| Back Roads to Meliora |
Anne riding piggy back - she spent a lot of time back there. Summer, 1988 |
From 1987 to 2001 I was a farm &
food processing inspector for the organic food industry. 20+ years ago when Anne was but a tot, I flew into Rochester, NY 3 years running so I could inspect a small nutbutter factory in Nunda, NY - Once Again Nut Butter. |
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Anne used to run around the house & yard with oversized 'Once Again' tee shirts on,
their tails rubbing her ankles or dragging the floor. |
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Upon dropping Anne off for the
University's fall '06 semester, we shopped a wee bit in the small 'Corner Store' in Meliora Hall. She took up a basket & started filling it with snacks. |
Anne at UR - fall semester 2006
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As she picked up a jar of peanut butter & laid it in my hand, she said, "If you haven't tried
this, you should. It's good for you - it's organic." Looking down, there was a jar of 'Once Again Nut Butter' in my hand. "You know," I said, "this is why I used to fly to Rochester - to inspect 'Once Again'." "Cool," she said. . . . And no, this wasn't the moment . . . At Meliora "06 a bunch of us flocked into Strong Auditorium Saturday afternoon for a symposium on sustainability. Afterwards Anne & I sat waiting for the crowd to thin a bit. She was encouraging me to go ahead up & ask a panalist a question I had. "Lots of folks down there looking to ask questions," I said. She turns to me & asks, "How does one person make a difference in all this? How do you figure out what you are going to do, or stop doing?" . . . Fortunately something came to mind . . . I reminded her of that August evening she laid that jar of nut butter in my hand. Jeremy Thaler & his gang of Once Againers were real pioneers in developing, tweaking, & participating in successful cooperative efforts to bring verifiable organic product to market. I went on to say that I was the 1st to inspect them for organic certification because, back then, I was the closest processing inspector who could do it. |
Ft. Pierce, FL Roslow Groves - Nov. 1993
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In those days I mixed with a lot of
folks who struggled with Anne's very question. Lord knows I wonder about my own life's contribution. My only answer to her was that we all did what we thought was best at the time. Sweeping changes? I can't say. Helping shore up our 'green' |
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footing, preparing footholds for any willing children who might follow behind us -
I'd say we did decidedly well. |
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I must say, though, it never occurred
to me how, many stories later, I would use my organic inspector adventures to succinctly & unobtrusively, touch on my daughter's perception of her future. |
Anne under a rainy Georgia - Lovel Farm, Blairsville, GA - sum 1988
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William Bankhead Nat. Forest - Hartselle, AL - spr 1993
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. . . And that was the moment . . .
Almost gone before I recognized it was there. Ratios and ratios of possibilities. Time, measured in months and years, committed to one thing or another, slips into the cauldron - into some incalculable mixture. Why, it was like finding a blind hog on a roof to see that moment in front of me - I feel lucky to have sensed it and honored to be a part of it. |
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The past playing up to the present,
& at that 'Giveaway' slice in time you have something of value. Not because you planned to have something -not that you even saw the Giveaway coming. That I did not see it coming & saw it there & the gift was ready . . . |
Hanging Rock Mtn. - Banner Elk, NC - sum 1994
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. . . I'm pretty sure that when my children were newborns & I prayed over being a good father,
this was what I was thinking being a good elder was all about. |
Gandalf & my nephew Kirk - spr. 1982
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We often quibble over the terms
father & dad, mother & mom; each with its own connotation about how we deliver as parents, but as parents, it is the 'elder knowledge' we are responsible for. We are responsible for sensing it, absorbing it & letting it go. We use it, learn it, apply it - create with it & at the family fires we watch for ways to pass it forward |
| A ministry of one to another - counsel - not instruction or indoctrination |
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Good counsel should grow ears on the
counselor - meaning the one giving the counsel needs to know that 'elder knowledge' is often learned from children & other 'non-elders'. The difference between an elder & the child is that - you hope - life has pressed into service your spiritual intelligence, enlivening your perspective with back story AND vision From this story I have learned that in moments where you find yourself giving counsel, there are, simultaneously, windows opened into YOUR life that, in turn, give you counsel. I might even go so far as to say that, if such windows are not present, elder knowledge is not in play. |
Campsite atop Snake Mtn. - spr. 1995
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So layered was this one moment between Anne & I, it has taken me years to unravel its details.
To the degree it unveiled an angle of view into my own life, it seems certain that this story is about something that can & should happen between all of us - frequently. And by 'frequent ministry' I do not mean we are all to become a flock of preachy do-gooders - heaven help us! 99.9% of such a ministry as this is watching, waiting & listening - a very small percentage is something falling out of your mouth. This story is careful to reveal how these opportunities cannot be calculated or anticipated - they cannot be planned - but such moments certainly can be recognized & are the keys to unobstrusive counsel. |
wild iris - spr.1993 - Vale, NC
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A story builds to the Giveaway then
contracts inward away from the family fire - back to yourself & your life. In the oscillation between these two, is the frequency of the elder knowledge. It is no one thing or set of things - it is alive & in flux - mallable yet lawful. No religious or secular doctrine can predict your frequency, as yours has never exsisted before. Good elder knowledge is always new, as it must serve this moment - this one here - that has never before come to pass - ever. Such knowledge is, if ever there was one, an oxymoron. Elder Knowledge is, at best, a delicate matter & at worst, confused with instruction. |
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So
Back
Roads
to
Meliora
is a story of my journey down through my choices,
& where along that journey something or |
Boone, NC - 1985
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or someone - or me - was
made better . . . ever better. In unraveling this moment with Anne, a vast landscape opened, revealing my Giveaway's course through time. |
an Elder hiding In the Wood
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The good Giveaway - a holy act - is an encouraging sign
that elder wisdom is tracking close by. |
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To watch this whole
backstory unfold, bore out, that for me, my 'ever better' - my own mixture of old & new, winds along some 'ol county hardtop, looking for where the pavement ends . . . |
York, New York - fall 2006
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. . . feeling the curve
of the earth & our roll through space - watching for the light of a family fire attended by children & elders with ears. |