1/21 –

Sweet memory of trees.

I raised my hand in prayer as I drove home by the clear cut tonight, light shining through the trees, the sillouettes of straggling survivors along the road, and the eery light of clear cut land where a forest used to be.

I thought of my neighbors, the people I have been trying to find compassion for, the ones I trusted to steward the beautiful land of our homes, the people who destroyed it.

The words “They have lost their way” came to me in a song, my heart softened, and I can say that for the first time in this month-long siege, I began to feel an empathy, a sense of what must lie heavy on their hearts and minds, the sheer weight they carry from the havoc they have wrought here.

I stood out on the deck, facing the clear cut and the decimated path I used to walk and sing my way down, unrecognizable now, a war zone.  I prayed once again for the spirits of the trees and animals taken, and, setting my anger and deep, deep sadness aside, I prayed for my neighbors, freely, at long last.  I sensed their sorrow on some level, and offered prayers for the ones who must live with this decision, the wanton destruction of habitat and home.

I came inside and began to listen to my voice mail messages.  The first voice was my neighbor’s, full of shock and remorse.  We have not spoken since it began.  “I feel like I have harmed something very sacred, that I defiled it,” he said, and he has.  He apologized for how “horrifying” it looks, hoping for re-growth in the spring, deep regret filling every word, every pause, as he struggled to convey his recognition of the devastation he has caused.

I will meet him there tomorrow, where the trees once stood.  I will tell him the truth of my experience since the logging began, how truly agonizing and heart wrenching this horror has been.

And I will listen for a greater God, a guide, to bring two deeply saddened spirits into some accord, some understanding of this nightmare and all its implications, some way to find a resting place at the ending of the storm.

I have made horrible choices in my life before and hurt the ones I loved.  None of us are immune in this human state.  How interesting it is that he called tonight, the night I began to find forgiveness, the night he came asking for it.