Signs

I began the morning in anxious thought. One doesn’t have to read tea leaves or cast bones to see that all signs, historical and immediate, are pointing to the end of our young democracy as we know it. My former home state of Tennessee was recently determined by CNN to be the least democratic state in the country (I can directly attest to the truth of that assertion). A simultaneous study labeled Tennessee the most stressful state in which to live. Nazis, literal neo-Nazis, marched through downtown Nashville a couple of weeks ago - not for the first time. Sometimes correlation does equal causation.

I begin each morning with deep gratitude that I was able to move my family to Vermont. But I wonder, what will Vermonters do, what will New England do, if the federal government falls to fascism this November as it increasingly looks likely to do? Five years ago I was labeled an alarmist for saying such things. Today legacy media are heralding the same warning. I am writing a column on religion, and I cannot think of any business more pressing to religion than compassion, empathy, and a recognition of not just the humanity of each individual, but the mark of divinity upon each soul. Fascism cares for none of those things. My wife whispers to me in the darkness “I don’t want to be illegal.” I want to speak the words of Julian of Norwich to her, the words we have comforted each other with for years: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” But the words stick in my throat, and so I pull her to me instead.

It’s Sunday and my work takes me to a farm, Starry Ridge Farm just over the line in New York. Here the ground hums in anticipation of the emergence of life contained in the rich fertile soil of these acres. The sap is running, and the winsome Shetland sheep nuzzle for pets and hold within their bodies lambs soon to be born. The rhythm of stewardship here is sacred and ancient. There is a distinct smell to farms where all labor to co-create together rather than exacting dominion over; where the cultivation of resilient life in a diverse communal whole of plants, animals, and people come together to offer a thriving, messy, living alternative to the confinement of feedlots, and the dead-end of monoculture. Sweet hay, manure, wet earth, wood smoke, warm shaggy bodies - animals such as these will taste of the earth that has born and nurtured them. “All shall be well, and all shall be well.” In this place I can hold those words and believe them.

Walking through the forest, through the sugarbush, I pause – my hands resting upon an enormous ancient mother maple. One result of climate change is that our maple forests are soon to be replaced by other deciduous trees such as bitternut hickory. Here too the signs are clear. This forest biome will not be the same 50 years from now, but through adaptation and continued stewardship it will still be a living complex system that will provide its human caretakers with food, and shelter for the wild creatures who dwell within, hickory nut oil perhaps replacing maple syrup. Things change and yet “all shall be well, and all shall be well.”

I truly believe that we are called to engage in acts of holy resistance against tyranny, to live despite threats of erasure and death. We have to decide what that looks like in each of our lives. In my life and the life of our farm and community, we are choosing for that resistance to embody adaptation and resiliency. Sometimes resistance has names like bitternut, seaberry, saskatoon, mulberry, persimmon, hazelnut, and willow. Sometimes resistance sounds like the crow of a Basque rooster, or the contented grunting of a rooting pig. And so we plant and we pray, and we remind ourselves “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” It is an act of faith to plant trees, a balm to the soul to raise a herd. I was reminded in a cathedral of trees that humans are not made for anxiety and despair.

               -Rev. Jeannie Alexander

Originally published in the Bennington Banner