Village Mindedness

Greetings Neighbors and Strangers,

Loosed from summer’s twiggy anchor, Oak Leaf blows to rest on snow white ground.  Ruddy-brown, many-pointed.  Hand of tree.  Glossy crown of these hardwood hills.  Past midwinter, Sun finds any dark point on the blank canvas of ground and pours warmth there.  Into fallen pine needles.  Into wind-broken twigs.  Into this single Oak Leaf.  Paper-thin Sun catcher.  Many-pointed snow-melter.  More than a fingernail deep by the time I come along some number of sunny days later.  And nearly perfect.  Straight sided.  Like a handprint into wet concrete, minus the request for permanence.  We were here, together.  Today.  I saw your beauty.  I will remember you. 

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This afternoon (or tomorrow morning depending on where you are in the world) at 3pm Eastern Standard Time Katherine Brazenor and I will be hosting the second monthly Peasantry School Community Call.  Katherine has offered to speak aloud some of the longings she carries for the land she is in relationship with.  Everyone is invited to join us and will be invited to speak some of their longings as well.  Where the conversation goes is anyone’s guess.  Longings are powerful business.  Once they are released into the air, things begin to happen.  The call will last ninety minutes.  Click here for the LINK. 

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Someone told me once that elders are like the leaves of slow-grown hardwood trees.  Just before they rot into the ground, they offer one final color show.  Falling is their occasion for making beauty.  As far as metaphors go, it’s not a bad one.

I wrote last week about an Old Farmer-Man in Tweed who I met at an organic farming conference.  His name is Chuck Cox.  In response to that story, I received a note from a reader who confirmed that he is a deeply respected elder in that farming community.  Thank goodness.  But all week I’ve been noticing that I left one bit out of the story, perhaps because it isn’t the easiest to carry faithfully, or to try to tell well. 

The interaction came at the tail end of our time together.  In total, Chuck and I had spoken for only five or ten minutes.  But the feelings of affection were all there.  Sometimes it doesn’t take long to know you’ve really met someone.  The briefness can invite depth to arrive.  Perhaps old people can help us remember to say the things that need saying.  How would we be with one another if this was all there was? 

Chuck and I are leaning in close, but not because he is hard of hearing.  Rather, it feels like he’s got something to say that needs to be told close in.  He whispers, “Have you ever looked up the word ‘consumer’?  It’s not good.”  I can see on his face the weight of those two short sentences.  His eyes lower.  A bit of quiet seems appropriate.  Finally I say, “I have, but I will look again.”

So here I am Chuck, with my Oxford English open on the writing desk, remembering you. 

Consume:  use up destructively or wastefully; wasting away, specifically by disease.

How would we be with one another if this moment was the only chance we’re going to get to make some beauty before we go?  Would we find the courage to speak honestly about the way things are?  Who might be nourished by our lives?

On Sunday mornings I sit in the pew behind my friend Kitty.  She was carried into that church as a babe in arms 95 years ago.  I won’t be coy here; she adores me, and I her.  For our once-a-month coffee hour, Kitty always makes deviled eggs.  Given the way her body is deteriorating, I suspect this has become a major effort.  Last month she had something special for me.  Without saying a word, she handed me an egg salad sandwich, on soft whole wheat bread, cut in half on the diagonal, in a ziplock baggie.  She had packed me lunch for the next day.

Unlike Chuck, Kitty is hard of hearing.  I was leaning in close when she famously told me on my third time going to the church, “Adam, I know where I am now that you’re here.”  It would take me a few weeks to learn what she meant: she’s so deaf that my loud voice behind her right ear allows her follow along in the service booklet again. 

I’ve been living in this town for just over two years.  When I ate that egg salad sandwich the following day, I got the distinct sense that I know where I am now that Kitty is keeping me in mind as she moves through her final days.

Kitty was born in 1929.  Over the years between then and now Americans seem to have become consumers.  Something similar may have happened in other parts of the world.  Surely the culture was already headed in that direction, and surely it didn’t happen all at once, and there is no call here to find someone to blame.  But there is also no reason to give up on ourselves.  Because there are still elders among us who remember that it hasn’t always been this way. 

Teacher and elder Steven Jenkinson offers the following consumer-spell-breaking progression.  I’ve been in relationship with his teaching for several years, but this one has been cast in high relief since I ate the egg salad sandwich Kitty made for me a few weeks back. 

1. Learn how to eat.  (Eat here is distinct from ‘consume’)

2. Learn how to be fed.  (Gratitude begins to emerge as the goodwill of others comes into view)

3. Learn how to feed.  (This is the work of adulthood, refined by elders into that final color show)

There are more, but these first three alone could offer me decades of disciplined study. 

The Peasantry School Community Calls offer an opportunity to lean in close, to listen through the cracks together for the lingering whispers of a human generosity granted no shelf space in a consumer economy.  Already these monthly calls have helped me to listen more attentively as I move through my daily rounds.  Knowing there are others out there who carry similar longings goes down like strong medicine for me.  I’ve heard the same from others.  I am immensely grateful this morning.  Dawn breaks crystal clear on the eastern horizon, a lone star in the lightening sky.  We have been granted another day.  One more chance to make some beauty before we go. 

With care, Adam