‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. Luke 1: 38

As I walk in the nature preserve each morning, words buzz about my brain. I compose as I walk most days and find that the rhythm of my steps works its own kind of magic as I write. In the past week, the lyrics of a song kept building until “Mary’s Psalm” was born–lyrics with hopes of finding a melody one day. The song opens with this stanza:

There is wonder here
On this midnight clear
And I will not fear
What I will carry

Every Advent season, Mary’s resolute acceptance of all she would carry astounds me. She carries the child in her womb, the incarnate Son of God. She carries the suffering servant who would live among us, teaching and healing, bringing God to earth. And she carries our salvation, the Christ who was born to die for us. Though the weight of all she carries should crush her, Mary faces the angel Gabriel and concedes: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me, according to your word.”

Ask most mothers about what they’ve carried–and continue to carry–and they’ll recount the weight of their respective journeys. They’ll tell you much (perhaps more than you’ll ever want to know) about their pregnancies and deliveries, about their hopes and fears, about their subsequent joy and ongoing concern for their child’s well-being. They’ll tell you much about the emotional and spiritual weight of raising a child, the crucible of protecting a child against all the forces which threaten to destroy him or her, the sleepess nights, and the hours of prayer. Still, they soldier on because the load they carry is for life, through good times and bad times, in sickness and in health. And this consent is both sweet weight and release.

I have a friend and former co-worker, Ariann, whose consent to carry has inspired many. Five years ago, she and her husband, Drew, were told that their unborn son suffered from hydrochephalus, that he would only live a short time, perhaps minutes, if he made it to term and survived birth. Upon hearing such news, some couples would have chosen to terminate the pregnancy, sparing themselves and their unborn child further suffering. But Arianne and Drew said, “let it be with me, according to your word.” They chose to carry the sweet weight of Matthew to term and to love him for as long as they could. To say that their story is miraculous is, indeed, an understatement. For not only did Matthew survive his birth, he survived several brain shunt operations and lives today as a spunky and beloved big brother to Aurora. Nicknamed Matthew the Great for his tenacity and spirit, he continues to bless and inspire many. Understandably, Ariann and Drew carry concerns for his future health and well-being as Matthew will inevitably face other surgeries. They live with gratitude, though, a joyful testament to their faith.

In Tim O’Brien’s famous collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, he chronicles a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War.  He writes: “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” In truth, perhaps we all carry what we can bear. Perhaps we all carry a silent awe for the terrible power of those things we carry. For, in truth, we all carry loads that bring us both joy and pain. We carry plans and dreams that challenge us and may even threaten to bury us under their weight. We carry hope throughout our ordinary days, believing that the world can be a better, brighter place for all. We carry grief as we watch those we love suffer and die, as we watch our world collapse under the weight of conflict, war, and natural disaster. We carry time, measuring our days against the running clock of mortality. And we carry faith, which buoys and burdens us, as we seek to live both in this world and not of it.

Our consent to carry these things is sometimes resolute and sometimes tremulous. There are moments in our lives during which we experience great peace as we proclaim, “Let it be unto me, according to your word.” And there are other moments during which we quake, mouthing the words we hope to believe, the words by which we hope to live: “Let it be unto me, according to your word.” For we want to take up our crosses, and we want to lay them down. We want to carry the weight of our faith, and we want to unburden ourselves of it. In our human frailty, we can only cry out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Matthew 9:24)

In this season of Advent, Mary’s words convict me to consider all that we carry. Much of what we carry is unseen, hopes and fears and doubts that shelter in unspoken prayers. But make no mistake, the weight is there. Sometimes it grounds us in peace and joy, while other times, it buries us in pain and fear. Even as a teenage girl, Mary understood that her load would be lightened only if she turned to God. By her own efforts, she couldn’t bear the weight. By our own efforts, neither can we.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

A disclaimer: For most of my life, I’ve had an intimate relationship with doubt. Over the years, self-doubt grew to be a constant and insistent companion. In classrooms and social gatherings, I hung back, watched, and waited as others eagerly asserted themselves into conversations and activities. As I examined myself in mirrors, doubt stood at my shoulder, a stern matron who scrutinized what I’d chosen to wear or how I styled my hair. As I navigated relationships, doubt held court as the great inquisitor: Should I say this? Or this? Or nothing? Should I do this? Or this? Or nothing? In truth, many are plagued by self-doubt, and I’ve come to see that my own experience is more universal than unique.

At its worst, doubt can cripple and destroy, paralyzing individuals from actively participating in their lives. This is largely why almost everything we hear or read casts doubt as a foe, an enemy to be hunted down and finally vanquished. Doubt is an adversary that robs us of confidence and certainty; it spreads like a malignancy and kills the good cells of our well-being. At least, that’s what we’re often told. I recall a group of high school students proudly offering the words of a popular coach to the class one day: Say what you mean, and mean what you say. They lauded the wisdom of these words. Words to live by, they said. At 16, they believed that living life well was all about being certain and proclaiming this certainty with passion. For them, doubt was a bad character trait, an attribute of the weak and indifferent.

In spite of some dark times with doubt, I’ve found that it’s generally been more blessing than curse. Recently, I read Austrian poet Ranier Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. He writes to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old cadet at the Theresian Miliatry Accademy in Wiener Nestadt. I was taken by his words to Kappus on doubt:

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers–perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.

Perhaps, like Rilke, we might take a closer, more positive look at doubt. Perhaps, if we would train it, doubt might become one of our best workers, maybe even the most intelligent of all the ones that are building our lives. When I think of the times I’ve wrestled most strenuously with doubt, I confess that the struggle has almost always been a redemptive one. True, it has been wraught with sleepless nights and some intense soul-searching. Like Rilke, I asked much of my doubt. I demanded that it prove itself and come clean with a resolution, whatever that may be. During these wrestling matches, I felt as though I were in an old-time melodrama, an angel in white and a devil in black perched on opposing shoulders. One would assert an argument, as the other prepared to counter. This might go on for days–or months. And though some might regard this as unnecessary psychological and emotional torture, I’ve come to see it as a redemptive struggle. That is, as I worked through my doubt, I began to shape the underpinnings of my own worldview. I began to understand who it was I wanted to be and how I wanted to live.

My friends and family were both alternately bemused and amused during a few weeks in the late 80s when I wrestled with whether or not to use the funds I’d saved from teaching an extra night class to remodel our upstairs bathroom. On one hand, I really wanted to replace our tub with a walk-in shower, to purchase a new vanity, and to generally bring the decor into the 80s (it had been stuck in the gold and avocado 60s for much too long). But on the other hand, I didn’t know if I could justify spending money on something that wasn’t truly necessary. I struggled with a materialism that seemed decadent. My doubts over whether or not to remodel consumed me for a time. In hopes of gaining clarity, I read several books that offered a faith-based perspective on money. In the end, I decided that it was o.k. to remodel our bathroom. Most importantly, however, as I wrestled with my doubts, I began to develop a healthy sense of stewardship that has served me well through the years.

French scientist and philosopher René Descartes claimed that “[i]f you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” As I watch political and cultural battles rage today, I’m convinced that most of us would do well to take Descartes’ words to heart (and mind). That is, we shouldn’t discount the vital role that doubt plays in the search for truth. All my life, I’ve been amazed at the quick confidence of those around me, in both my personal circle as well as on the world stage. The certainty with which some speak and act often astounds me–and often saddens me. It seems as though these individuals never doubt themselves, never consider the gray areas, never wrestle with the what-ifs. Without an active sense of doubt, it seems as though they’ve become blind and deaf to opposing ideas and positions. Without doubt, it seems as if they aren’t truly seeking truth. “Where doubt is, there truth is–that is her shadow,” writes American short story writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce who understood the partnership of doubt and truth to be a healthy and necessary one.

In Camden Conversations, American writer Walt Whitman extolled the virtues of doubt, which he regarded as a kind of “scientific spirit”:

I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.

Although it’s true that doubt may result in self-deprecation and even self-loathing, it’s also true that doubt can–and perhaps should–result in humility: the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them, the chance to try over again after a mistake or wrong guess. I consider the times when I’ve misjudged, times during which my doubt gratefully rescued me from myself and set me on a truer, more humane course. Having battered me until I came to my senses, doubt kept the way beyond open and offered the possibility for starting over.

When it comes to faith–spiritual or otherwise–there are those who argue that doubt foils belief. In one of my favorite Philip Roth short shories, “The Conversion of the Jews,” the young Jewish protagonist, Ozzie, has many questions for his teacher, Rabbi Binder. Much to the dismay of his friend and classmate, Itzie, Ozzie continues to wrestle with the idea of a virgin birth, with an immaculate conception. As a Jew, Ozzie has been taught that Jesus is a prophet, an extraordinary man, but that his birth was a typical, human birth. But Ozzie wrestles with sincere doubts, reasoning that if God could create the entire universe in six days, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to impregnate Mary. He shares this reasoning with Itzie after class:

“Anyway, I asked Binder if He could make all that in six days, and He could pick the six days He wanted right out of nowhere, why couldn’t He let a woman have a baby without having intercourse.”

When the Rabbi begins–again–to explain that Jesus was a historical figure, that he lived as a man, Ozzie persists and later tells Itzie, “So I said I understood that. What I wanted to know was different.” Roth tells us that what Ozzie wants to know is always different, that doubt is an active agent in his spiritual life. During free discussion time the next school day, Ozzie offers his reasoning once again, exclaiming “Why can’t He [God] make anything He wants to make!” and accusing Rabbi Binder of not knowing anything about God. When Binder insists that he apologize for his outburst and accusation, Ozzie continues his line of reasoning, reasserting that his teacher doesn’t understand anything about God. In frustration, Binder slaps him. Shocked, Ozzie calls his teacher a “bastard” and then flees from the classroom, taking refuge on the rooftop where he locks the door behind him. Bedlam ensues, as classmates, Binder, and eventually his mother anxiously stand in the school yard below and beg him to come down. The fire department arrives, and firefighters haul out a large net in preparation for Ozzie’s possible leap from the roof. After much begging and cajoling, Ozzie agrees to come down–but only after all who are gathered below kneel and confess that they believe in Jesus Christ and the immaculate conception. Satisfied with their confession, he jumps into the firefighers’ net, and the story ends.

As readers, we don’t get to see how Ozzie’s faith journey plays out over his lifetime. Although he is a fictional character, I think it’s safe to say that his doubts reflect those of many individuals who question their faith. And if he were a real person, I think it’s safe to say that his doubts would play an important role in shaping his faith. Like many who wrestle with questions of faith, in the end, I believe Ozzie’s doubts would prove to be more beneficial than harmful.

German-American philosopher and Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich would see that Ozzie’s doubt is not “opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” In “Faith and Doubt, Friends or Foes?” author and theologian Stephen D. Morrison expounds on Tillich’s statement:

When faith is defined as the belief in an object or set of facts, then faith is opposed to doubt. But, as Tillich argues, when faith is defined properly as the state of being ultimately concerned then doubt is included in that concern and is indeed necessary to its existence. Faith and doubt are then not opposite acts, but co-dependent acts.

Clearly, many would argue that faith is, indeed, the belief in an object or set of facts; they would reject Tillich’s assertions that faith is the state of ultimately being concerned and that faith and doubt are co-dependent acts. Still, I think Tillich and Morrison give us much to consider here. Before critics summarily dismiss the idea of doubt as a vital element of faith, perhaps they might look to those pillars of faith in their own lives. I’m guessing that they’d be hard-pressed to find one of those individuals who hadn’t encountered doubt in his or her faith journey. In fact, I’m guessing that those individuals became pillars of faith because they actively and humbly wrestled with their doubts.

Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, doubted Christ’s resurrection. In John 20: 25, he tells his fellow apostles: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Consider Thomas who lived and worked alongside Jesus, who heard him speak and witnessed his miracles, and yet, who doubted. A week later, when Jesus appears to the group, he instructs Thomas to touch his side and see his nail-scarred hands, to stop doubting and believe. A reluctant missionary, Thomas continues to struggle in his faith until years later, he plants seeds for the Christian church along the western coast of India. Today, Saint Thomas is venerated as the Apostle of India. A population of Indian Christians who live along the Malabar Coast lay claim to conversion by the saint whom we’ve come to know as “doubting Thomas.”

This is by no means an argument against certainty. Rather, this is a proposal to look more carefully–and compassionately–at the role of doubt in our lives. I realize that this may buck current trends that encourage us to purge our doubt, to beat it back when it rears its ugly head, and, by doing so, to become our best, most confident selves. Still, I propose that we consider the words of English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon, who like Tillich, valued the integral role that doubt can play in one’s search for truth:

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Then, as I was scrolling, I came upon a short video of an interview that the author James Baldwin gave many decades ago. “There may not be as much humanity in the world as one would like to see, but there is some,” he said. “There is more than one would think.” He spoke with gravity and moral conviction, his eyes boring into the interviewer, who was off-camera. “Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you,” he continued. “What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide for yourself not to be.” Excerpts from “A Humanist Manifesto” by David Brooks, (The Atlantic, Oct. 24, 2023)

David Brooks, opinion columnist for The New York Times, argues that James Baldwin is a defiant humanist. That is, he’s an individual who challenges the belief that there may not be much humanity in the world. He’s an individal who seeks [t]o try to see others in all their complexity and depth, to look to onself with humility, self-awareness, and compassion, and [t]o try to act in ways that are considerate, just, and discerning. Above all, to try to see the world from another person’s point of view. We see defiance daily in many forms as we tune into the news or scroll through social media. In the current landscape of defiance, I can only hope that the defiant humanist will prevail. If more of us walked through our days looking at everyone we met as though we were truly looking at ourselves, we might agree that the world as we know it would be a much better place.

Years ago when I traveled to Nigeria with the mission group in the photo above, I worked among defiant humanists, American and Nigerian. I recall a conversation with a Nigerian nurse in the small village of Bambur. She proudly showed our group the village pharmacy, which–much to our dismay–amounted to a few scant shelves of bandaids, rolls of gauze, bottles of Tylenol, and tubes of antiseptic cream. When we asked her about her work as a nurse, she admitted that it was good work, even though she hadn’t been paid for two years. Later in the van on our way back to our lodgings, we marveled at a woman who worked joyfully without pay, who explained that she worked faithfully with the hope that she’d be paid someday. If not, she confessed, I’ll continue nursing because the people need me. If I’d had Baldwin’s words then, I’m quite certain I’d have turned to my group and said, There may not be as much humanity in the world as one would like to see, but there is some.

Brooks cites a 2021 McKinsey study in which their consulting firm asked business executives why their employees were quitting. The executives explained that employees left their firms in search of positions that paid more. When the consulting firm asked the employees the same question, however, they answered candidly: they didn’t feel as though their employers recognized or valued them. Quite simply, they didn’t feel seen. It goes without saying that to be a defiant humanist, you’d have to be one who genuinely sees others.

When I was teaching English at a small rural high school, a parent confronted me during her parent-teacher conference. What are you doing specifically for my son? she challenged. It was the only time I cried during a meeting with a parent. Through my tears, I said, Not enough, not nearly enough. With 120 students daily, I was quite certain that I wasn’t meeting the individual needs of each of my students. I was painfully aware that I didn’t see each of them in the fully human way they desired to be seen and I desired to see them. If they were quiet quitting in my course, I understood that their reasons may have been like those of the McKinsey study employees: They didn’t feel seen.

One might argue that we just can’t see everyone. Much as I’d like to argue this, I concede that it’s more rationalization than anything. In Brooks’ “A Humanist Manifesto,” he quotes novelist Frederick Buechner who marveled at how the Dutch painter Rembrandt saw people. Buechner noted that even subjects with plain faces are so remarkably seen by Rembrandt that we are jolted into seeing them remarkably. A defiant humanist looks with such eyes, seeing others remarkably.

According to Brooks, the defiant humanist seeks to develop keen ears as well. One man with such ears was the early 20th century British stateman, Arthur Balfour. Brooks cites John Buchanan who explained his friend Balfour’s unique skill of making each person feel seen and heard:

I remember with what admiration I watched him feel his way with the guests, seize on some chance word and make it the pivot of speculations until the speaker was not only encouraged to give his best but that best was infinitely enlarged by his host’s contribution. Such guests would leave walking on air.

Sadly, the art of conversation today often involves one-upmanship. It’s about getting the conversational upper hand, using another’s comments as a springboard into your own brilliance. It’s about dazzling the crowd with your oratorical prowess, lacing your conversations with witticisms, allusions, and more facts than others would ever care to know. In short, it’s about you. But the defiant humanist purposely seizes on another’s words and encourages them to expand and expound, offering their very best. Those who converse with defiant humanists, like Balfour, leave walking on air, convinced they’ve been truly heard and that they matter.

Most of us can probably recall at least one such conversation. I’ve been blessed to have held many conversations with my parents, siblings, and friends that left me walking on air. They validated me by looking directly into my eyes and asking for elaboration. When they spoke, they often repeated and expanded on what I’d said in ways that affirmed me. These are conversations that buoyed me, convicting me to pass it on, to make sure that I did my best to leave others walking on air after we parted.

Defiant humanists prefer, too, that their conversations be storytelling conversations. Brooks explains that while much of our conversation is practical and informative, [s]tories capture a person’s character and how it changes over time. Stories capture how a thousand little influences come together to shape a life, how people struggle and thrive, get knocked about by lucky and unlucky breaks. People often share more openly through storytelling.

In my first college teaching position, I recall a young mother who pulled me aside after the first class to inform me that she hoped to be able to complete this course but that, regrettably, she might have to withdraw at some point in the future. Offering no details, she made this announcement, thanked me, and exited the classroom. Weeks later as we were conferencing over her first essay, she told me the story of her life, a story I’ve never forgotten. She recounted the savage details of her marriage to a man she claimed had committed a murder that had gone unprosecuted. As she told her story, the portrait of a woman-on-the-run emerged, a mother desperate to protect her daughter from the man who continued to hunt them years after their escape. As our conference came to an end, she looked at me and said, So, you’ll understand if I don’t show up to class one day. You’ll understand what this means. I understood. Over the years, this story shaped how I looked at and dealt with other female students. At times, I may have been too permissive, too eager to accept excuses, but each time I questioned my judgment, I had only to remember the story of the young mother on the run.

In addition to being a good conversationalist, Brooks contends that the defiant humanist is a good friend. He turns to essayist and poet David Whyte who insists that friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. Instead, Whyte insists that the finest friendship has quite a different foundation:

[t]he ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

To be a witness is both a responsibility and a privilege to those who seek defiant humanism. For witnessing demands that we see the essence of another and that we have walked with them. . . on a journey impossible to accomplish alone. To be a witness is to celebrate with others, acknowledging and honoring them for all they are. But it also requires that we grieve with them, suffering with them as they work through disappointment, sorrow, and loss. Such a witness is no fair-weather friend but rather a true friend who walks with you in all seasons–dark and light.

I confess that as I read the news of war, military conflict, immigration challenges, poverty, and oppression of all kinds, it’s often difficult to deny that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Bombarded with images and stories that push us further into darkness, it’s difficult to muster the courage and conviction to raise our heads and train our eyes to see the humanity around us. It’s there, and it begs to be seen and valued, to be lifted high, as Brooks insists, because it’s the right banner to raise.

I’ll let David Brooks have the last words here, for he writes passionately to a world that hungers for more defiant humanists:

Every person is sacred. Every person deserves to be seen, and given just and loving attention. We may later decide that the person we are looking at is venal or cruel or wicked—but at least we will have tried to fully understand them before making those judgments. The rot that pervades our democracy comes in large part from our failure to do this. Despite the prejudices of the postmodern ideologues, history shows us that it’s possible to enter into a compassionate understanding of people who are different from ourselves.

Photo by Collyn Ware

All-devouring time, envious age,
Nought can escape you, and by slow degrees,
Worn by your teeth, all things will lingering die.
--Ovid 

Oh, all-devouring time, glutton with an insatiable appetite for things beautiful and dear! You’re the agent by which all things will lingering die: childhood, summer, beauty, life. The Roman poet Ovid understood how time gnaws away at the things and places, the moments and people we’d most like to preserve. When I look at this photo–my granddaughter’s hands framing her bright 4-year-old face, her eyes filled with promise, her hair honeyed against a backdrop of spring, everything green and greening–I can only sigh. How I’d like to linger in this loveliness, spend an afternoon with a dollhouse and a tea party for two. How I’d like to linger in those moments when our world was so intimate, so small that we had eyes only for each other. How I’d like to thumb my nose at time and burrow into all the best moments, pulling the quilt of their beauty and goodness around me.

When we linger, we’re most often reluctant to leave, and this reluctance creates a tension between now and then. In college, when I climbed into the back of a vintage convertible, hoisting a blue velvet cape behind me, I knew that my ride around the football field as homecoming queen would take a few scant minutes. The rhinestone crown they’d positioned on my head had begun to tilt precariously over my left eye, and as I pushed it back atop my head, we’d already rounded the first turn on the track and were heading down the straightaway on the visitors’ side. I remember thinking how desperately I wanted to be in the moment but couldn’t. I was painfully aware that time was passing quickly. I understood that the next morning I would wake up–robeless and crownless–as just another college coed. I wanted to linger in now but was ambushed by then.

In his novel, Enduring Love, Ian McEwan writes: I’m holding back, delaying the information. I’m lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still. Possible. Both my father and mother were able to die in our family home, surrounded by family and friends. Inevitable as their impending deaths were, I recall those moments when I caught myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, the doctors were wrong. As our loved ones die, we may cling to a universal desire to linger in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still. Possible. Perhaps death isn’t the imminent outcome. Perhaps a miracle, perhaps recovery. Perhaps life. Time may tease us with hope for a different, a better outcome.

But time may tease us, too, with anguish as we watch those we love diminish before our eyes. A few weeks after my father had come home from the hospital to die, my mother turned to my sister and me in a private moment and said, “What if he lingers?” She didn’t have to elaborate, for we understood her greatest fears: that he would go and that he would stay. Here was the love of her life who, just weeks before, had walked miles each day through town, but was bed-bound now, waiting to die. Lingering can be such a cruel thing, as we watch the ones we love curl into themselves, leaving the world and us bit by bit, hour by hour. As much as we want them to stay, we also want them to go. As much as we want to hold on, grounding them with our great love, we also want to release them, sending them to heaven, whole and perfect.

In her novel, White Oleander, Janet Fitch writes: Life should always be like this. . . . Like lingering over a good meal. Oh, that time and life would not devour us, but rather linger with us over a good meal: a steaming pan of lasagna, a crisp salad, and a loaf of crusty artisan bread! This is lingering at its finest, a momentary stay against the knowledge that this, too, shall pass. I did my best lingering around my family’s dining room table at 611 West 27th Street in Kearney, NE. This is where I cut my teeth on philosophy and poetry, social and moral issues. During the hours I lingered around this table–the dessert served and dishes cleared–I grew up. I tried on ideas and arguments. I listened and learned. Even my mother agreed that the second-hand dining chairs she’d bought were terribly uncomfortable, but we all lingered, our bottoms numb but our heads and hearts full.

Like so many things, lingering is bittersweet. We may linger sweetly, willing the moments to pass more slowly. Or we may linger painfully, willing the moments to pass more quickly. In either case, we linger with a keen sense of who we were, are, and may be; what we had, have and may have; where we were, are and may go. Utterly human, we linger with our eyes fixed on earth and beyond.

In Requiem

The fishing dock that Boy Scout Troup 15 built
has been condemned.
Its legs are splayed unnaturally into the shallows
having lost all cartilage years ago.

Today, I think about ducking under the rope
that holds the cardboard sign reading:
Danger! Keep out!

I think about walking all the way to the edge
to test the structure’s will 
and my own mettle.

As the sun just begins to break
over the eastern tree line,
I find I’m unreasonably sad thinking that,
one day soon, the dock will fall, 
easing to its knees and into the forest of lily pads below,
succumbing to the elements it has braved 
for decades.

I find that I can’t stop imagining its death:

     the aging timbers laid to rest,
     algae slicking each plank with much,
     the water swallowing the structure whole
     to leave no trace of the spot
     where boys stood shoulder to shoulder to fish,
     their bobbers marking the surface
     with promise.

I can’t stop remembering my father in his final days,
how, just weeks before, he’d walked miles through town
and then how his legs went dormant,
their muscles molting beneath the blankets
on his hospital bed. 

And so, I will this dock to make a quick death—
to hurl itself into the water, the sound splitting
the dawn, the force swamping the cattails
below—

until finally, a moment of silence
for a life that had been.

Sillage, pronounced “see-yahzh”, is the French word for “wake”, like the wake of a ship in the water. In the perfume world, it refers to the scent trail that a perfume leaves behind as it evaporates. SALLE PRIVÉE.COM

In Joni Mitchell’s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” she croons the famous line, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Too often, it does seem to go this way. A few days ago, I was hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, the fog squatting solidly on the mountain tops for hours until, at last, the sun sliced through, and the entire day broke open, the mountain peaks now sharply silhouetted against a true blue sky. And though I stood amazed–for a moment–I continued my hike, my pack weighing more heavily on my back as I completed my final mile. But this moment is rarely enough, for even as I marked the experience with a photograph and a sigh, I knew that I wouldn’t know what I’d gotten here until I’d left the park and drove across the plains towards home.

As I drove, I breathed in deeply and found the aromatic trail of pine filling me. It had been a day since I left the Rocky Mountains, but the sillage of pine hung on, refusing to evaporate. And it wasn’t just this scent trail. It was the visual trail of aspens that jewel the mountain sides, blindingly golden, almost fluorescent. And it wasn’t just this visual trail. It was the auditory trail of bugling elk and the bass notes of water coursing over rocks in the Big Thompson River. And it was the spiritual trail of women who came to this retreat to share their hearts and hopes and pain. It was all this–and more. This is the sanctuary of sillage, the place that follows you, an evanescent reminder of all that’s gone before.

In the world of perfumery, sillage is considered as one of the most distinctive, the most powerful characteristics of a fragrance. It’s measured as a person moves and dispenses a trail of scent. A perfume with great sillage refuses to stay close to the skin but rather takes to the air. And if you’re in the vicinity of one wearing this perfume, you’re the unbidden recipient of this scent trail. It may delight or repulse you, but it enters your nostrils and lives there for quite some time.

I remember tutoring a freshman in college who, in an apparent attempt to impress me, wore what had to have been an entire bottle of Brute cologne. My eyes watered furiously as we hunched over his essay draft and made our way through one tortured paragraph after another. When I left and entered the autumn air outside the campus library, I breathed deeply. The sillage of the last 45 minutes lived in every pore of me, and at the time, I was desperate to purge it, to live once again in a Faberge-free land. I confess, however, that for years the smell of Brute brought me right back to that cubicle in Calvin T. Ryan library and that boy who wrote of his first search and recovery dive for the city of Omaha. In that cloud of Brute, he shared the trauma of finding a body, long submerged in the Missouri River, and his ongoing attempts to process this. To this day, the sillage of his raw confession is a scent stronger than Faberge could ever concoct.

Even the worst scents, the very scents that bring us wretching to our knees, may leave a bittersweet and necessary trail. The day that my third grade class took a field trip to the city meat-packing plant, I huddled in my bus seat, utterly and naively unprepared for the day. For months, I’d ridden over the viaduct where the meat-packing plant lived below, the foreign smells seeping through the bus. But when they ushered us onto the cut-and-kill floor, when the sickly scent of blood overpowered us, when even the sights before us cowered to the smell of death, that’s when I vowed not to eat meat again. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision as a foregone conclusion: I would live on peanut butter. Which I did for months to come, my mother lovingly placing the jar of Jiff on the table each meal. As an eight-year-old, the sillage of this field trip became a constant companion for months. I smelled death. I saw death when I closed my eyes each night. I walked with death as I spent time with my family and friends. In years to come, however, I grew to see this experience as my first coming-of-age rite. And as with all such initiations, this began a necessary–albeit painful–transition from childhood to adulthood, the recognition of mortality a trailing and persistent scent.

My father, Nebraska poet Don Welch, wrote: “We come to love by love, leaving less of who we are behind.” This is the sweetest sillage, a faint trail of our very essence: the top, middle, and bass notes mingling and lingering. At its best, this is a trail that leaves one wanting more, a trail that leads one to the possible chemical combustion of love, all the best notes of self brought forward to happily mix –undiluted–with another’s.

As I sit on my porch this afternoon, I breathe deeply and find the sillage of pine sliding into the scent of newly mown grass. I find the sillage of rich conversation with a host of incredible women sliding into the solitude which marks many of my Iowa days. The Colorado retreat now over, the scent that trails behind is a heady one that will catch the updraft of my remaining years.

photo by Collyn Ware

There is no place more intimate than the spirit alone. –May Sarton, The House by the Sea

In her last years, author May Sarton lived alone on the coast of Maine. In her journal, The House by the Sea, she explores solitude, the intimacy of being alone in your own body and spirit. In her reflections, she writes, [s]olitude, like a long love, deepens with time. She recounts a letter she received from a young woman who was living alone, a filmmaker who desired to make a film about those who live solitary lives. Sarton writes:

I told her that I feel it is not for the young (she is only thirty-three). I did not begin to live alone till I was forty-five, and had “lived” in the sense of passionate friendships and love affairs very richly for twenty-five years. I had a huge amount of life to think about and to digest, and, above all, I was a person by then and knew what I wanted of my life. The people we love are built into us. Every day I am suddenly aware of something someone taught me long ago–or just yesterday–of some certainty and self-awareness that grew out of conflict with someone I loved enough to try to encompass, however painful that effort may have been.

Sarton understood that solitude grows and ripens like a long love affair, that it matures over time into spiritual intimacy. Her claim that solitude is not for the young rings particulalry true for me. In the weeks I spent cleaning motel rooms during the summer of my freshman year of college, I was utterly alone. For days, I marveled in my newfound solitude, content to be alone with my own thoughts and a bottle of disinfectant. Soon, however, I longed for any interruption, any distraction that might take me out of myself and into something, anything else. I’d come quickly to the end of myself as I became painfully aware that, in solitude, I worried and fretted. I came face to face with my own limitations and, more often than not, moved through my work hours with shame as my constant companion. In truth, I was not a person by then, as Sarton wrote. I’d only begun to know what I wanted of life and was ill-prepared to digest the life I’d already lived. My solitude became a sad prison.

I understand, too, that although some may choose solitude, others may feel as though solitude has been inflicted upon them. Circumstances like illness, physical and/or emotional separation, retirement, and old age–just to name a few–may feel more like punishments than blessings. In these circumstances, solitude may be a crucible against which we test our mettle. We may literally count the hours until we’re rescued by human company. We may look for any distraction to fill the painful space that solitude brings. In solitude, we may see our cups as half-empty and rue the vacuum that it creates.

We may also lament we’ve become invisible in solitude. In our aloneness, we may feel ourselves slipping away. We may find ourselves believing that we’re simply out of sight, out of mind. Alone with our own spirits, we may find this intimacy anything but virtuous; we may find it soul-crushing. In solitude, we may languish and long to be seen. In the Atlantic article, “The Invisibility of Older Women” (Feb. 27, 2019), Akiko Busch considers the paradoxical virtues of invisibility:

A reduced sense of visibility does not necessarily constrain experience. Associated with greater empathy and compassion, invisibility directs us toward a more humanitarian view of the larger world. This diminished status can, in fact, sustain and inform–rather than limit–our lives. Going unrecognized can, paradoxically, help us recognize our place in the larger scheme of things.

At its best, solitude offers us opportunities to explore a more humanitarian view of the larger world, to recognize our place in the larger scheme of things. In solitude, we can turn our attention outward, instead of solely inward. That is, we can benefit from embracing the larger world and the larger scheme of things. In humility and gratitude, we can discover that we have lived, that we are living still, and that we continue to be blessed and challenged by a broken and beautiful world. Alone in our spirits and separated from our duties and distractions, we can draw closer to God. This is solitude at its best, at its most generous.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke writes:

Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

I’m encouraged by Rilke’s charge to love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you, to embrace the growth that comes with it, to accept the love that is being stored up like an inheritance, and the faith that in this love there is a strength and blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it. If there is inevitable pain that comes from solitude, it may be the preface to peace, love, and joy. Rilke acknowledges that there will be those who stay behind, who cannot or will not enter into solitude. And so it is that although the invitation to solitude is offered to all, not everyone will accept. Still, Rilke cautions that those who’ve grown and benefited from solitude should be gentle with those who haven’t, for they haven’t understood or experienced the call to solitary living.

American Transcendentalist writer, Henry David Thoreau, went to live alone in the woods outside of Concord, Massachusetts to live deep and suck the marrow out of life, to live deliberately. Of his experience there, he wrote, I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. When I first moved to Iowa, I didn’t know a soul in my new community and actually didn’t speak to anyone for three, long weeks (except for two phones calls to my parents–I was poor and couldn’t afford the long-distance rates). Let it be said that at 26, I did not find solitude to be companionable. As I walked through town near the end of this three-week period, I’m sure I looked like a starved, crazed woman as I desperately tried to make meaningful eye contact with everyone I passed, hoping that someone would show pity and speak to me. Had I met Thoreau on the streets, I would’ve given him an earful about solitude.

Up to this point in my life, I’d never been alone for this long. Looking back, I’ve come to see that this period was the beginning of my own journey with solitude. A painful beginning, yes. A necessary beginning, absolutely. Through the decades, I’ve learned to live in companionable joy with solitude. I’ve learned that solitude, like a long love, deepens with time. Like Sarton, I’ve learned that the people we love are built into us, that even though we’re separated from them–by distance or by death–they live happily with us in solitude. And as I’ve aged, I’ve learned to enter solitude with great peace and expectation.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6: 28-29

Taped into the back of my grandmother’s Bible was a funeral instruction sheet. On it, she’d listed her favorite hymns and scriptures for her funeral service. I confess that I was taken aback when I read the primary scripture she’d chosen from Matthew 6. My grandmother and I shared a history of migraine and neck muscles that my mother once described as “steel rods.” Suffice it to say that we were not laid-back women. We were worrrying women who often found ourselves migraine-stricken before or after big events, our bodies ravaged with stress and the debilitating effects of its let-down. When Jesus contends that we shouldn’t be anxious about tomorrow, that we shouldn’t worry about what we’ll eat or wear, that we shouldn’t fear that we’ll have no place to shelter, my grandmother and I undoubtedly offered a hearty “Amen” and then promptly returned to worrying. Consider how God has cared for the small, the lilies of the field and birds of the air? Sadly for most of my grandmother’s and my lives, not nearly enough. Still, her faith was founded in Jesus’s promise to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Even as she worried, she knew she shouldn’t. Even as she lay in darkened rooms waiting for the migraine to pass, she understood that God knew her intimately and wouldn’t forsake her.

Having recently returned from Glacier National Park, I confess that it was easy to appreciate God’s majesty and power. It was easy to let God’s bigness consume me, tamping down any worries or doubts. And it was much easier to live as though I weren’t anxious for tomorrow. Here among active glaciers were 500-feet deep lakes the color of sapphires, rugged peaks that pushed thousands of feet from the earth’s floor, and meadows of alpine wildflowers that stretched as far as the eye could see. Here, the morning air smelled like heaven, as clear and pure as it must have been on the first day. Here, the bigness of creation encouraged one to let go and let God. Each night, I slept soundly, and each day, I hiked migraine-free. Grammie, you should be here, I thought to myself. This is the kind of place where you can lay it all down.

As I’ve aged, I’ve come to see that my home in southeast Iowa is also just this kind of place. In truth, every place is this kind of place. We may not have mountain vistas or glaciers or moose in rural Iowa, but we have smaller, yet equally wonderful, reminders of God’s majesty and love. As I was walking this morning at the nearby nature preserve, I noticed Queen Anne’s Lace growing along the edge of the path. Once a yard tall, it had been mown to the ground and was beginning again. Today, six-inch stems with exquisite lacey heads lined the path. Small wonders with big beauty. Somehow, the miniature versions of these blooms were even more glorious, for here were clear reminders that God cares for the small and singular just as powerfully as he does for the big and plentiful.

In his novel, I Am the Messenger, Markus Zusak opens with Ed Kennedy, a cab driver who mourns his lack of direction and success. Ultimately, he begins receiving instructions designed to help others and finds purpose in his ability to serve. Kennedy finds the big in the small and ordinary, concluding that [b]ig things are often just small things that are noticed. I like this so much. Throughout the years, I’ve trained myself to notice the small things–in nature, in people, in art. I had great teachers in my mom and dad whose perfect Sunday afternoon was a drive through the Nebraska countryside to see what you might see. Just the other day, my grandson and I were in my office when he pulled a buckeye from a small dish on a side table. Remember this, Grandma? He returned the buckeye and held a small feather to the light. And this? I did remember. We were paying it forward with small things that had big memory value for us. We were training our eyes to see. I like to think that my parents would be cheering us on from heaven. Don’t stop, they’d tell us. Keep finding the big in the small.

Mother Teresa once said, I don’t do great things. I do small things with great love. She continued:

We must not drift away from the humble works, because these are the works nobody will do. It is never too small. We are so small we look at things in a small way. But God, being Almighty, sees everything great. Therefore, even if you write a letter for a blind man or you just go sit and listen, or you take the mail for him, or you visit somebody or bring a flower to somebody-small things-or wash clothes for somebody, or clean the house. Very humble work, that is where you and I must be. For there are many people who can do big things. But there are very few people who will do the small things.

Finding the big in the small begins with humility, as Mother Teresa contends. If God cares for the lilies of the field, if his eye is on the sparrow, so must we care in singular, small ways, being keenly present as we see and serve. My most precious memories are grounded in small moments that yielded big treasure. Walking to campus with my father, watching my mom rock my babies to sleep, hearing the opening measure of the musical score from my favorite film, sharing my grandmother’s cinnamon rolls over coffee with my family–the list is endless. I live and love large today because of these small moments and things.

In his novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens writes:

He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.

Both Charles Dickens and Mother Teresa understand that there is nothing little to the really great in spirit. A true soul is one who humbly serves the small as well as the large. Oh, to be humble in deed and great in spirit, to see the majesty and care of creation in a single blade of grass, in a single person! How I long to be this kind of soul.

As I age, I think more about how the world we navigate while we’re young (youngish!) and able to drive becomes smaller and smaller until it’s often contained in a single room–perhaps even to a single bed. And I look to those who’ve lived with big spirits in spite of their small circumstances. Housebound, my mother sent encouraging messages to hundreds of people through Facebook Messenger and her trusty iPad. As her circumstances confined her to days spent in her maroon lift-chair, she loved in such a big and generous way. She found great purpose in sending small messages of comfort and encouragement to so many across the nation. She continued to do small things with great love until the day she died. Finding the big in the small is a paradox worth living and dying for.

Never Laughs Mountain, Glacier National Park

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar  
--Psalm 84:3

On the southern shore of Two Medicine Lake,
Never Laughs Mountain shoulders the burden of identity.
In a family of serious intent—
each brother, each sister standing taller than the next—
it is more hill than peak.

In a land of giants who shear the sky,
it is a glacial bud.

Hear the song of this mountain
who never laughs:

God of the small—
the lily and sparrow—

God of the singular—   
the blade of grass and pine needle—

God of the voiceless—
the aspen and stone—

God of all sorrows—
the flood and char—

I wear a robe of larch and laurel.

See me.

While so many others are going to the sun
with eyes fixed on a summit they’ve only imagined,
join me on this little mountain.

For blessed are we 
who sit at the throne of spruce beetles
and tell the stories of those who never laugh.

… the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: “This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.” It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.
― Willa Cather,  My Antonia

As I scooped up several brown leaves that had fallen into the pool, I said–aloud and with enough volume to startle the finches on the bird feeder–Oh no! It’s coming! Fall, that is. It’s coming whether I like it or not. Granted, it’s supposed to be nearly 100 today. For days, my phone has been alerting me of this heat advisory, and the heat has been brutal, even for August in Iowa. But it’s still pool weather. It’s still shorts and flip flop weather. It’s still summer with its living mask of green that trembles over everything. For me, even as I sweat through days of heat advisory, a handful of brown leaves brings on seasonal melancholy, an acute sadness for loving the loveliness of summer.

It’s not that I don’t love fall with all it’s changing colors and brisk mornings. And it’s not that I don’t understand and appreciate the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth, brown to green. But the older I get, the more I view the coming of autumn as a kind of bitter song, for as Cather writes, the passing of summer with all its light and shadow is a seasonal truth I’d rather not face until I absolutely have to.

In these particularly beautiful lines, poet Pablo Neruda expresses my own sentiments:

We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.

Throughout my life, I’ve often felt as though it’s been my destiny to love and say goodbye. If I’m being honest, it’s not just the challenge of saying goodbye to summer that plagues me, it’s saying goodbye to almost anything and everyone. When I was in elementary school, I remember helping my mom retrieve an ironing board from our basement on the day that one of her friends was leaving town. For whatever reason, my mom was gifting her this ironing board. And for whatever reason, the memory of this day hangs on. I was a child, and this wasn’t even my friend. But the solemnity of this day, the official parting with all its hugs and best wishes, the buds of tears I saw in the corners of my mom’s eyes–I felt all of this profoundly. Saying goodbye was serious stuff, and I carried the weight of these moments for quite some time. Perhaps I carry them still.

In J.D. Salinger’s coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caufield feels this same solemnity. He confesses:

I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.

Like Holden, when I leave a place–or person–I like to know I’m leaving. That is, I I like a formal leave-taking, an intentional goodbye. I can still see my mom and dad standing on the terrace of our family home, waving as I pulled away to travel the 400 miles back to Iowa, waving until they could see me no more. This is the kind of intentional goodbye that sustained me even as I often cried for the first 30 miles, missing my parents already. I admit that I watch my own children drive down our gravel drive until I can no longer see them. There’s something necessary about fixing my eyes on them for as long as possible, prolonging the passing.

As I write, I sit on my screen porch, the weather having cooled, and the breeze quite lovely. An oriole returns to finish off the last bits of grape jelly in our feeder. He’ll be gone soon, and goldenrod will vanquish the remaining Queen Anne’s lace that grows at the edge of the timber. Time will burnish the world, as it always has. As it must. But I take heart, remembering the words of A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh:

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.

–G. K. Chesterton

It’s a ridiculously glorious sight: a chevron of a couple hundred sunfish parting the water as they move towards the pond dam. They’re coming en masse because they see me. Or they see my shadow. Or they see my car making its way across the pond dam towards the highway. I’ve been their shepherd for about 20 years, throwing out handfuls of food, treating the pond for all sorts of invasive weeds, and generally caring for them. I’m a fish shepherd.

It’s not long before they’re joined by the big boys of the pond: five 8 lb. catfish who simply open their mouths and vacuum the surface of the water, taking in pellets by the mouthfuls. And then the koi come, flashing their colors like banners. My grandson and I have named them all: Camo, Diesel, Angel, Sparkle, Pumpkin, and (Griff’s proud contribution!) Money Maker. They’re the jewels of the pond, and we shepherd them seriously. Each night as we stand at the pond’s edge flinging handfuls of pellets across the water, we ooh and ahh at how they’ve grown and how they look pretty magnificent when the sun hits them just so. And the bass? They’re shy, and we rarely see them. But we know they’re happily trolling the deeper water of the east end. We’re our fishes’ biggest fans, and we rue the day when the pond freezes over, and we can’t see them anymore.

Shepherding is a humble role fraught with the desire to protect and preserve. We’ve had our share of fish-kills after particularly rough winters. To see a 12 lb. grass carp floating on the surface in early spring is a sorry sight, indeed. But it’s a part of shepherding. In spite of your best efforts, you lose some. You may leave the 99 to go after a stray sheep–or fish–but it may not be enough. Still, a good shepherd makes the effort, always.

Turkish playwright, Mehmet Murat Ildan, writes: Shepherds know many mysterious languages; they speak the language of sheep and dogs, language of stars and skies, flowers and herbs. It’s a unique relationship between the shepherd and whatever or whomever is being shepherded, and good shepherds learn to speak the language of their charges. Griff and I may not literally speak “fish,” but we know where and when our fish like to be fed. We know how to ensure that that big fish don’t hog all the food. We know which koi travel together as partners and which travel solo. We like to think that we speak the language of our pond’s fish.

In the whole scheme of life, a pondful of sunfish, catfish, and koi may not seem all that important, just as a pasture full of sheep or a neighborhood full of people may seem small and relatively unimportant in the whole scheme of world affairs. But shepherding is an intimate venture, particularly local and often small. It’s true that good shepherds see the bigger picture: how their flock is but one of many flocks that make up the world. Still, their eyes are fixed firmly on their flock, whose well-being is their first and foremost concern. Above all, shepherding is an act of loving the singular and the particular, for each member of the flock is infinitely valuable.

As writer and philosopher, G. K. Chesterton contends, we often rush towards complexity and try to be kings. Humans are like that. We prioritize leadership and power. We think more is more, and complexity is progress. But at some point, there are always those who turn from the world and begin to dream smaller. Overwhelmed and saddened by power and complexity, they gather their flocks and begin to tend seriously to those about whom they care most: families, friends, neighbors, colleagues. This is shepherding at its finest, the type of shepherding upon which the world depends.

We read a lot about tribalism today, a term which has come to be associated with division, an “us vs. them” mentality, a group that closes ranks and excludes those not welcomed into particular political, religious, social, educational, or cultural tribes. Shepherding must not be confused with tribalism. That is, good shepherds generally care for a motley assortment of members. There are rebel sheep among their flocks, and they love and care for them just as they care for the other sheep. Griff and I may love the pond koi best, but we care for the other fish just the same. Jesus uses the parable of the lost sheep to tell us that the Kingdom of God is accessible to all, even those who stray and become lost. In this parable, the good shepherd risks all to go after one stray sheep. At the heart of shepherding is this type of devotion and conviction that each member of the flock–however wayward and rebellious–is worthy of rescue and love.

Every organization I’ve been a part of has held leadership training of some sort. Clearly, we need good leaders, individuals of integrity and wisdom who lead with clarity and compassion. But we need more shepherds. And we need good ones, individuals with humility and perseverance, empathy and love. This may not be a flashy position, nor does it often come with bonuses and stock options. It’s a vital position, though. I am a fish shepherd, but I hope to be an even better people shepherd. I’m aware that I can please my fish easily with a handful of pellets thrown strategically by the dock. Shepherding the people in my life is a more serious venture, one that deserves the very best I have to offer.

If you journey to Fishlake National Forest in Utah, you’ll be surrounded by a high-elevation-behemoth. It’s one of the largest life forms on the planet: a quaking aspen so colossal it has a name—Pando, which is Latin for “I spread.” –Ari Danieal, NPR “Listen to one of the largest trees in the world” (May 10, 2023)

After recently returning from a family vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana, I find myself continuing to marvel at the root system of the Quaking Aspen. As we traveled up the Going to the Sun Road one morning, our tour guide and bus driver, Rick, offered a running narrative of park flora and fauna, historical facts and personal observations. It was his short lesson on the Quaking Aspen, however, that astonished me–so much so, that I’ve wondered how it is that I’ve never heard this before.

In central Utah in the Fishlake National Forest lies an aspen stand that originated from a single seed. This aspen “clone,” Pando, is considered the largest organism in the world, spreading over 106 acres of 40,000 individual trees. These aspens spread by sending up new shoots from an ever-expanding root system below. Not only is this the largest living organism, but it’s also likely the oldest. Although its exact age is difficult to determine, it’s estimated to have begun at the end of the last ice age, which makes the Quaking Aspen older than the Sequoia and the Bristlecone Pine. This is one old, tough tree, thanks to an amazing root system.

Even when conditions are hostile–fire, flood, wind, drought–the aspens persevere. Their root system thrives until conditions are favorable enough to once again send new shoots into the air. So, even when it appears that the aspens have been destroyed, they lie dormant below ground, waiting. This stand of aspens is so amazing that the U. S. Postal Service honored Pando as one the “40 Wonders of America” with a commemorative stamp in 2006.

We often talk about roots metaphorically:

• Give your children roots and wings.
• When the roots are deep, there’s no reason to fear the wind.
• Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
• It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

We say things like Stay rooted in the truth/in family/in goodness (you can fill in your virtue of choice here). When life’s conditions are particularly challenging, we often cling to the root system that’s sustained us, counting on the fact that it–like the Quaking Aspen–is alive, thriving underground and waiting patiently to send new shoots into the world. There’s much solace and strength to be found in such a root system. Even if there’s little evidence of its fruit in the world around us, we take heart in what can’t be seen. Yet.

Undoubtedly, there are those today who find their root systems lying in wait underground. Some may lament that more people aren’t rooted in family, or that more aren’t rooted in truth. Some may look at a world in conflict and deplore that we aren’t rooted in humility and grace. Some may regard the speed at which the world is changing and bemoan that we aren’t rooted enough in tradition. The list could certainly go on and on. And though many may argue that some of these root systems need to die out, that the fruit of their systems is no longer beneficial, others stand firm on the foundations of these systems, systems they contend are always beneficial if tended well.

Roots are the key ingredients in many proverbs and aphorisms. They work themselves naturally into song lyrics and find themselves graphically presented on posters. Perhaps, this may be why we often take them for granted. Perhaps, they’ve become cliched and too saccharine for our contemporary tastes. Perhaps, we’re too busy looking at what is seen to consider the realm of the unseen. And perhaps, we’re not patient enough to embrace a root system that’s waiting for favorable enough conditions to flourish.

The most serious challenge to a root system, however, is the fact that there are competing systems that infringe upon and, in some cases, destroy it. We live in such a world, a world with competing systems and truth claims. The firm foundation of one is an anathema to another. The root system of one is an abomination to another. You won’t find any posters or greeting cards that offer this reality. Still, it rears its head into our lives in many ways. It divides families, communities, and nations. It often leaves us wringing our hands, saying: How should we live?

People much wiser than me have always explored–and continue to explore–this question. And just as there are many competing root systems, there are many answers to a question of this magnitude. I think it’s safe to say, however, that the rallying cry of unity is troublesome. Logically speaking, to unify competing systems means one system must prevail. That is, one system must become THE system, and the other systems must accommodate themselves accordingly. Historically, people unify because they subscribe to a common set of principles and practices. They may come from different walks of life, different ethnicities, different ages and genders, but they come together in principle. When principles compete, however, unity struggles. When root systems differ radically, each contends for dominance. This is the way of things–in nature and human nature.

As miraculous as the Quaking Aspen root system is, we must acknowledge that its strength and longevity have come from its dominance, its ability to hang on, flourishing under and above ground as circumstances dictate. As social, political, religious, and philosophical root systems compete today, we might do well to look to the aspens for guidance. If we’re convicted that the root system to which we subscribe is good and true, if it’s the right root system for our time and all times, then we might need to be realistically prepared for periods of dormancy. American poet Theodore Roethke writes, “Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” We may need to have faith in the light deep within our root systems.

And surely, we must be prepared for periods of conflict as other systems compete to maintain a cultural stronghold. Above all, we must be prepared to stand firmly on this foundation in love. Contrary to what many believe, this doesn’t mean abandoning or altering the root system at all. It does mean that we hold fast to what we believe as we treat others with whom we disagree with respect and grace. We bend our trunks in love but live confidently in the roots which remain fixed below.