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Reflection #7

 

While reading Jim Wallis’s “Rediscovering Values”, I realized how disconnected I was, and probably still am, from my own values. One quote that really resonated with me was actually from the epilogue, written by Jim’s 24-year old assistant. “We will have to face the challenge of making sure these changes and conversions are not just a phase of life, but a way of life.” This is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. Sure, right now I am very active in social justice and positive and holistic environmental and economic change, but will I still be this passionate once I graduate? Will I continue to act consciously in my purchases, my lifestyle and in my relationships?

 

Wallis’s book culminates with a chapter that outlines “Twenty Moral Exercises”to assist individuals in making lasting change in their lives. As I read these moral exercises and reflected on the other chapters, I was made aware of one key thing: I have never clearly defined my values. This seems like such a basic thing, and as a GDS student who takes a variety of actions based on my values, it should not be hard to list them out. Perhaps this has something to do with my lack of affiliation with an organized religion or faith group. Regardless,  I have realized that while I feel connected to many different causes and beliefs, I do not have a coherent grasp of my values.

 

The first moral exercise listed by Wallis is “Calenders and Budgets are Moral Documents”. This exercise reminds us that what we say are our values and the values we act are two very different things. That means that my challenge is two-fold: not only do I have to identify my values, but I also have to compare them to my present reality and time management. As a student, I have more time than money to offer, as how I spend my time is almost an entire list of my true values. I decided to do this moral exercise as part of this week’s reflection- to make a list of the priorities/values in my life and compare and contrast it to my calendar and see how the two line up.

 

My priorities in life include: my family and friends, education and school, social justice, teaching, reading and travel. These are also all things that I value- I value my relationships and learning, along with feminism and environmentalism, activism, broadening my mind and having new experiences. Above all, I value passion and engagement with others and the community, whether it be local or international. I value critical thinking and living with an awareness of the world around us.

 

However, when I look at my actions a different story is told. A usual day for me includes waking up early, going to school or Fiona’s to study, running the Newcomer’s Program at the Library, going to class, reading articles off of facebook, working on papers or reading, grabbing a quick bite, studying more, and sometimes going to jump rope practice, having coffee with a friend or watching TV. Looking at this schedule, I can see that the vast majority of my time is spent on school, and while university is my reality right now, it is really all consuming in my life.
As Wallis says, one answer to rebuilding our economy with our values imbedded in it is to have balance. Balance is definitely what I need in my life as well, in order to really reconcile my thoughts with my actions.

The most astounding thing that I take away from this book is how obvious it is that he values his family. The way that he tells stories about his children and the time he spends with them shows how important they are to him. Jim Wallis says that a schedule is a moral document and so is a budget. It took me a moment to realize what he meant by this phrase. Often I have talked about with my friends that what I spend my money on shows my values. For example I can choose to buy products fair trade and organic and that shows the value I place on the well being of people and the earth. But I never had thought of my schedule being a moral document. As a student, I am never without something to do yet my schedule does contain a lot more flexible time than the schedule of many working people. Yes many hours in each of our days are determined for us. We must study and work but we do have the choice of what we study and what we work at and how we use our time when we are not studying or working.

A friend of mine suggested recently an exercise to re prioritize ones values and as I consider that my schedule is a moral document I would like to think more about how my values line up with how I spend my time. What are my priorities? Well I suppose they are similar to many other people’s priorities

 

1. My relationship with God
2. My relationship with my family
3. My relationships with my friends.

These first ones are obvious but then it gets a bit more difficult:

4. My own health and well being
5. The land and places that I love and am connected to
6. The well being of vulnerable people around the world.

 

These are the things that are important to me. Obviously school and work have to fit in there somehow. Much of my schooling teaches me more about the land and about how I can care for those who are vulnerable, which fits into my values, but it also can take time away from other important things and I should not let it because these are the things that bring life. Maybe I cannot spend the majority of each day praying, visiting my family and friends, being active or cooking delicious healthy food, but I can make sure that these things are a part of my daily/weekly schedule. If I put these things into my calendar first then when I get busy with other things they are less likely to get neglected.

In Chapter 12 Jim Wallis describes his experience of “island life” and he says that for a kid coming from the city it is a “transformation of mind, heart, lifestyle, pace and consciousness.” In our regular day to day do we take time to slow down and re-evaluate life and where we are going in our busy lives? We would be much happier people if we considered what we really value and streamlined our lives to match. We have filled more and more of our time but it is not meaningful. I often ask myself why do people work so much? Many people don’t love what they do for work so why invest so much time into it? The common answer probably is money. I wish people knew that they didn’t have to spend their life at a job they hate, that they don’t have to try to “keep up with the Jones’,” and that they could live a much freer life if they recognized what is truly important in life and chose to live a simpler life focused around their newly rediscovered values.

 

The Chester Ronning Center will welcome Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis on October 30th to reconnect faith and stewardship.

When I returned from the Augustana in Cuba program (some years ago now!), I decided to take a course on Justice Theology with Jack Washenfelder.  I wanted to maintain my connection to Latin America and continue to work through the feelings of remorse for the plagues of politics that scarred that social landscape.  I was surprised when the bulk of the class was spent on Eco-Theology, but have since come to see it as one of the great crisis of faith in our time.  Knowing how many people in the world are deeply moved by faith institutions, I was heartened when I came to understand how deeply ecological concerns are embedded in the Christian texts of my childhood.  While I had spent years first dreaming of heaven and then shunning all such thoughts, I finally came to some spaces of reconciliation with the texts I grew up with.

This window into connection with the Earth as a sacred gift has helped me engage with Christian and non-Christian alike on the imperative of ethical treatment of the natural world.  I anticipate a lively discussion that will prepare me for the upcoming conference. 

Thanks for this photo, Hans.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. -Robert Frost

 

“A Cowboy’s Heavy Heart” – Ryan Lindsay

Long lonely hills,
Those damn dusty drives.
Long gone are the days
Before I made a stone
of this forsaken heart of mine.

Well I made a life as a cowboy you see
Slinging and heardin’ out in the cold northern breeze.

She’d be a long harsh winter for a man without a wife
Oh how many a day I longed for the good ol’ life.

“The good old life,” my pappy used to say
Those days that he left away
The trade for a pitchfork
cheered to the world of ease
When he left east York
With nothing ‘cept Mammy.

He came out west
Singing, “Yippie yehaw kiyay”
Promised riches in the land of the blest
But it wasn’t so.

And: “Long gone were the days,” said he,
“Before I made a stone… out of this forsaken heart of mine.”

But Mammy had me an’ I learned the life
Of the rocky mountain sunrise strike
Times were tough
We had not a penny you see
until there was no room to feed even me.

I left it all, stumped about
Headed out to Fort Calgary
And worked cattle drives day by day

Them suds might’ve done killed me
but I made it through by and by.

Each hoof each strike
Workin’ out in the northern breeze
How I longed for those days back with my family
And I’d just think of Pappy
And those real good ol’ stories.

Oh how I yearned to head east
where York sits on the blue
A city so rich, and full of balmy warmth
enough for this restless cowboy through and through
Oh how I would love to trade this hat,
this hard old kack,
And beat-down this horse for somthin’ just like that.

So I hitched a ride on the CPR
Off to York where my blood and old family are
I found me a job workin’ along that rail
Hoping it could take me back to Pappy’s old tales.

I still recall the feeling I’d get
Whenever a train headed east and I met
“Yippie yehaw kiyay,” I’d say
Along with the whistle of the train each day.

I reckon it was spring
When the bell gave the ring
I’d made my way through the quarrel and strife
I’d finally met the city life.

Now this old cowboy knew it crystal clear
I left the rail for a job on that peir
But it was then that I could see
Everything I had come to be.

Cause the blue was clogged with ships galore.
And streets were filled with the dirty poor.
I worked those docks day and night.
Just to make a penny I might.

Now these days are getting short for me
And this tired cowboy just ain’t meant for the city
My wrangling hands aren’t so useful here
I’m hankerin’ for some quiet sheer.

Those long peaceful hills,
Those calming dusty drives
Long gone are the days
Before I made a stone
of this forsaken heart of mine.

Well, it’s week two of reading Leopold, and I am sold. This guys knows what a relationship with the land really is, and reading the second half of his “year” was nothing short of inspiring. I only hope I can know the land as well as he does one day.

As I read through July, I felt like I was waking up with all of the birds he described. It reminds me of this summer, when I was working at the Visitor Information Centre here in Camrose. I had no idea previous to working there that Camrose is a large bird watching community. Since then, I am always watching for – and am always surprised at – the multitude of vibrant birds I see as I walk around the lake. The only question I have for Aldo, mind you, is how on earth he can get up at 3:30 to say good morning to some of the birds, and stay awake all night to watch the dance of others? But aside from that, Leopold, points out the incredible poetics of nature that we so often ignore. If only we all had a dog to “translate [for me] the olfactory poems” (Leopold 46).

I find so much of Leopold’s writing is significant because of his acute awareness of the world around him. When he goes on to speak of Silphiums, a nearly extinct plant, it once again jolts me out of my ignorance to see what we as humans miss – and often destroy because of that. Can we really not have “both progress and plants” (Leopold 51)? How true it is that “[w]e only grieve for what we know” (Leopold 52)! Again, in August, the beauty of the land is discovered because of Leopold’s attention to it – the way the river paints is beautiful because Leopold knows what to look for and how to “hang up” the picture in his mind. Fall sets in, and I am beginning to feel the winding down of the bird’s choruses and already, in October, awaiting another spring.

There are a few other things that strike me about Leopold’s fall months. Firstly, in October, he talks about the single-mindedness of freight trains. When I first read that, I was a bit confused of a correlation, but I realized being single-minded or focused on just one thing is probably a key aspect to the acute awareness that Leopold has. I say probably, because I feel like I so frequently have to be multitasking, I seldom have a chance to dwell on just one thing for two long. Secondly, I love the way he talks about the sun rising later and later. He still rises early, but the fact that it is now darker out for longer does not make him to depressed or tired (which it often does to me). Instead, he allows it to heighten his other senses.

In winter, Leopold starts off with again acknowledging the spirituality of nature, and that landowners have now assumed that they know when best to give and take life of plants. He insists that we must take ownership of our relationship and actions with nature, as it is a person’s “signature on the face of his land” (Leopold 63). He questions himself, his relationship with the land, and allows himself to engage and love it.

            In December, Leopold returns to reminding us to develop awareness and see learning opportunities for just that. “Every farm is a textbook on animal ecology” (Leopold 74). He also talks about object lessons, and that “one need not doubt the unseen” (Leopold 77), which for me is so important to think about as I move forward to write a paper on the spiritual significance of the New Economy. It’s what we don’t see that matters so much – lack of taking care of it has brought us here, and paying attention to spirituality in the land and economic system is what will bring change.

 

As Aldo Leopold opens the month of July a vivid image of the dawn is awakened in my

mind. The sun lights up the sky with color as it shimmers gold on anything it touches. I picture

the horizon far off across the plains and the feeling of being home. Not just the few fields that are

deeded in my name but the whole land that my eyes can see is my home and I care deeply for it.

This is the type of spiritual/emotional connection to the land that one calls home that will cause

an individual to transform the way they interact in the economy as their focus goes from dollars

and cents to the fullness of life that comes from enjoying being at home just as Aldo Leopold

does. Although the idea of ownership is interesting and as we keep reading through this month

we see how each creature claims ownership of something and yet we all are neighbors as we

share this ecosystem together.

I love the quiet simple morning that is spent observing nature. To sit and be still before

the busyness of the day is a practice we could learn from. I do not have a cabin or a bench to sit

on but I can take a few moments each day to consider the things that are of value to me and to be

thankful. As Aldo would say do we prefer fishing or going forward?

“Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about

his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education.” One

certainly can tell a good deal about who Aldo Leopold is based on his writings. I would be

ashamed to try and identify many plants. Our priorities have changed, perhaps not at all for the

better. Why will no one wonder what the land looked like when the wildflowers grew high and

the buffalo roamed? I wonder in the next generations will they ask “I wonder where the clean

water, the mountains and the forests have gone? What did it look like back then? What if we said

people are burning history books as they pollute the rivers and mine the mountains and cut down

the forests? We must ask ourselves what is real history? Is it just human achievements and

interactions or can nature have history too? Who is the keeper and the teller of this history?

Ah and then we transition into fall. Fall is my favorite time of year. It is a time of peace

between busy seasons where one can still thoroughly enjoy the cooling weather.  And I find the

beauty of fall continuously breathtaking. Aldo describes nature as a priceless painting and I

know I feel so honored when I can enjoy the beauty of the seasons. To sit in solitude in creation

is not a thing to fear but for me it is a way to find peace and realign myself with what is most

important.

In the month of November Aldo quotes “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” but

then he says that now with the shovel man is the giver and with the axe man is the taker. How

true is this! As our society has “progressed” from hunter-gatherers to pastoralists and then

eventually into the industrialized urbanity of today we have given ourselves the role of God over

anything that we can. We have the choice where we use the shovel or the axe and with what

motivation we use them. Neither are bad. Aldo asks how does one define a conservationist and

he says that it is best defined in the motivation that comes as we wield the axe. With everything

we do he says that we leave our signature on the land and so then it is our choice as to whether

we are signing our names to the health and beautification of the land as one lives in harmony

with it or to the exploitation of the land.

One last quote from Aldo that I appreciate comes when he is talking about his motivation

for using the axe on a specific tree and how there are many factors that sway his decision and

many biases. This is what he writes, “Our biases are indeed a sensitive index to our affection, our

tastes, our loyalties, our generosities, and our manner of wasting weekends.” I especially like this

quote because it makes me think about the motivations I have behind the things that I do, which

perhaps is the point of this whole transformation process.

Reflection on The Sand County Almanac (Months January – June) by Aldo Leopold
Simply in reading the words of this book I feel enlightened and refreshed. Aldo Leopold writes truly out of the depths of his heart and his connection to the land. This whole narrative is bound up in love and the inter-connectedness of all beings and it is something incredibly beautiful and compelling.
In the introduction Leopold asks whether a higher “standard of living” is worth the cost to nature. Too many of us nowadays we are separate from the land and don’t share the deep spiritual connection with the land that Aldo Leopold has. We have exchanged the value of the land that sustains us for money and consumer goods. My question back to Leopold would be what his vision of reconnecting people to the land would be? How can we in our being find value in the land when we live in cities? Maybe we could do urban gardening as one step. But how do people come to this same love and value of the land that Leopold has?
To find such joy and connection as Aldo Leopold does with the geese seems to me as extremely life-giving. He anticipates their return and it is part of the natural seasonal change. What strikes me is how important these geese or the oak are to him and the reason this is, is because of his deep connection to the land that causes him to care for the other creatures and natural beings. This land gives him life not just physically but spiritually and that is very evident in how he describes his longing to be a part of what goes on on the land. He is tied to the land in such a way that he grieves and rejoices with it. This means he must be very in-tune with the land. I think that what we are in-tune with shows our priorities and where we place value. His is in the land. If I spend my time on accumulating goods, or on entertaining myself that shows where my priorities lie.
I feel as though in each paragraph there are great profound thoughts but I would like to highlight three of my favorites:
In the month of February, Leopold explains that from not being involved with farming there are two spiritual dangers. These are that food comes from the store and heat from the furnace. I was understood the idea here but had to read it over several times to gain the depth of the meaning. When food comes from the store we lack connection to it. It has little value to us because we do not connect the work that it takes to grow the food with our eating of the food. And when heat comes from the furnace we don’t appreciate the many hours of hard work in the fall to split wood for the cold winter months. You see, putting the work in gives us a spirit of gratitude and we value these things much more because we can directly relate the cost of the labor to the full enjoyment of the food or heat. The spirit of gratitude and appreciation is at danger of being completely lost – in fact it is mostly lost in our culture today.
My second favorite thought is from the month of April, Aldo Leopold says, “They live on the land, but not by the land.” There is much talk these days about getting back to the land but it is so much more than just living in the countryside as Leopold points out here. To live by the land invokes living in harmony with the land and connected to the land. It creates a higher responsibility to care for the land as it needs to be cared for.
The third favorite insight of mine comes from the month of June when Leopold finds himself fishing. He compares human being to a fish who eagerly latches on to whatever alluring new thing that is placed in front of it, but there is a catch – a hidden hook. How often are we allured by shiny exiting new things; new ideas, new clothes, new cars, new ways to make money? Do we ever realize that there is a hidden hook in many of these things? Do they really make us happy? Or are they destroying our natural world and leaving us always wanting?
If you have never read Aldo Leopold Do it! It is beautiful.

I have been meaning to read “The Sand County Almanac” for two years now, and I am thrilled to have the chance. While we decided as a group to stick to part one for the purposes of this course, and have only read up to July for this week, he certainly seems to be the one who laid the foundation for the new economy we talk about today.

Within a few sentences of beginning “The Sand County Almanac,” one cannot help but get an overwhelming sense of community. Leopold shows us how much the world around is dependent on the minute workings of one creature to another. We stand in the middle of that community, aloof of our attachment, in fact, utter need for it. In the January chapter we curiously follow creatures as Leopold does, taking notice of things that continuously happen regardless of if we are paying attention or not.

            For me, the month of February was by far the most impactful, and as such will be what I spend the majority of this reflection on. It is here he begins to touch on the “spiritual dangers” of disconnectedness – to me it seems to perfectly inspire the words that Charles Eisenstein wrote in his book, “Sacred Economics,” over fifty years later. While in this context he is talking specifically about the spiritual dangers of not living on a farm, he essentially goes through the basics of Eisenstein’s concept of the economics of separation. When people don’t know where their food, heat, resources, and the like are coming from, we end up at the disconnected and over-consuming place we are today. Leopold describes his dog, oblivious as to where the heat really comes from or how it works, but who faithfully waits upon it expectantly. In light of this description, I fear that I am far more often the dog in this little illustration than any other character. I, along with countless other people, complain when something doesn’t work as I might hope without really ever appreciating the source.

Still in the month of February, Leopold walks readers through the sawing of a tree that he will eventually use for heat. He writes about the history of the tree, all the way back into roughly 1875, when (as its rings indicate) it first took root. It is at this point it became abundantly clear to me just how ridiculous we as human beings are in terms of the “aloofness” I mentioned before. Each ring they cut through attributes to a year that the tree lived through, and as Leopold highlights changes in environmental policies, conservation efforts, and essentially anything else that some esteemed human declared that year or defined the year by, the tree continues to grow. We can make whatever regulations we want, order nature around as much as we want, but things keep growing, the cycle continues, and in the end, we rely upon it doing exactly that to have the heat and food and resources we are so dependent on and ignorant of.

There is one quote in March that I couldn’t help but pause over. Leopold, as he considers the wonder of geese as they migrate and live in community, mentions a neighbor who says she had never seen the geese. He then poses the question, “ [i]s education possibly a process of trading awareness for lesser things of value” (Leopold 18)? Often times it seems to me that the way our society is constructed today, particularly in my own university life, leaves little to no time for people to pause and be aware of what is actually going on around them. Many a time I have wished to be outside but had something I had to get done, driven to get good grades so I can get good scholarships so I can come back and get good grades so I can get a good job so I can pay off my debt and have a family with kids who get good grades so they can get good scholarships so they can….well, you see my point. We are so wrapped up in our perfect little system or idea of success and our economically and scholarly driven community, but to what avail? What awareness and community have we given up so we can have these things? What have we done to our own spirituality – and for what?