Do Not Try to Save the Whole World

Today maybe even as you read this, men (I am assuming the crew is made up of men) are cutting down the large maple tree in my front yard. My house was built in 1900. I suspect the tree took root before or around the time that the house was built. Over the last several years I've been watching it slowly die, limbs falling from it on clear, windless days, other limbs remaining barren through spring and summer. It was time to take it down. I waited as long as I could. I am only slightly comforted by the fact that every person who gave me an estimate told me that taking it down was the right thing to do.

A few months ago the massive tree directly across the street was also cut down. I still feel its absence. I wonder how long I will feel the absence of my tree.

Earlier this year a neighbor had a few extra spiles to tap maple trees so for the first and only time, I tapped my tree, collecting gallons of sap. Yesterday I finished boiling it down to syrup. It is sweet and delicious. In a very literal way my tree is now a part of me.

When the syrup was finished, I took a small amount of it back out to my maple and poured it at the tree's base. I rubbed a perfume of frankincense and myrrh into the bark. I don't have anything to give my tree but gratitude and reverence. I wish I could warn the squirrels that live in it that their home is about to be gone. They'll know soon enough. I hope they can quickly find a new home.

As I mourn the loss of my tree and think about the soon-to-be-homeless squirrels, I also mourn what is happening in the Ukraine. I mourn the collective uncertainty of the people leaving their home and country with no idea when or if they'll ever be back. I mourn for the people who are fighting, who have already lost their lives and those who will in the coming days. I mourn that as masses of people are trying to leave the Ukraine, Black and Brown people, foreign nationals, are facing discrimination and harsh treatment. I mourn that racism seeps through western news coverage in multiple ways, including what news actually gets covered.

There is so much to mourn.

There is so much work to do.

Recognizing this, we may feel so overwhelmed that we shut down, unable to do anything, convinced that we can't make a difference. Recognizing this, we may stir ourselves into a frantic pace, trying to do aaaaalllll the work, convinced that the world's well-being depends on what we do.

The world's well-being does depend on what we do.

AND

The world's well-being does not depend solely on one person's actions. Moving at a frantic pace when we're not fleeing for our lives does not serve us well. It only exhausts us. It is not sustainable.

The world's well-being depends both on what we do and don't do. It depends both on how we fill our time and space and how we clear and empty our time and space.

If you are teetering between overwhelm and franticness, perhaps uncertain about what to do or where your place is, I offer this poem by Martha Postlethwaite:

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even as I mourn that so much of the interbeing of our world is in need of rescue, I also feel joyful that right now the song that is my life seems to have fallen into my hands. I cannot save the whole world, but I can give myself in the ways I know how. Writing is one way I know to give. Offering classes and programs is another. I am excited to be starting Seeking the Shalom of the City next Monday, March 7 and to be working with Onyxe Antara to offer Expand and Activate Your Vision on March 19! Perhaps the most unique part of my song is creating Heart Portraits and Sketches. All of these are heart work.

Today is my 49th birthday. As I begin this square number year with both mourning and gratitude, my hope for me and for you is that we find our songs, that we keep singing them, and that we give ourselves to this world in the ways we know how.

Blessings,
Cory