On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down an old forest, an old forest will stand.
–Wendell Berry, “Work Song – 2.Vision”
Storyteller and mythologist Michael Meade reminds us of an old proverb that says: adversity reveals genius; prosperity conceals it. Something deep in the soul responds to dark times. But what a challenge it is to evoke that soulful response!
How can we stay awake and present to what is happening in this dark time and not fall into denial or despair? How can we move from grief to gratitude, from despair to hope?
A few weeks ago, our Sacred Circles class assignment was to find a local place that evoked our grief for the loss and suffering of Earth and its peoples and to go there and allow ourselves to feel the sorrow and loss. I chose to go to a nearby Interstate highway construction site where I knew that trees were coming down, earth was being moved around, and concrete was being laid down, all so that more cars could travel and burn more petroleum in our unchecked course of drastically changing the climate of our planet home.
˜
Late one afternoon I drive to a nearby residential development and park in a little cul-de-sac off Deep Forest Road (named after what had once been a deep forest). I get out of the car and make my way along a little valley in the remaining sliver of forest toward the construction site. I notice how stormwater runoff from the development has eroded channels in the valley where once a tiny brook flowed. I pass a little remnant of Spring Beauty in bloom. Good for you, I think. Amazing!
I climb up a little ridge and find myself at the edge of this bit of forest looking down at the construction site. Below me, in between swaths of bare clay, are the cut tree trunks in neat piles. On the Interstate beyond it is rush hour. At the construction site the day’s work is winding down. A lone excavator machine is tidying up a large pile of dirt. A worker is collecting some metal frames into a neat pile.
I am sad for the ongoing loss of forest, for the rush of life passing by–unaware of all that is being lost, and even more, all that will be lost if we don’t stop. If we don’t make a radical change of course. So I am sad, but I want to do the assignment; I want to deepen my grief, feel the fullness of it.
But something else is happening. A Robin comes, sings gloriously in the tree right above me. To my surprise I am feeling a powerful sense of comfort coming to me from somewhere deep in the little remnant of forest. It is almost as if it is saying that it will be allright. And the forest says another thing to me, clear and strong: Thank you for coming. Thank you for caring. This means so much.
The late afternoon sun is low in the sky casting long shadows across the construction site below me. A gentle cool breeze dries my tears. I watch the man who has been staying late to collect his metal frames into a neat pile. Finishing he gets into a little cart and drives off. I imagine that he is going home. I see him coming in the door of his house, his children running up to greet him. I imagine him down on all fours, giving them rides around the room, a little playtime after a long hard day of work.
˜
Years ago when we were visiting with Sister Miriam MacGillis at Genesis Farm, a Biospiritual Center based on the work of Thomas Berry, she said something that has stuck in my memory: We are all good people caught in bad systems. And sometimes she would add: Maybe, somehow, this trouble we’re in is right where we’re supposed to be — at a critical juncture in the grand picture of this evolving universe.
If that is where we truly are, we will have to learn to walk this path from grief to gratitude and from despair to hope. Not just once, but again and again. And we must invite others to join us. Many others. It will be the grandest adventure we can imagine!
Any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into a story.
–Isak Dinesen
–Jim Hall, from Sacred Circles,
Dayspring School of Christian Living Class
A few spaces remain for the September weekend retreat Finding Gold in the Darkness: The Way of Soul in Troubled Times, led by Jim Hall and Cheryl Hellner — where we will gather in the forest, share our stories, sing our songs, dance in sacred circles. For more information and to register access the Rolling Ridge website.
Jim, this is beautiful – and so timely. Thank you.