1 00:00:05,620 --> 00:00:11,140 Many years ago, a man set out on a journey on foot into the Alps. 2 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:16,020 After hiking for three days through a region where ancient 3 00:00:16,020 --> 00:00:20,420 mountains thrust down into Provence, he found himself in a 4 00:00:20,420 --> 00:00:24,900 wasteland desolate beyond description. 5 00:00:26,380 --> 00:00:29,540 The landscape was bleak and monotonous, and nothing grew 6 00:00:29,540 --> 00:00:33,640 there but wild lavender. An abandoned village stood like 7 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:40,240 a skeleton, its fountain dry. Life vanished. 8 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:44,920 A fierce, insufferable wind growled through the ruins like a 9 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:49,280 disturbed beast. The rare inhabited villages of 10 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:53,400 that region were hounded by even more beasts in the forms of 11 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:57,000 rivalry, competition and resentment. 12 00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:02,400 The traveler was in search of water and after hours of seeing 13 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:06,280 nothing, he spotted what appeared to be a tree stump in 14 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:10,520 the distance. As he approached, he discovered 15 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:13,000 it was a shepherd with his. Flock. 16 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,960 The shepherd spoke little but offered water from his horde and 17 00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:23,040 LED the traveller to his home. That evening, the 2 shared warm 18 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:27,560 soup and sheltered from the howling wind in the sturdy stone 19 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:31,200 house the shepherd had carefully restored from ruins. 20 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,520 After dinner, the traveler watched as the shepherd 21 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:41,520 meticulously sorted through acorns, selecting 100 perfect 22 00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,560 specimens before they retired for the night. 23 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:49,880 The next day, the traveler watched the shepherd carrying an 24 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:54,440 iron rod and his carefully selected acorns, now soaking in 25 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:59,600 water as he began making coals in the ground, dropping in 26 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:06,280 acorns and filling them in, he was planting oak trees. 27 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,440 Why are you doing this? The traveler asked. 28 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:15,920 He learned that the man, Elzeyard Bouffier, had been 29 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:20,480 planting trees for three years in this desolate country. 30 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:25,040 Having lost his wife and only son, he had withdrawn to the 31 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:29,960 solitaire and seeing the land dying for lack of trees, he had 32 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:31,960 resolved to remedy the situation. 33 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:40,600 Yet out of 100,000 planted, he expected only 10,000 to survive. 34 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:47,000 The traveler went away marveling at this strange man and his 35 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:52,760 lonely quest. When the traveler returned years 36 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:56,880 later after fighting in the First World War, the oak trees 37 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:00,200 were 10 years old and taller than both men. 38 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:04,200 The forest stretched for kilometers. 39 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:10,360 Most astonishing was the return of water streams flowing where 40 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:12,680 they had been dry for generations. 41 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:18,400 As water reappeared, so did other vegetation and a certain 42 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:22,920 reason. After that, the traveler 43 00:03:22,920 --> 00:03:28,120 returned every year to visit his silent friend, and by his final 44 00:03:28,120 --> 00:03:33,360 visit in 1945, the transformation was complete. 45 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:39,440 The abandoned village now thrived with inhabitants, 46 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:44,040 gardens flourished, fountains flowed. 47 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:50,440 More than 10,000 people owed their happiness to the work of 48 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:57,160 one humble shepherd who had planted trees for over 30 years. 49 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:02,640 Welcome to the Imagination Redeemed podcast where we follow 50 00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:06,680 the great stories further up and further in In Pursuit of the 51 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:15,240 Life of Christ. Welcome everyone. 52 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:19,480 I'm Sarah Howell today joined by Matthew Clark, Amy Lee and our 53 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:21,880 celebrity guest Amy's husband Young on Lee. 54 00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:25,520 And coincidentally, these three are also on the ANSEM Society's 55 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,400 board. We are at the end of our spring 56 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:30,640 season exploring hope and despair. 57 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:33,520 If you've listened to our last episode, then you've heard the 58 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,440 story of Julian of Norwich's vision of the hazelnut and our 59 00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:40,120 conversation that explored hope in the face of suffering. 60 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:43,640 This time we want to look more closely at what it means to 61 00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:46,680 practice acts of hope in our everyday lives. 62 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:50,760 For great hope has come, and that's easy to say when it 63 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:54,840 finally does feel like spring. The sun is shining where I am, 64 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:57,040 the dew is bringing life to the earth. 65 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:01,160 New growth is teeming over. And we as the Church are in a 66 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:05,720 season of Easter tide. Christ has risen, but in our 67 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:10,400 story today, the resurrected valley of Province is that 68 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:14,600 beautiful picture of abundant life we have in the resurrected 69 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:17,600 Christ. However, before we speak to such 70 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:20,680 things, I'm curious to hear y'all's thoughts on where the 71 00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:23,240 story begins. So let's start there. 72 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:27,200 What's so striking about this peculiar shepherd and what he 73 00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:29,400 decides to do in the place we find him? 74 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:31,720 I want to look at the village first. 75 00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:35,840 Actually does the setting he that it the setting he's in and 76 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:39,640 that village that's mostly deserted and really filled with 77 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,040 strife. And I thought it was interesting 78 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:47,520 that even though the story is going to be about trees and 79 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:52,720 water, it's not that obvious that it's the lack of trees 80 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:56,920 that's causing this. So you can have goodness and 81 00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:00,600 hope with scarcity with without being rich. 82 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:07,000 But somehow, as they been eroded by the harsh winds, like the 83 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,000 environment, the villagers hope has been eroded the same way. 84 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,840 The wind is the first thing that comes to mind from the story 85 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:19,400 because it's the words that are given to it are not. 86 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:22,720 It's not a passive presence. It's something that's wild and 87 00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:28,760 brutal and growling and just being exposed to the elements 88 00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:33,880 like that with nothing as a buffer, no trees, it wears down. 89 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:41,040 He he gives a picture of the villagers lives being worn down 90 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:44,640 so that they don't have any inner resources, they don't have 91 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:48,880 anything good to draw from. They don't have any inspiration 92 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:51,280 or hope. And actually there's no seasons. 93 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:54,720 There's no markers for the seasons there. 94 00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:58,160 You know, it's just the wind day after day after day. 95 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:00,600 And I thought it was interesting that they use a French phrase 96 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:03,400 called the Scottish shower, which really threw me because I 97 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:07,200 thought this is in Provence and what is this phrase? 98 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:10,720 But apparently it means a rain that alternates between hot and 99 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:15,480 cold, so it's the most unpleasant of wet conditions, 100 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:17,120 and you're trapped in there together. 101 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:20,200 And when I think of depression and anxiety, I think of the 102 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,360 inability to think that anything is going to change. 103 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:28,960 And so they're all in this space where, as far as any of them can 104 00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:31,440 tell, life is just going to continue like this forever and 105 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:33,160 ever and ever. And that just adds to the 106 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:37,240 hopelessness and adds to the way that they're retaliating at each 107 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,800 other in these conditions, I think. 108 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:45,320 We have a lot of trees, but when it's hot in Mississippi, the 109 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:50,920 humidity, the air is so thick that it you, you can't get away 110 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:52,440 from the heat. You can get away from the the 111 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:57,320 sunlight, but it's, it's almost just as hot in the shade as it 112 00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:01,920 is out of the shade. And I remember noticing that in 113 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:06,080 Colorado, one of the last times I was out there because I was in 114 00:08:06,080 --> 00:08:09,600 the sun and I was hot and I stepped into the shade and I was 115 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,520 like, oh, it actually is cool in the shade because the air is not 116 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:18,360 carrying the heat because it's not as much as it is here. 117 00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:22,800 And I thought so the idea of not being able to, to get a break, 118 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:29,320 have having no kind of intervals or and that makes me think of 119 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:35,559 I've mentioned a guy name Jim Wilder a lot because I've been 120 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:39,559 reading in the last few years. But he was talking about that we 121 00:08:39,559 --> 00:08:43,840 learn to trust the people that recognize when we need to rest 122 00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:48,080 and they allow us to rest. And he's talking about child 123 00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:52,320 development and, and a baby will smile at you and then it will 124 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:55,960 look away because it's, it's literally overwhelmed with the 125 00:08:55,960 --> 00:08:59,280 engagement. And some people will tickle a 126 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:02,520 baby and prod at it because it feels good to be smiled at by a 127 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:05,520 baby. And actually, they're stressing 128 00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:08,400 the baby out because they're not giving it any intervals of rest. 129 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:11,400 And the baby will become agitated and upset. 130 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:15,600 And it's like a similar thing. Like we need rhythms of rest and 131 00:09:15,600 --> 00:09:17,840 engagement. But if you're in a habitat or an 132 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:21,280 environment where you just cannot get a break, that will 133 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:25,720 wear you out, You know, And our culture's, maybe there's some 134 00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:28,840 parallels in our culture. Yeah, it seems like the wind is 135 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:35,160 a beautiful image of that constant prodding that unsafe 136 00:09:35,440 --> 00:09:39,920 person or unsafe place or maybe our culture as that tireless 137 00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:42,720 wind. I can't help but think that the 138 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:46,480 conditions for life require life here in this beginning part of 139 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:52,400 the story and and your thoughts, Matthew changes my view of what 140 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:56,400 the word life means then, because if life is required to 141 00:09:56,400 --> 00:10:01,480 give life, that's not a constant stream of activity or energy. 142 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:06,880 It it might actually be the the right balance between rest and 143 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,680 action. Yosef Peeper talks a lot about 144 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:13,800 leisure. That that we live in a culture 145 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:17,920 of absolute work. We're sort of what we see 146 00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:21,200 ourselves as constituted by our utility and our accomplishment. 147 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:23,760 And he says it's actually the other way around. 148 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:31,920 What we're really made out of is these spans of, of a really kind 149 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:36,280 of Sabbath, a Sabbath shaped span where we, we're beholding, 150 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:38,040 we're not necessarily accomplishing anything. 151 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:41,320 We're just being relationally present, you might say, and 152 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:44,760 attentive. We don't rest so that we can get 153 00:10:44,760 --> 00:10:47,320 more work done. We work so that we can stop 154 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:48,480 working. And that's the thing that 155 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:52,240 actually matters more. And that Sabbath is a day when 156 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:57,640 you become useless on purpose, and you find out how beloved you 157 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:02,760 are and how treasured you are. The way Aliziard approaches his 158 00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:09,080 work is is in this leisurely fashion, like he there's no 159 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:12,560 hurry in anything he does. When he's picking up the acorns, 160 00:11:12,680 --> 00:11:15,480 it describes how slowly he picks them out. 161 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:21,920 Not that slow is the point, but you see, he has margin. 162 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:26,640 He doesn't try to rush things, even though what he's really 163 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:29,640 trying to do is a massive amount of work. 164 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:33,800 In the time that this was written in the 1950s, I would 165 00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:37,720 think that this character should have like made a machine that 166 00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,760 plants 1000 trees every hour, right? 167 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:44,800 That's how that's how the story should have gone in in many 168 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:48,120 ways, because that would be the more efficient, effective way of 169 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:51,000 doing it. If he really has to plant trees, 170 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,520 that's what he should be doing. Do you think that there's 171 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:59,960 something inherent to the actual action, I guess, of planting 172 00:11:59,960 --> 00:12:03,560 trees that rebels against that idea of productivity? 173 00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:06,520 I feel like there's something about the kind of person who 174 00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:10,240 plants trees, the kind of person who would be willing to plant 175 00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:16,880 trees has to be somebody who has a long vision and a love for 176 00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:18,800 green and growing things. Really. 177 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:23,280 I was thinking about in The Lord of the Rings when Tribier just 178 00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:26,840 talking about Saruman, he says something like he has a mind of 179 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:32,360 metal and wheels and he doesn't care for growing things except 180 00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:35,680 for except as far as they serve him in the moment. 181 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:40,960 And there's so much rending and tearing and harvesting and 182 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:43,480 stripping and seizing that we can do on earth. 183 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:49,280 And to put your mind to the work of cultivating requires, I think 184 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,160 at least from this story, we see the long vision, the willingness 185 00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:57,200 to embrace loss along the way because he's losing, you know, 186 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:02,400 thousands of saplings and acorns that don't make it to adulthood. 187 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:07,520 It's almost like you have to have a belief that it's not 188 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,240 seizing but tending that's actually going to yield an 189 00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:14,480 abundance and a richness and life that actually lasts. 190 00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:20,560 I think it's also maybe why in the Bible we're very we're often 191 00:13:20,560 --> 00:13:24,440 compared to trees. Like we humans are supposed to 192 00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,720 be trees planted by streams of living water. 193 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:31,720 It's a slow process. Trees are measured in years. 194 00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:35,080 They're not measured in minutes. They're not measured in seconds. 195 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:40,280 In this story as well, the progress isn't seen until the 196 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,120 narrator comes back and visits 10 years later. 197 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:47,720 And I think that's another beautiful thing is that not only 198 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:51,640 is the work slow, but as Amy was saying, the vision of its 199 00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:56,080 outcome is also slow. Like it's, it's kind of like at 200 00:13:56,080 --> 00:14:00,960 home, we plant Tulip bulbs in the fall and you don't get to 201 00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:06,360 see anything until the spring in here in Colorado until it gets 202 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:11,120 snowed over a few more times. But but that that's those. 203 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:16,840 I love how a lot of natural things are slow and a lot of the 204 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:19,600 metals and gears things are the things that are fast. 205 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:24,960 I saw a Chinese proverb today that said the best time to plant 206 00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:28,880 a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best time is right now. 207 00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,720 And there's, it strikes me that there is an immediacy to 208 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,320 planting trees as well. While it's slow, while your 209 00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:44,080 vision is long, you, you must begin now because it does take 210 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,840 so much time and it is so important. 211 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:51,880 And so I wonder what makes us think that we can't be like this 212 00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:56,000 man who planted trees, What paralyzes us because maybe we 213 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,600 haven't started 20 years ago, we dare not start now. 214 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:04,080 Well, I'll confess, I think because I'm impatient, I'm not 215 00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,520 willing to plant an acorn and wait 10 years. 216 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:11,360 I want my problem solved today. If I can use a credit card to 217 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:19,240 solve it, even better, you know? And I think it's also somewhat 218 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:22,520 demoralizing when you can't see the results immediately of some 219 00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:27,200 fix you're trying to do. And it's also daunting. 220 00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:33,520 I, I don't know, I wonder how long it took for for this 221 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:37,680 character to learn that he can do 100 acorns a day. 222 00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:42,440 And when you're doing the first one and you think in your head, 223 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:46,000 I still have 99 to do, I think it feels daunting. 224 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:49,320 There's a lot of Matthew, when you like record songs and you 225 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:53,520 know, you got like 20 more songs to record and you've just done 226 00:15:53,520 --> 00:15:58,520 the first pass of the first one. Like does it feel daunting to 227 00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:01,440 think like because you have the Longview, because you know how 228 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:05,160 long it will take when authors write their first chapter, How 229 00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:06,920 this it does it feel that? I don't know. 230 00:16:07,040 --> 00:16:11,880 But I think that is true that our incremental progress often 231 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:16,520 feels unsatisfactory because we know, especially if we do have 232 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:19,880 the long vision, that we've only done 10% of the work. 233 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:22,880 I was having a conversation with somebody recently and they were 234 00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:27,240 talking about how in their marriage there had been a a 235 00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:32,360 season of depression and they got really overwhelmed and they 236 00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:37,480 were thinking about if this goes on for two more years, three 237 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,680 more years, 5-6 more year. Like I can't survive. 238 00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:46,720 He made the comment that he said I had to, I had to stop being 239 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:50,400 somewhere I wasn't. I had to stop jumping ahead to 240 00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,880 six years from now and imagine he's like, because I, I have to 241 00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:58,480 be here and I have to go just one step at a time. 242 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:00,520 And he's like, that was the only way to survive. 243 00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:04,400 And things did get better. And it didn't take six years. 244 00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:10,280 It took, you know, about a year. But he said, he said that kind 245 00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:14,640 of thinking ahead too much was that was, was really paralyzing. 246 00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:18,079 And so I think, I think there's something like that. 247 00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:23,319 You mentioned creative processes like the current project that 248 00:17:23,319 --> 00:17:26,040 I'm on. I'm about to finish something 249 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:30,720 that started in 2019. I think for me I have an an 250 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,040 advantage because I I just don't naturally think that far. 251 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,400 Like. I tend to be kind of an 252 00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,400 intuitive in the moment person for the most part. 253 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:48,600 And so maybe that's not as hard for me as as a as it might be 254 00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:50,960 for some people. I think I'm reading the story a 255 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:53,600 little differently. When we think back to the 256 00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:58,600 villagers who are being buffeted by the the weather and the 257 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:04,120 dryness and the paucity of the conditions, to me that reads as 258 00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:06,280 a situation of being without agency. 259 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,680 You're kind of at the mercy of what is happening to you, and 260 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,760 you no longer have any defenses or creativity to be able to 261 00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:14,040 fight back. And so when I think of the 262 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:19,680 things that would stop me from being like Bouffier, I think of 263 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:22,760 weariness, actually. So sometimes just the lived 264 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:26,600 experience of seeing things not make an impact or being bound by 265 00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,600 someone else's threats or wondering how anything good 266 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:32,560 could come out of a dry wilderness. 267 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,120 It's, those are the conditions that I think of. 268 00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:38,000 That's the mentality that I think of that I think prevents 269 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,880 people a lot of times from being able to make headway. 270 00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:46,200 Is that you're simply tired. In my 20s I think I had a lot 271 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:51,480 more energy and that's a lot more belief that if I could just 272 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:55,640 gain enough expertise to do something or enough training or 273 00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,200 gather enough people, then you could, you know, really forge 274 00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:00,800 ahead and make a difference. And I find that there is a 275 00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:04,800 difference 2 decades later now where I guess having seen a bit 276 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:10,840 more and walked through not just my stories but other people's, 277 00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:15,680 there's less of a desire to go on a quest. 278 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,880 Sometimes it's more of a desire to just outlast the things that 279 00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:23,080 might be hard at the time. And it's the thing I've been 280 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:26,240 underlining over and over again in Jeremiah. 281 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,440 I've been reading that recently and in some other stories, just 282 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:33,200 noting the places where people say their key desire is simply 283 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,440 for peace and quiet. And I guess to quote Lord of the 284 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:39,200 Rings again, good tilled earth. Just, you know, having a place 285 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:45,640 where you can settle and be left in peace to eke out a, a 286 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:49,800 thriving, restful life. And so the other thing that 287 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:55,720 stands out to me about El Zayard is that he's, he's not coming 288 00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:59,600 into it with the intention of planting a certain number of 289 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,880 trees. So I think it's it's really 290 00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:06,880 significant to me that. As the narrator is talking to 291 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:09,200 him, he's working from a place of loss. 292 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,320 So he says that he moved there because first he lost his son 293 00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:15,360 and then he lost his wife, then he gave up his farm. 294 00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:19,080 And I feel like in a position like that he's, I think actually 295 00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:22,640 the story says after that he thought well, might as well do 296 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:25,080 this. So it's not like he's trying to 297 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:27,240 meet a coat of trees. He's just working from a place 298 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:28,400 of loss. And I feel like that makes a 299 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,560 difference with the pace of your work because if you're starting 300 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,800 from a place where one tree is better than none, 10 trees are 301 00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:38,320 better than none. It's not, I didn't, I have 90 302 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,600 trees left to go. It's more, well, let's see what 303 00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:45,600 we can do in the next minute. And I feel like that is a 304 00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:48,560 pattern that I do see occurring over and over again. 305 00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:51,720 Maybe in the most inspirational lives that I've encountered is 306 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:56,200 that they come to a place where they do hit rock bottom and 307 00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:59,040 there's nothing left. And then you do have a choice as 308 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:01,920 to whether or not you're going to do something to build or 309 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:06,960 you're going to do something to just let the elements keep 310 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:10,120 eroding you. Somebody reminded me of the 311 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:14,920 pilgrims in book, the Elizabeth Gooch book this week. 312 00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,720 And I feel like there's a similar feeling like there's 313 00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:20,520 this group of people and everybody in some way has gotten 314 00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:24,600 to a place like that where everybody's kind of burnout. 315 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:30,640 And but then there's this old building that's going to be, 316 00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:33,640 we're going to trim the hedges and we're going to clean up this 317 00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:35,360 room. And we're going to, we're going 318 00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:40,120 to just start kind of doing those things because we have to 319 00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:44,520 make a choice to either just kind of lay down and die or, or 320 00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:49,280 do something. And, you know, and but it is a 321 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:55,600 choice to, to just kind of put 1 foot in front of the other and 322 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,560 just to stay engaged or to check out. 323 00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:03,320 And I've, I've definitely felt that maybe much more strongly at 324 00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:08,560 certain seasons of my life where I'm like, I, I just have to sort 325 00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:12,560 of just do this. I've got to get up and, like, 326 00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:14,920 brush my teeth one more day. Yeah. 327 00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,560 I think we're already talking about the question, how can we 328 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:24,840 be more like Elzayard Bouffier and how do I plant trees? 329 00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:28,680 But I wonder, Matthew, I think you might be getting there with 330 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:32,760 the last thing you said. Let's start with how do I begin? 331 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:34,680 You mentioned brushing your teeth. 332 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,440 But you know, there's this tension I feel. 333 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,760 What's the difference between being paralyzed to an action 334 00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:47,760 because you were weary and also being at a place, maybe rock 335 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,800 bottom like you said, Amy, that is there something that just 336 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,880 gives us that that energy and force to just go and brush our 337 00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:58,440 teeth or what? What really does it mean to 338 00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:03,560 begin planting trees in our lives and in our own tireless 339 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:07,000 winds that we face? I just want to be clear that I I 340 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:10,000 was joking about tooth brushing. I don't believe in tooth 341 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,320 brushing at all and I don't think anybody should do it. 342 00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,680 I only brush my teeth when I have a tinfoil hat on. 343 00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:20,280 It's important. Of course it is. 344 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:22,320 Yeah, You don't need to explain that. 345 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:27,040 What was your question, Sarah? Sorry, how? 346 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,640 Do we start? I think my question is, how do 347 00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:36,320 we begin to plant trees in our own lives? 348 00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,200 And maybe we need to define what planting trees really means. 349 00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:42,200 Like, let's get a little bit more practical with what that 350 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,720 could look like in our lives. Or what or maybe what it has 351 00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:50,080 looked like there are areas. I, I like where Amy was on the 352 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:57,200 background of Elziard, right? He was broken and so he, he 353 00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,440 didn't start planting trees because he was rich and has had 354 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:04,400 an abundance of trees already and had some extra to give. 355 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,360 He came from, I don't have anything and I want to do 356 00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:11,400 something. I remember hearing from a 357 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:16,360 missionary couple saying that when they decided to become 358 00:24:16,360 --> 00:24:19,240 missionaries, it wasn't because they had everything figured out 359 00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,600 and they had all this like wisdom to give people. 360 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,200 It was because they were being called to go. 361 00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:30,920 And, and so it, it's kind of that that is one of the things 362 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,160 that I think a lot of people wait to be ready to start, 363 00:24:35,360 --> 00:24:40,200 whereas often you don't need to, you can just start. 364 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:45,280 I was talking to a friend this morning having breakfast, and 365 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,840 he's a missionary in Central America. 366 00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,080 And he said he was in this little village. 367 00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:53,560 And he said the whole culture in this village was so different 368 00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,920 from places he had been before. And he said when he first got 369 00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,520 there, you know, there was a woman who he met. 370 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,600 And she said, well, you need to come to our house and, and have 371 00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:08,080 lunch with us. And, you know, she didn't have a 372 00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:16,040 lot, but her posture in the world was I have enough to to 373 00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:20,840 love another person, you know. And he said a lot of places he 374 00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,040 had gone before had learned if a new person comes to town, you go 375 00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:25,480 and see what you can get from them. 376 00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:31,240 But this woman who in the same sense as the tree planter, he 377 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,120 was working out of a sort of, you could say that his 378 00:25:34,120 --> 00:25:39,720 circumstances were scarce, but his posture in the world was 379 00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:41,760 not. He was maybe working from a 380 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:45,840 place of desolation, but the but his posture in the world was to 381 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:50,040 to give and to plant, which seems like an impossible 382 00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,200 combination. But you we've all seen that in 383 00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,760 people that we know when we've been invited in and loved or 384 00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,080 gifted. Right, I think the level of 385 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,280 resources is actually almost irrelevant to the mindset. 386 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:09,400 We've talked about this already, but the outcome of Boufier's 387 00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:16,360 work was not to wasn't going to be creating abundance within the 388 00:26:16,360 --> 00:26:20,680 margins of that day. Ten of his hundred seedlings 389 00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:25,240 might make it, and so he doesn't have much to offer. 390 00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,160 And even what he had to offer, most of it wasn't going to 391 00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,040 survive. I think it was something that 392 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,960 you said earlier, Sarah, again, going back to the the loss that 393 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:40,280 Elsie Eard is working from, I'm wondering about that moment when 394 00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:46,480 we hit rock bottom and what is that thing that makes you think 395 00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,600 you can get up and plant a tree because there's lots of 396 00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:51,480 circumstances. I think there are lots of things 397 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,360 that we can do to metaphorically plant trees in our lives, but to 398 00:26:55,360 --> 00:27:00,200 get to a place where you feel like you've lost everything and 399 00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,680 maybe it's actually the virtue of actually having lost 400 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,760 everything that helps you to see how much you had or didn't have 401 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,640 to begin with and what really matters. 402 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,960 But I want to say that when you come to a point in your life 403 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,320 where it's hard to get out of bed, I don't want it to. 404 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,840 I don't want to say a cliche thing, but I think maybe the the 405 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:21,720 only thing that meets us there is grace. 406 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,880 That sometimes it comes in the form of a friend knocking on 407 00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,560 your door and saying, come on, let's get out of bed. 408 00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,320 Let's brush your teeth, let's get you a little breakfast and 409 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,200 going. Or or maybe it was a seed that 410 00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:40,880 was planted in you years earlier that so that when everything 411 00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,440 else is gone, everything else has eroded out of your life, 412 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,280 there's still still some secret belief in you that there's one 413 00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,200 good thing that you can do that day or one life giving thing 414 00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,120 that might be worth more than just lying there and taking 415 00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:56,960 everything in and lying down in defeat. 416 00:27:57,360 --> 00:28:01,520 I feel like that's a thing that we can't really skip over in 417 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:07,040 this story, that this notion of, I mean, planting trees is really 418 00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,760 practicing resurrection, but that practicing resurrection 419 00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,840 comes about because of the story that's already set in the 420 00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,480 trenches of history that we are living right now that centers 421 00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,440 around incarnation and death and resurrection. 422 00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,400 Really, the thing that we're doing when we're planting trees, 423 00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,400 really the thing that we're doing when we hit rock bottom, 424 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,240 is living out of the grace that comes to meet us when we are in 425 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:31,920 the desert. And we have been completely 426 00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:36,800 defeated and the queen has sent her prophets and we've, you 427 00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,400 know, we just want to lie down and die. 428 00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,360 And I can't think of anything else to explain those moments 429 00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,320 but that it's Grace. I really like that, Amy. 430 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,800 I think that's, I think that's accurate at least from every 431 00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,840 experience I've ever had and everything I've witnessed. 432 00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,600 You referenced practicing Resurrection, which comes from 433 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:04,000 Wendell Berry's poem manifesto, The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. 434 00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,640 And even that title has a little bit of a rebellious spirit to 435 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,000 it. And I love thinking about grace 436 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,200 being intermingled with a little bit of rebellion, a little bit 437 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,960 of defiance against what we see in this world. 438 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,600 And that's how the poem starts, really. 439 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,280 You could think of the first stanza as him laying out the 440 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,760 narrative of the Tireless Winds, where he talks about loving the 441 00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,400 quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. 442 00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:36,160 And he talks about how if you let your mind follow that 443 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:42,000 narrative and follow what's convenient to me right now, then 444 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,440 they will tell you what to buy and they will tell you what to 445 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,520 do. And your mind will just be a a 446 00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:52,000 punch in the card. But then his his defiance is, I 447 00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,720 think to what you're pointing to Amy. 448 00:29:55,120 --> 00:30:00,560 It is to listen to a different narrative and he uses the phrase 449 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,240 everyday do something that won't compute. 450 00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,280 He gives his own examples, but I'm curious to hear your eyes's 451 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:11,760 thoughts on what does it mean to do things that won't compute 452 00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,000 within the lens of a narrative of grace. 453 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,480 Well, and he even says love someone who does not deserve it. 454 00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,680 And it is a contradiction, right? 455 00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,920 You're having to say something against everything that's being 456 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,600 said that I think going back to the sort of what looks like a 457 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,800 waste of energy and time. It feels like in all this noise 458 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,840 and in all with all these voices and images, all this visual 459 00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:43,160 noise, auditory noise to kind of whisper like, oh, good grace. 460 00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:49,480 It kind of feels like, like it feels really wimpy and useless. 461 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:56,720 And I was too looking recently at the idea of gift economy and 462 00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:03,120 that we're sort of representing this or bearing witness to an, 463 00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:09,080 embodying a, an, an outlandish economy and that the economy we 464 00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,120 live in for the, the market economy, words like grace and 465 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:17,240 mercy, they're nonsense words. They don't have, they're, 466 00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:22,200 they're not native to the vocabulary of, of a market 467 00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,240 economy. And so I was looking at Isaiah 468 00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:30,960 55 and Isaiah 55 starts with like, come and buy you who have 469 00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,720 no money. It's like right off the bat 470 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,080 you're like, no, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. 471 00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,320 How do you do that? And then it goes on and it says, 472 00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,480 come, and anyone who will turn from their ways will be freely 473 00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:47,800 forgiven. And you're like, now how does 474 00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:49,120 that work? How do you do that? 475 00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,120 And then he says, because my ways are not your ways. 476 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,120 He's like, look, I know this doesn't make any sense because I 477 00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:56,840 don't do things the way you do things. 478 00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:58,840 I wouldn't. I don't expect this to make 479 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,280 sense to you because it contradicts everything that 480 00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:05,720 you've ever been told, all the diction you've absorbed about 481 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,840 the way life is really is and the way the world is. 482 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:13,080 And then he says, but even though my my ways are higher, my 483 00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,680 thoughts are higher. I'm going to send snow and rain 484 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:20,120 down to the earth and it's going to water the earth because my 485 00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,200 word is going to go out and something is going to flourish 486 00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,360 and bloom. In other words, I'm going to 487 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,440 make the this weird way of life known to you and available to 488 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,000 you so that you can learn how to live the way that I live my 489 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,000 life, the way God lives his life. 490 00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,120 And he says and that will endow you with splendor. 491 00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:46,400 My people will be will become beautiful and that is what will 492 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,400 attract other people. And he says this will be for the 493 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,560 Lord's everlasting renown. And like, all of that is about 494 00:32:54,880 --> 00:33:00,560 participating in a way, a gift economy that just doesn't make 495 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,800 any sense. And so you, how can you not? 496 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,360 How can you avoid feeling ridiculous? 497 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,880 You know, I'm just going to plant these little acorns. 498 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,200 It looks like it doesn't matter. And I'm going to whisper the 499 00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:13,760 word grace over every one of them. 500 00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:17,280 And it sounds I feel like an idiot or I'm going to keep 501 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,480 making these songs or writing these words or fixing these 502 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,760 watches, you know? I like that it even in compute, 503 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,320 if you ultimately think about it, none of us have the right 504 00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,960 formulas to use. If we computed things the way 505 00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,280 God thinks of it, it would probably work out normally, like 506 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:37,840 correctly. But we're all using the 507 00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:39,920 formulas, like you said, of scarcity. 508 00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,280 In fact, we were, I think it was this Sunday or maybe the Sunday 509 00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:49,160 before at church in the sermon, we were being told, like we 510 00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,880 often think of God's grace as being limited, as if if that 511 00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,960 person is loved by God, then I am not, you know, And it was in, 512 00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,200 Oh yeah, it was in the context of the prodigal son. 513 00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,200 If one of the brothers is love, the other one is not. 514 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,280 If one son gets the inheritance, the other son does not. 515 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,520 But and that is what you would think, but that is not how God 516 00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:13,719 thinks of his gifts to us. It's not it's not that he will 517 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:17,159 give some gifts to you and therefore I can't get any 518 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,840 salvation is for all right. And I also love in this poem 519 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:27,080 that it's everyday do something that won't compute because I 520 00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:32,480 think I think I can muster up enough faith and courage to do 521 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:34,840 something that doesn't compute once in a while. 522 00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:40,280 But to do it every day now does actually require you to adopt A 523 00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:45,719 different mindset, not simply, you know, wake up, wake up once 524 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:50,800 in a while because he was planting trees every day. 525 00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,360 I think as much as he was changing the landscape, he was 526 00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:57,480 changing himself and something about himself. 527 00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:01,440 And in fact, when the, when the traveler visits him, he says, I, 528 00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,920 I'm, I'm getting peace just by being with him. 529 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:09,560 And like, that is something that's transforming this person 530 00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,880 and even visitors. That is the kind of thing that 531 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,920 happens, I think when you do every, every day you do 532 00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,760 something that doesn't compute it. 533 00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,560 It changes what's around you, but it changes you as well. 534 00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:28,440 Yeah, a few years ago, I guess this was many years ago now, 535 00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:33,360 there was a, a book, I forget the full title, but it was about 536 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,400 being a tiger mom. And somebody was writing about 537 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:37,160 growing up in a Chinese American culture. 538 00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,920 There was a response article written to it at some point by 539 00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,760 somebody who called herself a dragon mom who was the mother of 540 00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,480 a terminally ill toddler. He was not going to make it, I 541 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:52,360 think, to the age of five. And she was contrasting her mode 542 00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,360 of parenting versus the tiger mom mode of parenting, which was 543 00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:59,280 very much, you know, go to your piano lessons, become a concert 544 00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,480 pianist and a lawyer and a doctor at the same time, you 545 00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:06,040 know, that kind of mentality. And I remember, I think it 546 00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,960 struck me hard because our children were small around that 547 00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,160 time. But just that contrast between 548 00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,640 what the dragon mom was saying, she was saying, because I know 549 00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,120 that my child's life is so short, whatever he wants to do, 550 00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,160 it's a yes if it is humanly possible for me to do it. 551 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,920 Let's go get cotton candy. Let's go play on the beach 552 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,120 today. I want to make your life as full 553 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,880 as I can possibly make it before you have to go. 554 00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:35,200 And I was thinking about the way that I was parenting at the 555 00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,760 time, which was not to say yes every day because I had to think 556 00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:43,040 about, well, if I give you cotton candy today, things may 557 00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,000 not work out so well, so well for you as your body is 558 00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,480 developing. And I have to plan for, I can't 559 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:53,560 see the end of my child's life. And so I have to plan for, let's 560 00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,440 plan on a regular life expectancy. 561 00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,600 And that changes my decisions from day-to-day. 562 00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:00,320 It changes when I'm going to say yes. 563 00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,160 It changes, You know, it makes it necessary for me to say no 564 00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,520 sometimes when I want to say yes because I'm thinking with a long 565 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:11,080 term view in mind. And that was a very good gateway 566 00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:15,320 for me to understand what God was doing with my life that I 567 00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:16,960 questioned the presence of suffering. 568 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,320 I questioned it like a child who's going through just their 569 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,640 day-to-day at the moment. Why can't I have this thing? 570 00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,360 It seems really good. It seems like it would be 571 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,440 beneficial to my life and it would bring me joy. 572 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:32,360 But if my father is thinking not just on a three-year term or an 573 00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:37,160 83 year term, but like a three millennia term and even farther, 574 00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,520 then the thing that is going to bear greatest fruit in my life 575 00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,680 might be the thing that is most hard for me to encounter right 576 00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,000 now. I mean, the thing that I have to 577 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,720 learn to accept these days is that He's walking with me 578 00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:51,600 through it and that it makes all the difference. 579 00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,720 But I think any, any endeavor toward a result that will 580 00:37:55,720 --> 00:37:59,680 outlast the current situation of suffering or pain is a work of 581 00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,160 planting trees. So parenting with that Longview 582 00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,040 or putting the work into rehabilitating souls. 583 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,720 I mean, whether it's out of addiction and alcoholism or 584 00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:13,440 whether it's out of trauma, any investment that we make towards 585 00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,560 the health and the healing of a soul is worth it. 586 00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:19,120 It's it's every step and endeavor made towards that is 587 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,960 saying something's going to last beyond this. 588 00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,200 And I'm building towards that. And I feel like that's the kind 589 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,080 of thing that Elzierd is doing here that gets the narrator's 590 00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:32,720 attention, that he's so steadily going about a work that it makes 591 00:38:32,720 --> 00:38:36,600 the narrator go, there's life beyond this life, there's life 592 00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:38,680 beyond our two lives because he's very conscious. 593 00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:43,400 I feel like in the story of war and the fact that this man could 594 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,640 be dead by the next time he comes back to visit him, he's 595 00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:51,280 very conscious of time passing. But underneath all of that, 596 00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,560 there's this undercurrent that this other man seems to be sure 597 00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:59,760 of, that there is life and work that goes on past the normal 598 00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,320 human lifespan and past our goals of whatever it is that we 599 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,520 usually want to accomplish within our lives. 600 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,280 So I feel like practicing beauty and resurrection and gardening, 601 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,000 baking, the things that we laugh at, the things that make us feel 602 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,200 cheesy. But if it's done with that 603 00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:18,760 vision that sees beyond even the end of this life, even the end 604 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:24,040 of this world, it makes sense. It gives it a framework for all 605 00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:28,280 of those small acts. All of those small acts can 606 00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,040 actually become very, very meaningful, very, very crucial, 607 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,840 even, like Sarah was saying, because then it means that we 608 00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,520 ought to be doing it now, that there's no time. 609 00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:41,200 That was too early to start in this work of healing and of 610 00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:43,720 practicing resurrection and giving life to others, giving 611 00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:47,600 your life away. And some of not, not some, I 612 00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,600 guess all of that is done without a promise of return. 613 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:55,720 And that's OK. Meaning there is a promise of 614 00:39:55,720 --> 00:40:00,560 return in the sense of like what we expected eternity, but not 615 00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,440 necessarily that. Oh well, if I plant 100 trees, I 616 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,400 can sell it or anything like that. 617 00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:09,760 So. We don't have to worry about 618 00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,200 that as we are doing these things. 619 00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,400 In fact, it's kind of entertaining to me that like at 620 00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,600 least in the copy of the book I have, there's an afterword that 621 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,000 talks about how the author didn't get, didn't make any 622 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,240 money from the story and he was OK with that. 623 00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,200 As we do the things slowly in the ways that don't compute. 624 00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,320 Part of that also means even with an eternal benefit in mind 625 00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,320 there, there is no return. There is no you're not making 626 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:41,400 money from it and that that is totally OK. 627 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,080 Again, back to the conversation I was having at breakfast. 628 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,240 We were talking about time and this friend of mine loves to 629 00:40:49,240 --> 00:40:53,800 repair clocks and so he's thought a lot about time. 630 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:55,280 He had a really interesting little it's. 631 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,400 A dangerous hobby. I know, I know that, you know, 632 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,120 but we, we were talking about time. 633 00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:06,800 And he said, you know, American culture grew up with, grew up 634 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:11,480 kind of as timepieces were being developed and then you had train 635 00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,640 systems. And so he said, as a culture, 636 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:20,640 we're very, we, we tend to associate time with timepieces. 637 00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,640 We tend to think that time is what your clock says and is sort 638 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,800 of determined by your timepieces, by your, your 639 00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:31,440 watches and clocks and all that, he said. 640 00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:33,880 But that's not actually what time is. 641 00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,680 This is, I think God's experience of time is, is 642 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,760 relationality. And he he called it social time. 643 00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:46,280 And so he said, you know, in a Central American culture, they 644 00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:48,920 didn't grow up that way. That culture wasn't developed 645 00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,200 alongside timepieces. And so you say like, let's meet 646 00:41:52,240 --> 00:41:54,680 and you say, well, when are when are we going to meet next week? 647 00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,840 Well, what day? And you say what day? 648 00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:01,040 And you say around midday and then you're not actually 649 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,480 thinking about, OK, we have a certain amount of time for our 650 00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:08,080 meeting to take place. Time is just an opportunity for 651 00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,880 us to to be around each other for however much long, however 652 00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,840 long. And so he even, he even said, 653 00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,520 you know that phrase in Scripture about to God, 1000 654 00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,960 days, 1000 years is like a day and a day is like 1000 years. 655 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,200 He said, I don't think that that's a sort of technical 656 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,520 explanation of, of some sort of doctrinal situation that God 657 00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,280 has. He said, he said what I think 658 00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:35,800 that is made it's, it's more of a poetic point. 659 00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:38,000 It's saying that God is not in a hurry. 660 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,240 He's got plenty of time and he takes his time. 661 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,000 And that he, he also made this point of saying that time can be 662 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:50,520 moral in the sense of there comes a time when I should have 663 00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:55,160 done the thing that I was supposed to do and I didn't or I 664 00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,320 did. And it's not about your watch. 665 00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:03,120 It's about a relationship. In this relationship, I should 666 00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,840 have said something and I didn't say anything or I should have 667 00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,600 checked on them or whatever. So I think there's a lot of 668 00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,520 confusion about what time is that comes back around to our 669 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,760 discussion because we tend to look at our energy and our 670 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:24,760 opportunities or our work and it gets so tied into the sort of 671 00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:30,840 mechanism of time rather than the sort of social aspect of 672 00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:32,960 time of the the relationality of time. 673 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:38,040 And that means that if you know Amy and young one, I've been to 674 00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:41,320 your house and we've like accidentally talked till 2:00 in 675 00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:41,920 the morning. That's. 676 00:43:42,240 --> 00:43:48,120 A terrible mistake. And the, you know, the, the 677 00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:53,800 first time that happened, I was like, oh, I'm bothering them. 678 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,160 It's, it's, I'm taking too much of their, the mechanism of their 679 00:43:58,160 --> 00:43:59,920 time up. I'm watching the clock. 680 00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:03,600 And the second time that happened, I thought, I don't 681 00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:05,280 think that they're even thinking about that. 682 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:09,920 I can feel that, that the mechanism is not being noticed 683 00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,640 and that time is becoming this sweet thing that we're just 684 00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,240 living in together. And it's actually about the, the 685 00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:20,560 connection. And that was a real gift to me. 686 00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:25,480 And so I think sometimes when you think about is what I'm 687 00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:31,360 doing, which of those things is it fitting into the mechanism or 688 00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:34,480 the OR the relationality? That is another one of those 689 00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:40,120 things that we try to compute and it's better for us to stop 690 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:42,800 computing it. Sometimes there is something 691 00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:46,040 I've been doing recently that really doesn't make any sense, 692 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,120 but somehow it works out and hear it loud. 693 00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,040 Let me explain. Sorry I'm going to drift into my 694 00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,400 life a little bit, but I've been and if you're watching on video, 695 00:44:56,400 --> 00:45:02,400 you can see I've been listening to records and C DS and I don't 696 00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:06,760 have time to sit down and listen to like a whole album. 697 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,880 Nothing in my calendar says that I have time for that, but I've 698 00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:17,080 been making time for it and for some reason my life is slower 699 00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,480 now. Like really what I've done is 700 00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,040 taken my busy schedule and inserted an activity that takes 701 00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,440 an hour. So what should happen is now my 702 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:32,840 hair should be on fire and I should be running around trying 703 00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,560 to do something to make up for that hour. 704 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,320 But quite the opposite has happened. 705 00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:42,920 I'm calmer now. I've been able to hear things in 706 00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:47,360 music that I've always ignored and I'm letting kind of I'm, 707 00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:52,680 I'm, I'm able to soak in that art and at the end of the day, I 708 00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:54,840 don't, I have not run out of time. 709 00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:59,720 I have not made my 24 hours, 25 hours either. 710 00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:05,280 It doesn't compute. But somehow by doing that, I 711 00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:10,640 have more. I feel more time, even though I 712 00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:13,800 think by math formula I should really have less time. 713 00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:19,120 There's activities like that that really don't compute. 714 00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:25,440 But the more I do it, the more it benefits me and it seems to 715 00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:31,400 work out. I wonder if that's what loss can 716 00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:36,480 help us do. I think maybe loss brings us to 717 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,840 the point where we see that the computation, the acquisition, 718 00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:47,520 the trading, the market based mentalities that we have are not 719 00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,720 life. And I feel like maybe loss, 720 00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,960 which is death really in many senses is what sets us up to be 721 00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,080 able to actually practice resurrection. 722 00:46:57,720 --> 00:47:00,960 So I'll speed ahead because I was hoping we would get to talk 723 00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,640 about the ending a little bit. My favorite part of this story 724 00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:08,360 is the end when the narrator talks about the effect of this 725 00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:11,800 man having planted these Groves of trees that grew into forests, 726 00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:17,200 that grew into localities that had water again, that could 727 00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:22,120 retain water and wildlife came back in and flowers and meadows 728 00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,040 and all of that. I know that it was a common 729 00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,920 refrain when we were planning for this podcast or just 730 00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:29,600 planning for the stories that we would talk about that we kind of 731 00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,880 lamented that this wasn't a real story. 732 00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,120 But I've had the pleasure of diving a little bit into 733 00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,480 research on a man named Sebastio Salgado. 734 00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:45,560 I think in Brazil, he's actually like the real life counterpart 735 00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,040 of the story. And as I was reading about what 736 00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:52,000 he did, so he, he and his wife together obviously with a team 737 00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:57,120 of people have ended up planting 3,000,000 trees in Brazil, 2 to 738 00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,440 3,000,000 trees in Brazil. And the reason that they started 739 00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,200 was a very similar reason. He was a world famous 740 00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:07,080 photographer and he was known for, I think doing a lot of 741 00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:09,240 beautiful black and white photographs, but in very 742 00:48:09,240 --> 00:48:13,440 conflict riddled regions. So it was after he covered the 743 00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,760 Rwandan genocide in the mid 1990s that his health suffered 744 00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,560 such a set back because of all the stress. 745 00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:21,760 Like it just destroyed his mind and his body. 746 00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:25,760 And it was really because he witnessed what men could do to 747 00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:30,400 each other, what mankind could do to itself, that he and his 748 00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,280 wife decided to move back to Brazil, which they had fled from 749 00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,720 years earlier and moved to Paris. 750 00:48:35,720 --> 00:48:37,880 And but they went back to Brazil. 751 00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:42,960 He kind of inherited his parents's old farm, which in its 752 00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:48,960 heyday had been able to feed 30 families, but it gradually lost 753 00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,160 most of its vegetation, its ability to support life. 754 00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,280 The land dried out because of how they were, you know, 755 00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,280 stripping the land. And I think they they planted 756 00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:04,040 grasses from a different African grasses because they knew that 757 00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:06,160 they would grow faster to feed the cattle. 758 00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,120 But then the cattle kind of, you know, also contributed to the 759 00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:11,520 deterioration of the land anyway. 760 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:16,760 So what they inherit is about 1700 acres of dying land and 761 00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,840 they're in a similar place where he's, his health has eroded. 762 00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:24,000 I've used to erode a lot in this podcast, but his health is gone. 763 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,760 And his wife turns to him and says, why don't we plant trees? 764 00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,080 And so they, they start planting these trees. 765 00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:33,040 And I love the detail that is given. 766 00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:35,480 I don't know if anybody has the time to go look that up, but I 767 00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,880 highly encourage you to because just the process of what they 768 00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:43,040 learned, you know, they like Elsayer, they lost most of their 769 00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:45,840 or at least half of their saplings, I think in the first 770 00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,640 round because they they put them in too early or too late. 771 00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,360 The rain failed to arrive. And he says they had to learn 772 00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,880 the lesson that young trees don't stand much of a chance 773 00:49:55,240 --> 00:49:57,720 unless we subject them to some stress and strain before 774 00:49:57,720 --> 00:49:59,880 planting. So they had to start thinking 775 00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:03,520 with the land and how to harden off these saplings, what kinds 776 00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,840 of saplings to plant. They went in batches. 777 00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:10,000 So there was like actually a first round of trees that grew 778 00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,800 well that could then support the second group of trees that they 779 00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:18,840 were hoping to plant, that then 20 years later, they then could 780 00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,720 get to the work of planting trees that were going to outlast 781 00:50:21,720 --> 00:50:25,120 everybody that, you know, a lot of them will die off, but the 782 00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:27,760 ones that survive are going to survive for thousands of years. 783 00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,000 So as this is happening, I love this little bit. 784 00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,880 I learned from this research that a tree can help retain 60% 785 00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:40,080 of the rainfall that comes just through what it soaks up. 786 00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:44,400 I love how enthusiastically Sarah is nodding right now that 787 00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:49,040 just the retention of the water meant that springs began to 788 00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,400 replenish themselves. There were ponds that were 789 00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,720 retaining water. After a while, as these trees 790 00:50:53,720 --> 00:50:57,880 were growing and waterfalls were coming back, which meant that 791 00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,400 flowers and meadows could come back, the wildlife started 792 00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:05,040 moving back in. I think they said there's maybe 793 00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:09,640 172 different species of birds now in that forest, a lot of 794 00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:14,600 which aren't in other places. And so it very much overlaps 795 00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,320 with the end of the man who planted trees where he's giving 796 00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,560 the image of, you know, not only are the trees growing, but the 797 00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,360 water is coming back. And because the water is coming 798 00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:27,320 back, there are villages being set up and then young families 799 00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,040 are moving back in and now there are regional festivals. 800 00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,640 And I love that because it didn't stop for either story for 801 00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:37,000 the Salgado's or for what else they are did. 802 00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,000 It doesn't stop with just the water coming back either. 803 00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:41,960 There's art that comes out of that. 804 00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,680 You know, there's music and dancing that you can see in the 805 00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,440 animation. And for the Salgado's, he, he, I 806 00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,120 love this. He planted these trees. 807 00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,760 He saw this change. And after a while he felt like 808 00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,280 taking photographs again. So then he went on like this 809 00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,680 three-year expedition, I think all over the world to look for 810 00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,880 places where man hadn't trampled his habitat to death. 811 00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:10,520 And he took these beautiful pictures of places where men and 812 00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,160 nature were still living in harmony. 813 00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:13,960 And I think they called it the Genesis Project. 814 00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:17,200 So just seeing this art flow out of that, like it gives life in 815 00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:19,240 so many different ways. And it's the kind of life that 816 00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:22,040 we would never see if we sat down with a Ledger and a 817 00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,960 checkbook and said, how much can I eke out of the number of hours 818 00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:28,440 that I have in a day? So that to me was just it's, 819 00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:30,480 it's the beauty that we're working for. 820 00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:35,720 It's the beauty that that God promises in Jeremiah and I think 821 00:52:35,720 --> 00:52:38,480 that's maybe the most hope giving element for me out of 822 00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:39,200 this story. That's. 823 00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:41,280 So. Great. 824 00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:46,240 I love that. I think a lot of our what Ansem 825 00:52:46,240 --> 00:52:52,080 does or promises is giving a place for people to share these 826 00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:57,000 kinds of stories that give hope. Like an having an example of 827 00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:02,640 both this story, the real life version of the story helps us to 828 00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,320 do the things that when we don't ourselves have the hope to do 829 00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,680 them. To do the one thing that doesn't 830 00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,520 compute today. To get up and brush our teeth 831 00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,360 today, it's helpful to know that there are stories. 832 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:20,640 These stories remind us, whether it's fictional or not, that yes, 833 00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:23,760 we are now inspired to do this thing today. 834 00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:29,440 I think it's one of the one of the core things that Anthem does 835 00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:34,000 is allow those stories to continue and keep going and ring 836 00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,760 forth. Well, in part of the idea of 837 00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:40,760 having a an imagination that is redeemed or redeeming people's 838 00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:46,200 imaginations, I think is it really helps me to think of the 839 00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:49,200 imagination as this kind of resource where you go to see 840 00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:50,880 what's possible to look for images. 841 00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:58,520 And the way that imagination becomes resourced is by stories 842 00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,480 and other art in the lives of other people. 843 00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:03,720 So testimonies and the story of the scripture and all these 844 00:54:03,720 --> 00:54:07,080 things become images that are hung on the wall of the 845 00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,600 imagination. And you go into that room and 846 00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:15,120 you say, OK, what's possible and what could I do? 847 00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:17,040 What's something that's actually available? 848 00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:19,680 And he's like, well, there's some guy out there that planted 849 00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:21,720 trees. Well, so if somebody does that, 850 00:54:21,720 --> 00:54:24,160 that's possible. That's a thing that maybe I 851 00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:25,240 could also do that. Yeah. 852 00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:30,760 I think we need stories of not just how things have turned out, 853 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:35,320 but just ongoing stories. I mean, my mental images of just 854 00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:40,840 trying to furrow my own, you know, plot of land and maybe 855 00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:44,240 wanting to lie down in the dirt every now and again and give up. 856 00:54:44,240 --> 00:54:47,000 But if you look to your right and your left and you see 857 00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,440 somebody plugging away faithfully at say, you know, a 858 00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:55,640 years long album and book project, or to walk downstairs 859 00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:57,880 and see my husband working on book binding and leather 860 00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:02,360 working, it's almost like having a visual cue to remember, oh, 861 00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:07,200 they're doing something and they seem to be doing it for a 862 00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,560 reason. So I guess I can get up and keep 863 00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:12,440 going to. I feel like that happens fairly 864 00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:14,840 often. So being a community, I think 865 00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:20,160 adds that kind of reminder and motivation sometimes. 866 00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:22,640 It really does. Yeah, we need to. 867 00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:26,480 We need people walking with us. Yeah, Christ describes himself 868 00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:31,240 as the vine and his people as the branches, and I can't help 869 00:55:31,240 --> 00:55:38,760 but think about how trees create a place for water to reside. 870 00:55:39,240 --> 00:55:41,720 And it's no surprise that Christ also calls himself the Living 871 00:55:41,720 --> 00:55:45,920 Water. And so, as we close, let's 872 00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:49,080 remember that at the beginning of our story, we met a man who 873 00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:53,280 nourished his acorns, his faithful little acts of hope in 874 00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:56,680 water, soaking them before he did the work of planting. 875 00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:00,680 As we go forth into our days, may we remember that the source 876 00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:04,880 of all life, the living water, nourishes us and begins the work 877 00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,480 of growth before we even do the planting. 878 00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:13,520 Go in peace. The Imagination Redeemed podcast 879 00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:15,440 is a production of the Anselm Society. 880 00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:18,720 It's easy to see this world as disenchanted and to give up hope 881 00:56:18,720 --> 00:56:21,400 that there's more. But you were made to see the 882 00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:24,640 world with the eyes of heaven and to live a bountiful life 883 00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:28,640 that participates in the life of God, like in the great stories. 884 00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:33,600 To help make the show possible, go to anselmsociety.org/podcast 885 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:35,960 25. And make a donation. 886 00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,680 The Anselm Society is a place where you can come in and 887 00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:44,400 experience that beauty, joyful celebration, and ancient wisdom 888 00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:48,560 and go out renewed, bringing that life to your vocation, 889 00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:52,360 home, and church. Learn more at anselmsociety.org 890 00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,320 and join us next time as we pursue a renaissance of the 891 00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:56,840 Christian imagination together.