Lessons of Fat Bear Week

Photo: Matthias Polen.

It’s Fat Bear Week. So I’ve been thinking of fat bears and their habit of sitting still, taking in the world around them.

In a world that measures worth by busyness, it is striking to see a creature of the wild, made for survival, strength, and constant motion, simply sit and gaze.

There’s no obvious purpose in that moment. The bear isn’t hunting, defending territory, or searching for shelter. It’s just being. It’s almost prayerful.

[I’m not saying he’s experiencing spirituality.]

I think about that often when I step out of my door and walk the half block to the lake. I live so close, yet I can take it for granted.

The waters are always changing, the horizon shifts with every sunrise, every storm, every season. It’s where I’ve had my best conversations with myself—sorting through the clutter of my mind.

And as someone who is spiritual, it’s also where I speak with God and listen for the whisper of the universe. The lake is both mirror and sanctuary.

In moments like this, I’m reminded that reflection is not wasted time. It’s renewal.

Just as the bear gazes at the expanse of water and forest, so too am I invited to sit still, to let my eyes rest on something larger than me. In that stillness, anxiety quiets, burdens ease, and the soul breathes.

My mental health depends on these pauses. Without them, I lose balance. With them, I remember that life is more than work, noise, and striving.

We are called, I think, to reclaim the sacred practice of sitting still—of admiring creation without agenda.

Bears don’t need to be told that. But we do. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why God, or the universe, put such reminders in nature: so that even in the smallest, simplest act of sitting by water, we learn to see with reverence again.