I remembered an ancient insight, the Greek proverb – “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit” – as I read Rev. Anna Blaedel’s reflection Loving (In) the Time We Still Have.
Blaedel is a chaplain at the University of Iowa, and her reflection appeared from enfleshed, a collective “~ co-creating words, spaces, practices and resources that sustain our spirits for the long-term.~ drawing on lineages of resistance and prophets of faith.~ re-threading a story of coalition, care, and the interdependence of all life. ~ centering the wisdom of the fringes.
I have adapted – abridged really – the reflection for this Fear Not.
“I recently spent the day in the cemetery I have returned to throughout my entire life, with five elders I love dearly. All of us kin, claimed by various bonds of love. Our gathering was thick with history and shared knowing. Our sense of connection – with each other, with the land – thrumming sacred, and deep. Our gathering was also thick with the tender grief of aging, of mortality, of illness imparting the inevitability of loss.
I arrived to find an old oak tree I have known for all of my almost 44 years down, fallen, dead. Its limbs were scattered among the graves, and acorns – birthed before the tree’s death – were flung far and wide. As I collected a few acorns for my various pockets and altars, I looked up to see my dad and my mom’s cousin, hugging. Two old men, stooped and embracing. Two men, who have carried me on their backs and shoulders, who have encouraged and supported and mentored me in so many ways, including woodworking. It was anyone’s guess, whether they were holding each other up, or about to go down together.
In a world shot through with organized abandonment and cruelty – genocide and wars, mass deportations and mass incarceration, unprecedented storms and isolation – it is an incredible privilege to survive to old age. It is also so hard, so brave, so tender: confronting death’s inevitability.
A single oak tree, when it is old, can support over 1000 different species of insects, birds, mammals, and fungi. The abundance of acorns was likely due, I learned, to a mast year. During mast years, particular species of trees produce significantly higher numbers of seeds and nuts than usual. More tasty treats for squirrels and their mammal friends; more chances for seed saving, and germinating. Such times require enormous amounts of energy. It is intense labor, growing possibilities, sowing seeds, imagining what is not yet but could be. During mast years, trees practice their laborious commitment to a future they may or may not live to see.
We do not know how much time we have left. None of us, nor us collectively.
What kind of legacy do we want to leave? What possible futures do we want to seed?
There’s a song I sing most mornings, written by Alexandra Blakely. It is a song about composting shame into shared belonging, loss into deeper and wider aliveness:
How might we change, to serve the whole, now, as well as the future ones?
…If you are still here, still breathing, still crying: may you, may we, remember it is not too late to live, really live. May we make of our lives a kind of mast year of care, practicing the kind of love that bell hooks called “the necessary foundation enabling us to survive the wars, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact.” May we love each other and support each other, remembering that, even in our time so thick with loss, we have nothing to lose but our chains.”
With thanksgiving for Rev. Blaedel, her refection and her ministry, and for you all too.
In courage and faith,
Michael
