When in Doubt

Ice up

If you want to hear some great music, tune into VPR at about 12:30 and again this evening at 7:30-ish. Kelly Ravin, the lead singer/guitar hero of Waylon Speed, is playing on Vermont Edition. He’s got a new solo album. 

Our friend Erik was here the other day; he spends one morning each week with Rye, usually accompanying him deep into the woods to explore some previously uncharted vale or basin, some small corner of the world that harbors more secrets than the human mind can fathom.

As has become habit, after he and Rye rambled, Erik joined us for lunch. Lunch is our big meal of the day; we tend to eat lightly at dinner, so as not to retire with overburdened bellies. Besides which, it’s mighty nice to take a midday break, to lay down our respective tasks and gather ’round the table for the noonday feed.

Also as has become our habit, we talked with Erik for some time about our respective challenges and triumphs. For Penny and me, one of these challenges has been how best to go about sharing our accumulated (and admittedly esoteric) store of knowledge and experience. For reasons I don’t fully understand, but am nonetheless heartened to witness, there has been of late a tremendous surge of interest in the practices and skills we employ in our smallholding. This is a wonderful and humbling thing, but as I mentioned a few posts back, we are struggling a bit with how to navigate this reality. Anyway, and particularly because Erik works for an organization that is also trying to determine how best to share the knowledge and experience it holds, this struggle became the chief topic of conversation.

Erik is only 28. Or maybe he’s 29 by now, but whatever the case, the fellow is far too wise for his age, and as is so often the case, he managed to distill the whole shootin’ match of our discussion to a handful of memorable words: “So long as you always act from a place of generosity, you’ll be fine,” is what he said, or something close enough to it. Penny and I looked at one another across the table, and I could see it written on her face as plainly as she could see it written on mine: Yes. 

Now, as so often seems to be the case in my life, which I have come to view as being ruled by serendipity as much as anything else, the boys received a letter from their friend Nate, who has become something of a trapping mentor to them. It is not my place to quote from such a private communication in such a public space, but I do feel comfortable reprinting the line most pertinent to the subject at hand. “Our first task is to treat each other well, for when we learn to always offer respect, kindness, and generosity to those around us, it spreads outward into our relationships with the rest of the world, and the Earth opens up to us in ways we never imagined.” 

This could be a good place to talk about the role of mentors in our sons’ lives, which has been nothing short of profound. But the truth is, the positive influence of these mentors is itself the result of exceptional generosity: Were they not willing to give of their time and experience, this influence would not be realized. So I will not allow myself to become too sidetracked.

I’m still not sure precisely how to fully manifest generosity in a world that is not always so generous in return, but I believe that both Erik and Nate are correct: When we act from a place of generosity, we will be ok. When we act from a place of generosity, the Earth opens to us in ways we never imagined. And not merely the Earth, but the people and animals that inhabit the Earth. To me, the very fact that Erik and Nate are in our lives is proof of this.

Yet there remains an unpaid property tax bill on my desk (don’t worry: We have the money to pay it, we just haven’t done so). Yet our truck is at the shop, undergoing some procedure or another that is not likely to be inexpensive. Yet our health care coverage is about to expire, and the new mandates will make it more expensive for us to remain covered. And so we must find ways to strike that balance between generosity toward others and a certain generosity toward ourselves, to be sure that we can still afford the fundamentals of modern life.

What does that balance look like? I cannot say for certain, but I can say that these serendipitous events – our conversation with Erik, the letter from Nate – which seem to have come at precisely the time we needed them to come, are pointing us in one direction: When in doubt, be generous.

I will close with one more line from Nate’s letter. It’s not even a full line, just a piece of a longer sentence that grabbed me and, for some reason that lies beyond logic and intellectual knowing, made me feel even more certain of my path in life. “The easiest thing to do is what everyone else is doing.”

These are the beautiful struggles of our lives, the ones that are worthy of our full attention and respect: To not always do what is easiest. And to always, always act from a place of generosity.