Where Stewardship & Ownership Meet

 I am getting ready to preach for the first time since I retired last year. The scriptures focus on Creation, which usually makes me smile. But just yesterday the Supreme Court pulled EPA protections away from wetlands, leaving room for the erosion of over 50 years worth of careful stewardship of these precarious and precious places. The wetlands are the spaces that absorb excess waters when extreme rains come, they protect the integrity and clarity of lakes, rivers, and oceans by filtering sediment and toxins.

The case that brought this to the Court's attention has to do with the concept of “ownership” of land. Some folks bought land, for a pretty penny, and they want to do what they choose with it. On the surface that sounds perfectly understandable, but if we rush to defend "ownership" we often do so by casting the idea of "stewardship" into the shadows.

Gary and I live on land that is in part shared space. We are part of a community of 6 homeowners who each "own" 10 acres and share in the care and stewardship of about 80 acres of orchard, meadow and woodland. When the community was conceived, nearly 50 years ago, the original participants had a loosely defined desire to protect the land and hold it in reserve for future generations. About 20 years ago we placed a good bit of the land into the Vermont Land Use program, agreeing not to develop the land and to care for it in special ways in exchange for a reduction in taxes.

We have interpreted this responsibility in different ways over the years, and for the most part, have been able to agree on what that looks like - mowing the meadow after the Bobolinks and Savannah Sparrows have fledged, cutting trees in the wood lot so as to increase habitat and mast for creatures and also to encourage the growth of healthy trees. Our orchard has presented a challenge, however. It turns out there are a wide variety of approaches to managing an old orchard, and divergent views of what we are working toward with said management.

All of this contributes to my asking, "so, what is good stewardship? What does it look like to take care of an orchard, a meadow, a woodland or a wetland? How much should we be interfering with the natural course of events, and for whom are we managing the land, anyway?" My ready answer is that we are taking care of the land for future generations, but does this mean our children and grandchildren or does it mean the people who will be here seven generations and more from now? 

I would hope that this is the same thing, but recent discussions have proven me wrong, or at least out of synch with the perspectives of some of my friends and neighbors. As I reread the creation story in Genesis, I became aware that my perspective has been shaped by this scripture and how the environmental movement interprets stewardship. It has been shaped by the Indigenous perspective that says the land does not belong to us, but rather we belong to the land. In this vein, I have to put aside my personal needs and desires and bow to the needs of the earth and all of the living beings who depend on her, not just us humans.

It is difficult for us to give up the personal perspective. It is difficult for us to let go of the notion of ownership and all of the rights and privileges this entails. It is difficult to move from a place of bending the land to our wishes and instead, putting ourselves in service to the land, but this is what is needed. It is necessary to do this in order to ensure that there is a sustainable future for any of us.

Obligation or Joyful Pleasure ?

 I was swimming today, reflecting on how nice it is to be staying with my daughter and able to make easy use of the very close-by community pool to swim laps. There was a subtle but important difference between the pleasure I was taking in the feel of moving through the water as I relaxed into the strokes I know so well and the concern I had felt earlier in the day when I thought, “I need to get to the pool so I can do my laps.”

“Actually, I don’t have to swim laps today if I don’t feel like it,” I realized. “I can go if I want to, but I don’t have to. And I can swim if I want to, but there is nothing saying that I have to do laps. I could just splash around for awhile without worrying about how long I swam or how many laps I completed.” 

I sat back on my heels and pondered the possibilities for a little while, savoring the freedom I recognized myself to be luxuriating within. Given this new sense of limitless possibilities, I felt myself released from the need to conform to expectations. I decided I would go to the pool, but once I was there I would simply do whatever felt good and right in the moment. 

When I arrived, I was greeted with a warm welcome by the women at the desk, who are getting to know me. And as I walked into the pool area, the lifeguard and I talked about how quiet it was. She told me just a ten minutes before, the pool had been pretty busy. As a lap swimmer, I was glad for the quiet because it meant I would probably have a lane to myself and could swim without worrying about bumping into other people, especially when swimming the backstroke.

My swim today was just right, because it was just what I needed to tap into the simple pleasure of, not only swimming, but of being alive and of appreciating my body for all it does for me, not least of all carrying me through the water with a certain ease. 

This whole experience reminded me of an interaction I had with a dear woman who directed the choir at a church I served for quite some time. I sang in the choir there, and I have to admit that I did it out of a certain sense of obligation. “You have a good voice. You ought to sing,” was the message the Protestant work ethic and all of my ancestors who espoused its principles imposed on me. But one day Sue, the director, and I were talking. With a sparkle in her eye she said to me, “you know, some people sing because they actually enjoy it.”

Caught red-handed by her incredibly perceptive comment, I thought long and hard about the place of joy in my singing and in my life. Somehow I had managed to take something joyful and fashion it into a “should”. Wow. That was not how I wanted to live my life. From then on, when I sang with the choir I set my intention for experiencing the sheer pleasure of singing. Sometimes, despite my good intentions, I have to admit I grumbled a bit as I made my way to choir practice on a cold winter night, but Sue had definitely helped me see the value of tapping into the joy whenever I could.

I feel like today’s experience with swimming was a reminder to tap into the joys of my life as much as I possibly can. Obligations have their place, but not when they crowd joy and pleasure out of the picture.

A Centering Place

Whenever I am at home in Vermont, I like to make a daily trek to this little stream that runs behind our house. Sometimes I carry a stick of incense, but I always bring a little bit of well water from our tap as I make my way along the wooded path my feet have created over the years. When I arrive at the stream, I offer a prayer of gratitude for the beauty of the day - whether sunny or rainy, warm or cold, and for the gifts that life brings to me. Sometimes this is a highlight of my day - recognizing the simple gift of being alive and able to take in the beauty and sources of wonder evident all around me.

Once my prayers are done and observations of all there is to be grateful for feel complete, I settle in at the edge of the stream and watch the water flow for a while. If I am feeling off, unsettled in any way, spending time with the stream helps. As the water flows, my frayed nerves calm down. The waters refresh and soothe me, clearing my mind of chatter and worries. I like to imagine the water washing my cares away, carrying them down stream and out to the sea where they are diluted into the vastness of the ocean.

This ritual grounds me in the place that I call home. It helps me to feel more centered, especially when facing challenges or dealing with worries. The picture above shows the spot where the water pools and some incense burns over it. You may be able to sense the peace and calm of this place through my words, but it is even more likely that you are calling to mind a place that offers this sense of centeredness for you. I encourage you to go there whether in person or through your memories, and let your heart be at home for a while today.

Like a Butterfly

When Gary and I stopped in Virginia to spend a week with Sarah and Kyle, their neighbors, Debby and her daughter Callie invited us to come over and learn how to work with stained glass. During the pandemic, they had set up an entire studio in their home so they had everything we would need to try it out. When we arrived to take them up on their offer, Sarah and I were entranced by all of the beautiful and unique stained glass pieces displayed throughout their home.

Downstairs in the workshop, we each chose a simple pattern to work with - a butterfly for me and a hummingbird for Sarah. Our hosts assured us that if we caught on, and they were sure we would, that next time we could make something more interesting and complicated. Speaking for myself, this project was just the right amount of complicated for my first attempt, and the process itself certainly proved to be plenty interesting!

With our patterns in hand, we looked through several rainbows worth of colors to find just the right ones to match the finished products in our imaginations. We cut the glass carefully using special tools, and then sanded the edges of each piece with a grinder. This was the first aspect of the process that worked on me like a meditation. Holding tiny pieces of glass up to the grinder as the machine spun, my attention was transfixed as I watched for the moment when each edge perfectly fit my pattern. 

Once they had been ground just right, Callie showed me how to apply a special metal tape around each piece. Some more grinding was in order as I refit the pieces together with the tape in place. Once the tape was secure, it was time to solder the pieces together. This turned out to be yet another opportunity for mindful focus as it was tricky to get the solder to lay down smoothly with no bumps or sharp spots.

Since I wanted my butterfly to have black edges, the last part of the process was to coat the cooled solder with a patina, let it set overnight and then buff it into a nice shine. Saying a grateful "goodbye" along with deep appreciation for Callie and Debby's patient teaching, I was excited to bring my butterfly home.

I learned more than the basic skills of working with stained glass during the hours I spent bringing my butterfly into being. As I said, it was a meditative experience in many ways because so much of the process required patiently shaping and reshaping each tiny piece of glass until all of the pieces fit together just right. It was a deep teaching about the importance of paying attention to detail and of the value of each and every part of the larger whole, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it was. Every little piece of glass mattered. Paying careful attention at every stage of the process made a difference in the butterfly and in me.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” As I was learning how to work with stained glass, a deep sense of contentment settled on me. It came to me as an unexpected gift that I had not even thought to pursue. 

My completed butterfly in a sunny window at home in Vermont. 

(I took this last picture, but all of the previous ones were taken by my daughter, Sarah Colletti.)

Mud Season Blues

Photo by Gary Lindorff

This in-between season is one of the toughest ones for many of us who live in the Northeast. We know that spring is coming, but winter is not quite done with us yet. There are tantalizing days when the sun shines brilliantly in a crisp blue sky, but when you walk out the door, the freezing temperatures shock the breath out of your lungs. Then there are days when the winds are warm and invite you to take a stroll down one of the trails in the woods, only to sink into mud that threatens to pull the boot right off your foot. 

I live on a dirt road, so driving during mud season is particularly fraught. It can feel as if your vehicle is being taken over by some alien being that grabs your wheels, jerking you this way and that. Staying on the road can be quite a challenge! The ruts are sometimes deep enough that smaller cars have to be abandoned for a couple of days until someone can deliver a load of gravel and make our road passable again. My Subaru can usually negotiate the mud, but there have been a few times when I had to leave it behind and hike home.

I am pretty tired of mud season already, and there is no guarantee of when it will be over. But there is one sweet glimmer of joy that makes its way into our lives this time of year along with the mud, and that is sugaring season. The conditions that make the mud so ubiquitous are the very same ones that make the maple sap flow. Warm days and freezing cold nights. When the conditions are right you can see and smell the sweet vapors rising out of sugaring sheds as the carefully collected sap is boiled down into delicious maple syrup. 

Photo by Meredith Pratt

Anticipating this treat takes the edge off of the frustrations that accompany mud season for many of us. Even if you don't have much of a sweet tooth, it is nice to sample the wares of local maple sugar producers. Before coming to Vermont I didn't give much thought to the difference between light fancy and dark rich grades of syrup, but an early spring taste test can be enlightening. To take a break from the mundanities of mud season, you could try sugar on snow or one of the wide variety of baked goods to be found at a maple festival in one of Vermont's small towns. If you are feeling particularly ambitious, you could try a cup of tea or coffee brewed with maple sap collected from a back yard tree. 

A little maple syrup may not cure you of the mud season blues, but it is a nice respite for sure.

Photo by Ethan Pratt

 

Winds of Change

It was one of our last afternoons at the beach. The winds were blowing so strongly that sand bit at our legs. Sitting down would have been pointless in that kind of intensity, so we had come just to walk, and even that turned out to be challenging. The only folks thrilled with the weather were the kite surfers who dotted the coastline, enthusiastically riding the rough waves beneath their colorful parachute-like kites.

A few days before, I had tried to relax in my beach chair under similar windy conditions, only to have the pages of my book repeatedly ripped out of my hands, my hair blown into my eyes, and the umbrella turned inside out. Within moments of our arrival, sand had coated every surface of our bags, chairs and towels, and there was no reprieve. Those winds were powerfully steady, and the rip currents were strong. None of this showed any signs of letting up. Needless to say, we did not last very long before we abandoned the beach for the relative calm to be found only a few hundred yards inland.

Today, without the expectation of relaxing in a beach chair or swimming in the surf, we were traveling light. Walking along the beach unencumbered by bags or chairs, we were able to notice things that we had not fully appreciated before. Fighting the wind, I bent down close to the sand and saw that underneath each shell was a tiny mountain carved out of the sand. Each tiny shell-protected mountain seemed to be a microcosm of the larger mountain ranges that stretch across the landscape of this and other countries. Walking against the wind, it was easy to imagine we were trekking across steep and difficult places.

With the addition of these intense winds, what had been a welcoming beach became a stark and desolate landscape that challenged us with every step we took. The sound was relentless, a roar that made it hard to hear anything else. It was difficult to tell where the sound of the wind stopped and that of the equally intense waves began. Some birds were careening overhead, but if they were calling out, their cries were swallowed up and could not be heard.

This did not feel like the same beach at which we had spent so many calm, peaceful and relaxed afternoons! My thoughts veered sharply between feeling sad that we could not sit down to enjoy another one of those sweet afternoons, and sensing that the winds were exactly what we needed to be able to walk away from the idyllic world we had participated in for a good long while.

The winds of change were blowing, reminding us that our time in the south had come to an end. It was time to head home, despite the fact that we would miss the warmth, the sun, the beach and the ocean. It was time to head home and see what possibilities were moving toward us on those winds.

 

We Are All Connected

As we left my Aunt Gene and Uncle George's home on the West coast of Florida we asked them where we might enjoy stopping as we made our way North along that unfamiliar part of the state. They suggested a little town named Micanopy, which retains much of its old Florida sensibilities in architecture and attitudes. 

As we drove into the town, there was a sense of leaving the busy pace of highways, cities and modern suburbia behind. Gary and I gladly got out of our car and stretched. We wandered the streets, enjoying the quaint architecture of the houses and shops, permeated by a sense of a town that had held onto its sense of self in the midst of modernity. We were especially drawn to the enormous Live Oak Trees that could be seen in most of the yards. 

Gary had me stand in front of a particularly large tree as a way of showing the scale of it, and while I was standing there waiting for him to snap a picture, a young man called out to me from the porch of the house where he had been sitting talking with a young woman I took to be his partner. I returned their greeting, and the two of them made their way over to me as Gary arrived from across the street as well.

"All the trees you see around here are actually just one tree," he said. "They are all connected underground. The roots run all through this land, under the ground in this whole town and out beyond it as well."

Gary and I expressed our awe and amazement about the sheer magnificence of the tree we stood beneath and looked around at other trees that we could also see nearby. We stood there with our companions, just quietly taking it in for a while. Standing in that sweetly iconoclastic old town under those spreading moss-hung branches eased something inside of me. It felt like we were participating in some form of holy communion, soaking in the sacred presence of the Oak that literally surrounded us on all sides, towering over us and running beneath our feet. 

After a while I felt moved to try and express what I was feeling. "Everything we see is one ancient, beautiful old tree. Wow. I don't even know how to think about that."

I have read about how trees are connected underground, how their roots help them communicate with one another. I had even reflected on the fact that a small stand of Aspen that grow at the pond near my home are genetically the same organism. But there, in that moment, the concept took on a deeper meaning, a sharper reality for me. This is how the world is meant to be, I thought. We are all supposed to live in relationship with one another at the deepest level possible. We are, each and every one of us, a part of one another. 

I dare to hope that if we take to heart this basic truth of our existence, it could change the world. At the very least, it will change us.