so, I began an extensive fish preparation live demonstration. 

Despite how gruesome this process was to watch, I can’t help but smile looking back on it, because we shared it together. With us gathered eagerly around the fish, learning how to separate the filets and preparing a fire to cook our fresh dinner on, I think about when I first learned to fish. It was my dad who first taught me how to catch and prepare my own fish, and I felt grateful for every Sunday afternoon that he dragged me out onto some rainy Minnesota lake, no matter how much attitude I had about it. I look down at the filet knife I’m using. An old, dull silver blade encased in an intricately designed leather case. My dad gave it to me, and his dad gave it to him. 

I never knew my grandfather, but I know my family’s memories. I picture my grandfather bringing his children up to the Boundary Waters, the pristine wilderness that probably looks indistinguishable since he was last here, and teaching them how to fish for the first time. Simply because it was something important to him that he wanted to share. I then think about all the families like mine that have passed through this lake. I think about how, for thousands of years, there were kids on this lake catching fish, and communities gathering together to enjoy a meal after a hard day’s work. I imagine all of the joy, pride, and love they might’ve felt.

I never knew my grandfather, but I know my family’s memories.

I once heard someone say something along the lines of “your face is a combination of features from hundreds of years of people who were loved.” Though I couldn’t see myself very well while out of trail, I did manage to see a blurry flash of my eyes in the blade of the knife. I see my grandmother’s eyes looking back at me. They’re the same eyes she got from her grandmother, which she got from her grandmother before her. I see the eyes of some little girl, who watched the fish jump up and down in the cold, clear stream, who grew up into a young mother. Who, I am nearly certain, has many times seen her children run up from the lake and excitedly exclaim that they had just caught dinner.

Maybe it’s fish. Maybe it’s a circle of girls braiding each other’s hair before a long day of work. Maybe it’s the hazy crescent moon that could’ve been seen by anyone around the world that day. Maybe it’s the laughter caused by millions of jokes told between friends that I will never get to hear, but I’m sure were in fact, super funny. There are always experiences and feelings that connect us to more people than we’ll ever be able to know. 

Eternity is another idea I don’t fully understand. However, I think there’s something very powerful in knowing how you are connected to all those around you, and to the traditions that have been carried out since there were first people. Even before that, there were the seemingly never ending cycles of nature that will continue after you and me. But, what I think truly feels eternal, is that feeling that connects us to everything beyond us. To the people, to the environment, to the creator, in ways that don’t always make sense to us. Nonetheless, it is still there. These deep feelings call us to be reminded that we are always part of something bigger than ourselves. To me, I understand this as a calling home to God. After all, God has placed eternity in every human heart.