Listening to the Thistles

Tyler and I both have had the flu, and neither of us has fully recovered. Yet, this morning, I finally felt alert enough to look at some of my recent photographs, and as usual, most I discarded.  Yet, this photograph I shall keep, not because it is a remarkable piece of art. It is not even a good picture of thistles. At best, it is a snapshot taken as I was returning to my car after one of my worship services. I paused here simply because I could stand in one spot and see a glimpse of open space.  

 

I certainly cannot call this land untamed. It is a fairly small patch that is indeed surrounded by buildings.  The inhospitable thistle  in the foreground seems to be saying, "Do not tread here." I bow to that request to simply let some land be.

 

The clamor for housing here in the Bay Area is loud, and I really do understand that people need to be able to both afford a place to live that is at least somewhat close to where they work, and to be able to find such a place.  Yet, the cost of the tech industry growth is  high as more of our open space is given over to high density housing and roadways.  At what point do we say that we simply have no more room for building?   When do we acknowledge that we really do not have enough water to sustain unlimited growth?    

I suppose I am showing my age.  Well, I know I am because that eventually is what we all do.  I spent time this morning with some of Wendell Berry's poetry, a wise old Kentucky farmer who once wrote that we cannot let our hope depend on our feeling good.  This morning I must agree, so I will accept the encouragement of some prickly thistles, including Mr. Berry.  I will try not to tread where hope should be allowed to reside.  

  

     

    

Sabbath Poem VII (1982)

The clearing rests in song and shade.

It is a creature made

By old light held in soil and leaf,

By human joy and grief,

By human work,

Fidelity of sight and stroke,

By rain, by water on

The parent stone.

We join our work to Heaven's gift,

Our hope to what is left,

That field and woods at last agree

In an economy

Of widest worth.

High Heaven's Kingdom come on earth.

Imagine Paradise.

O Dust, arise!-- 

Wendell Berry (born 1934)

photograph:  Redwood City, April 2019