Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause. –Bruce Feiler

As I walk at the nature preserve, I play a shell game. In the western corner of one pond, a dead limb has fallen into the water, and turtles happily sun themselves here. Each time I pass this spot, I hold my breath and try to walk so quietly, so unobtrusively that not a single turtle panics and dives for safety back into the pond. So, this is my shell game: to keep each algae-slicked shell in place on the limb.

I’ve counted as many as 14 turtles shuffled across the limb in neat stacks. And as I walk by, I smile recalling one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Yertle the Turtle. Although there’s a heavy moral in Seuss’s book, one reminding us of the follies of pride and the consequences of climbing to the top (literally and figuratively) at the expense of others, as a child, I was originally fascinated with the illustrations. Seuss stacked turtles on top of each other, creating a pyramid of shells reaching into the sky. The turtles at the base of this pyramid were selfless souls, for they bore the weight and responsibility for maintaining the entire structure. In preparing to teach poet Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” my father had written these notes:

Oliver says we can become good—or better—by giving ourselves up to the natural family of things, to things in nature who are vitally celebrating themselves, calling us out of our loneliness and despair to join them in a sacrament of elemental communion. We only have to give up the unnatural and enter the world of the natural, and in the words of Romantic poet William Wordsworth, to “come forth into the light of things and let Nature be your healer.”

The nature preseve turtles are”vitally celebrating themselves” each spring. As members of the “natural family of things,” they’re holding their weight in our environmental structure and doing their part to help us maintain our natural health.

Too often, we walk through the world carrying a big stick. We mark our territory and leave indelible footprints. Today as I walked the trail, I shuffled through remnants of a bridal shower held in the community barn over the weekend. Artificial flower petals in every pastel color had blown from the tables onto the trail and into the meadow beyond. Plastic bags littered the pond’s edge and flew like banners from several branches. So how do we walk so softly that we leave little footprint, softly enough that we might slip–like a breath on the breeze, like a ray of sunlight between the reeds–without notice? How do we join “the natural family of things”?

Perhaps this is the greatest shell game of all. We work to sustain and protect one environmental element, and invariably we impact another–sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. We lift the shell under which we’re certain the solution lies only to discover we’re wrong and must look again. This is often a frustrating sleight of hand. For example, as we build up grey wolf populations in Rocky Mountain states to restore environmental equilibrium, we also face inevitable losses in livestock, elk, herd dog, and pet populations. We implement CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) to prevent soil erosion, improve water quality, and create wildlife habitat. Despite the obvious benefits, however, there are potential drawbacks. Planting native vegetation and protecting wildlife habitat aren’t requirements of the program. Farmers may choose to plant introduced species that provide little to no benefit to native wildlife. They can actively farm adjacent fields–a common practice–leaving smaller wildlife who live in the CRP ground vulnerable to predators. Years ago, a neighbor sold her farm to an individual from the East coast who wanted to create a “deer refuge.” Anyone familiar with southeast Iowa understands the folly (and tragedy) of this, for our deer population is more than healthy. Iowa routinely manages this population through regulated hunting. Chronic waste disease spreads more quickly through larger populations, which also reduces the numbers. All of this is to say that it may sound virtuous and environmentally kind to create refuges for deer, but it’s unnecessary and ultimately detrimental.

Today, I zipped my jacket to my neck and braved the blustery April wind as I took to the trail. I counted a dozen turtles on the fallen limb as I rounded the corner of the pond. Fifty yards out, I slowed my pace. I watched where I stepped, avoiding sticks and rocks on the path which would signal my approach. I willed my shadow to cast its long body to my left and not my right over the water. Finally, I held my breath. But to no avail. All but three turtles dove back into the pond in a choreographed move that looked much like synchronized swimmers leaving the pool deck for the water. Bummer, I thought. Not a good day for my shell game stats.

But each day as I walk with my turtles, I “behold the world in pause.” To the extent that I can, momentarily I become more of the natural world and less of myself. I think about a world without turtles. I’m grateful for this nature preserve and its 2,000 acres of protected land. As I consider efforts to preserve and maintain our environment, I’m painfully aware that this is a kind of shell game. We find one solution, only to find we have to mitigate its effects. And so, we keep searching for better, more environmentally beneficial solutions. Although some contend we’re not winning this shell game, others argue we should be playing the long game, one marked by a lot of misses and near-misses. They insist we keep up the good fight. As a self-appointed turtle advocate, I couldn’t agree more.

Spring

After a long winter’s grimace,
the pond parts its lips—

in a whisper of algae
below the surface;

in a sigh 
of spun sugar over dark water;

and then,
in a wide smile, the slick backs of turtles 
stacked along fallen logs like mossy teeth.

Now, gluttonous hours that refused
to leave winter’s banquet have retired, 
sated,

and light stippling the undergrowth
releases its breath.

Everything exhales.

Turning our faces to the sky,
we purge our winter bowels.
We tease our thin, cold pages
into sunny sheaves.

And calling our winter vapor to matter,
we let the March wind spirit us brightly
into green fields and beyond.

         Shannon Vesely

There is something unique about the color purple: Our brain makes it up. So you might just call purple a pigment of our imagination. –Tammy Awtry, Science News Explores, Jan. 28, 2025

Purple is the sweetness of plums, the promise of spring in wild hyacinth, and the richness of royal robes. It’s my mother’s favorite color and the 2018 Pantone Color of the Year. But is it really just a pigment of our imagination? Yes, writes science reporter Tammy Awtry who marvels at “how the brain creates something beautiful when faced with a systems error.”

Although I confess to not deeply understanding the science behind this, I understand the basics. The backs of our eyes contain light-sensitive cells called cones, and this is where we perceive color. Most people have three cone types: red, green, and blue. Our cones don’t actually see color, but they do detect certain light wavelengths, long, mid, or short. Light enters our eyes, and when a combination of codes are activated, this, in turn, creates another code, which our brains translates as a color. Colors in the visible rainbow are created by single wavelengths of light stimulating a certain combination of cones. At the red end of the color spectrum, long wavelengths are at work, while at the blue end, short wavelengths operate. There is no spectrum color, however, created by combining long and short wavelengths. Purple, then, confuses our brains because it’s a mixture of long and short wavelengths. Amazingly, our brain’s response is to bend the visible spectrum–a straight line–into a circle, thereby placing blue and red directly next to each other and filling the gap between them with purple.

Colors that are visible in the spectrum are identified as spectral colors. Colors that are not are called nonspectral colors, for they’re uniquely created from combining a short and long wavelength. Purple, writes Awtry, “arises from a unique quirk of how we process light. And it’s a beautiful example of how our brains respond when faced with something out of the norm.”

Not to be confused with violet, which is more blue, purple is more reddish. It’s only visible naturally on birds, fish, and some plants. In the past, people could harvest just a small amount of Tyrian purple dye from a certain shellfish species, making purple a unique and highly valued hue. Writers and artists have long recognized purple’s magical qualities. Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw believed purple was a hue “where fantasy and reality meet to create something extraordinary.” Artist Vincent Van Gogh claimed, “There’s a kind of magic in the purple shadows of dusk.” Purple may be a creation of our minds, but perhaps this has only heightened its allure.

For many, purple is synonymous with creativity, mysticism, and spirituality:

• “A purple world is one where art, poetry, and love collide.” – Edgar Allan Poe
• “Dive into the purple depths of your mind; that’s where genius lies.” – Leonardo da Vinci
• “Purple is the color of spirituality, connecting the earthly with the ethereal.” – Carl Jung
• “Nature always wears a hint of purple when it wants to speak to your soul.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Purple flowers are nature’s whispers to dream.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

After reading this praise of purple, I think my mom was onto something. She embraced Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s declaration that “[t]he world needs more purple – more creativity, passion, and a sense of wonder.”

There’s a special power inherent in purple, too. Fashion designer Coco Channel argued, “Purple is not just a color; it’s an attitude, a declaration of uniqueness.” Among utilitarian browns and grays and sweet pastels, purple “commands the room without saying a word” (Edith Wharton). Anne Morrow LIndbergh confessed that although she wanted to be “pure in heart,” she liked to wear her “purple dress.” Unabashedly, uniquely itself, purple announces, “Here I am.”

I think I’m genetically predisposed to color. As a child, I remember my granddad looking up into the summer sky and exclaiming, “Sky-blue-pink!” His brain was gloriously bending the color spectrum and filling the gaps to create new colors. I was the lucky recipient of some seriously good color genes. Since I received my first box of Crayola crayons, I’ve lived and breathed color. I loved the individual crayon names. I especially loved the big boxes with complete rows of various shades of primary and secondary colors. For years, I treasured my favorite colors, using my periwinkle and robin’s egg blue sparingly to prolong their lives. Even today, I find myself magnetically drawn to paint sections in home improvement stores and often stand transfixed before their neat rows of color samples. In another life, I might’ve been a paint mixer, reveling in the hallelujah moment when I opened a paint can to reveal the final color. Or maybe if our brains hadn’t made up purple, I might’ve been its creator, devoting my life to extolling its virtue and nominating my mom as its chief ambassador!

So here’s to purple, a splendid pigment of our imagination. Here’s to the incredible brain and its ability to “respond when faced with something out of the norm.” And lest you fail to take purple seriously, think twice. In Alice Walker’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, she cautions: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”  

,

There was once a time when picking up a phone call was the main mode of communication, but now with endless choices available, some tech-savvy Gen Z are consumed with anxiety by the ringing of a phone. –Sawdah Bhaimiya, “Gen Z battling with phone anxiety are taking telephobia courses to learn the lost art of a call,” CNBC, Feb. 17, 2025

Welches, Shannon speaking. This was the official telephone greeting for the Welch kids when I was growing up. Because the incoming call was invariably for one of our parents, our greeting was quickly followed by just a minute please as we placed the heavy black receiver on the padded seat of our telephone stand and scurried off to locate Don or Marcia.

Like most families at this time, we had one telephone, and ours was a big, black creature who rested on a Duncan Phyfe telephone stand complete with a padded seat and special cubby for housing the local telephone book and designated note pad for taking messages. There were no private conversations, for the phone lived in the main hallway off our living and dining rooms. Let’s just say that it was wholly accessible to any and all who wanted to make–or listen to–a call. As teens, we removed the phone and stretched the cord, pulling it as far as possible into the den or downstairs bedroom. But this was largely futile. Our phone had a mind of its own and remained stubbornly tethered to its home base.

In Bhaimiya’s article, she cites Liz Baxter, a careers advisor at Nottingham College, a U.K.-based school for pupils aged 16 to 18 and older. Telephobia, Baxter claims, is a relatively recent phenomena most evident in Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012:

“Telephobia is a fear or anxiety around making and receiving telephone calls,” Baxter told CNBC Make It in an interview. “They’ve [Gen Z] just simply not had the opportunity for making and receiving telephone calls. It is not the main function of their phones these days, they can do anything on the phone, but we automatically default to texting, voice notes, and anything except actually using a telephone for its original intended purpose, and so people have lost that skill,” she explained.

A recent Newsweek article (Alice Gibbs, “Gen Z Have a Problem with Telephobia”) explores this phenomena, citing a 2024 Uswitch survey of 2,000 U.K. adults and revealing that “nearly 70 percent of those aged 18-34 preferred texting over talking, with 23 percent admitting they never answer calls at all.” This study noted that over half of those in this age group perceive phone calls as “bad news” and report being afraid when their phone rings. They also confess they are uncomfortable talking on the phone because they have no visual cues to navigate their conversations. Many prefer a Google Teams or Zoom call for this reason. Truthfully, many of us are often hesitant to answer the phone to avoid political, sales, and scam calls. The authors of these studies claim this phobia is different, though. To address this, some institutions are offering seminars during which participants practice a “series of scenarios where you have to make a phone call, for example, calling the doctors to make an appointment, calling in sick to work, and other everyday scenarios.” Participants are seated back-to-back to simulate a phone call and practice their calls using designated scripts.

I’ve heard many Baby Boomers lament the fact that their children won’t answer the phone (or make actual phone calls). “I’m literally all thumbs when it comes to texting,” they say, “and it’s just so much easier to pick up the phone and call.” Easier and preferable for some of us, perhaps, but clearly not for others. Texting, emailing, or social media posting offers a layer of protection between you and others. You have the advantage of delayed response; there is no “real time” pressure to react. You can think about what you want to say and how you want to say it. Through social media, you can curate the information you want to share, creating the self-portrait you desire. With this degree of control, you may be less vulnerable than committing yourself to a phone call during which you’re put on the spot to respond immediately, whether you’re prepared or not. And, of course, you have the benefit of refusal. You can refuse to respond to a text or message, leaving others to question whether you actually received it, will respond at your convenience, or will not respond at all.

As I read these recent studies about telephobia, I couldn’t help but think of a particular stanza in Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock, Fall 1957”:

In Little Rock they know 
Not answering the telephone is a way of rejecting life, 
That it is our business to be bothered, is our business 
To cherish bores or boredom, be polite 
To lies and love and many-faceted fuzziness. 

There is this, too. To refuse a call–or message–is “a way of rejecting life,” of rejecting the business of being bothered or bored, of refusing the duty of forced politeness. Most of us are guilty of screening calls for one reason or another. We’re running out the door to go somewhere, we’re in the company of others, we’re too tired and lack the emotional energy to meaningfully engage–the list goes on. Certainly, there are times when it’s not only reasonable but necessary to call back at a better time. Still, I wonder about our current preference for texting and growing telephobia. What does this reveal about us?

In the years since my father’s death, I can still conjure his voice as he answered the phone. His deep, rich Welches resounds in my ears and persists in my memory. Before cell phones and email, a long-distance call to my parents was a real gift, a lifeline to the people and home I cherished. Because I couldn’t afford many calls at that point in my life (and because I was long-winded!), I anticipated and relished them. Although it might’ve been nice to see them via video technology, I could always see them in my mind’s eye: sitting in the hallway, big, black receiver in hand, or later in the living room or den on a cordless phone. It was their voices, more than these images, though, that brought me home.

Cell phones, email, and social media are certainly here to stay. I can’t imagine a world in which we’d willingly return to the days of the rotary or cordless phone. I can imagine a world, however, in which we balance our propensity to text, email, and post with a willingness to pick up the phone and call. I can imagine a world in which my grandchildren will one day conjure my voice in the same way I conjure my parents’ voices. And I can imagine a world in which the audible voices coming into our homes through phone calls are treaured, not feared.

Letter to a Blind Girl

Just outside the Humanities building,
you were trying to kick your dog.

Fury had smashed your face. The dog
kept wrapping itself around your legs.

Closer, I saw how your irises
had shot up into your head,

how your head was thrown back
as if dog were something in your skull,

as if you had to arch to reach it, as if
if you couldn’t kick the darkness,

you could kick the dog. 

--Don Welch

We’ve all kicked the dog when we really wanted to kick the darkness. In our frustration, we’ve punished what we could. Call it scapegoating. Call it projecting. Call it being human. In my father’s poem, “The Blind Girl,” he reminds us that, in our distress, too often we kick what is closest and most available to us.

Our continued struggle with the darkness is embedded in the monomyth or hero’s journey. Made popular by Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the monomyth outlines a common pattern found in many stories and myths. In this pattern, heroes set off on adventures–sometimes willingly and other times not–leaving the safety and familiarity of the known world for the unknown. As they enter the unknown and descend into darkness, they experience trials, overcome obstacles, and fight battles, so that they may return home victorious and changed. After the dragon is slain, the enemy vanquished, the treasure or lands returned to their rightful heirs, a hero’s return is the ultimate destruction of darkness and restoration of light and order.

We know this story well, for it’s ingrained in our movies, video games, books, and television series. We revel in heroes who set the world right again, destroying the dangers that threaten to subdue or undo us. We never tire of tales of such heroism and restoration, for the darkness may take different forms, but it’s a clear and present danger in every age.

Whereas the monomyth hero engages in direct battle with the darkness, confronting the enemy face-to-face, we’re often left to battle indirectly. That is, because we can’t confront employers, legislators, experts, lobbyists, or spokespeople directly, we’re often left to write letters or emails, to attend meetings or assemblies in hopes of voicing our concerns. Now, I fear our battles have become even more removed. In our desire to drive out the darkness–whatever form it may take–we often attack the people most available through our social media posts and conversations. We know they’re not the source of the darkness, but in our frustration and powerlessness, we kick the dogs in our literal and digital proximity, unleashing our fury on them any way.

Certainly, there are times and situations which call for civil disagreement and disobedience. One of the most powerful examples of this is “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by Martin Luther King, Jr. In this letter, King refutes the claims of eight Birmingham clergy who argued his acts of civil disobedience were “unwise and untimely.” Using biblical examples and reasoning they’d understand and respect, he constructs a logical and spiritual argument in defense of the Civil Rights Movement. He doesn’t kick the dog by attacking these clergymen personally, by name-calling or hate-mongering. He understands these men aren’t the source of the darkness but rather symptoms of it. And even as they nip at his heels and threaten his work with misguided, ill-formed arguments and criticisms, he refuses to unleash his anger directly at them.

I recognize that some who criticize others for the political, social, cultural, and theological views believe they’re engaging in legitimate civil disagreement. As such, they argue they must speak up, for to remain silent is to passively accept the darkness. I suspect some contend they must “school” other less informed folks, arguing that if their means are harsh, their desired ends are righteous. I confess there are times when I’ve read social media posts, and my fingers have hovered dangerously above my keyboard. In my rural Iowa home, far removed from the legitimate source of the darkness, I’ve yearned to kick the dog before me. As every synapse twitched, I longed to type responses that would bring some immediate relief. Thankfully, I’ve stepped away from the computer many times, as I recognized my struggle to distinguish the dog from the darkness.

By nature, I suspect we’re all at risk of some dog-kicking. In rereading my dad’s poem, I’m reminded of how vulnerable I am and how I must seriously consider how I battle the darkness. Like many, I’ve often failed to fully consider the sources of darkness and to employ ethical battle strategies to confront them. In failing to kick the darkness, I’ve projected my anger and fear onto whomever and whatever was closest and most available. I’d really like to do better.

Marcia and Don Welch on the University of Nebraska-Kearney campus

Valentine Poem, 1996

The worlds through which you move
become more graceful through your moving.

In you the members of this family gather.
In you each voice is praised by name.

Your fate? Song marrowed in your bones.
Your love? Once tempered by despair.

In your presence we are wholly moved.
We cannot dance unless the air assumes your form.

–Don Welch to Marcia Welch

If I had to grade my dad as a gift-giver, I’d give him a generous “C.” He wasn’t particularly original, often buying similar gifts from the same store. The year he bought my mom an army green boucle winter coat trimmed with fake fur blew his “B” average. To say it was hideous is a gross understatement. My mom, ever gracious, received each gift with genuine gratitude, while the rest of us offered obligatory smiles and compliments.

What my dad lacked in gift-giving, he more than made up for in the poetry he wrote for my mom throughout their courtship and marriage. Without fail, my dad marked holidays and birthdays with poems tucked beneath a mirror clip on my mom’s vanity. On Valentine’s Day, an occasion celebrated with Hallmark greeting cards and heart-shaped boxes of Russell Stover chocolates, my dad out-Hallmarked and out-chocolated tradition, honoring my mother with poetry that he hoped moved her as much as we were “wholly moved” in her presence.

My father was best when he was “naming things.” In the final lines of his poem, “Still Hunting,” he writes:

When I’m dead, go on naming things well.
That’s all you need of integrity.

In a world that increasingly has little time or heart for naming things, this practice is sadly going the way of letter-writing. We generalize to save time, offering platitudes and cliches in our haste. We generalize for expediency and practicality. After all, who has the time or inclination to slog through details? Better to get to the point, to offer the gist of things. As I think about Valentine’s Day and the racks of generalized declarations of love in the greeting cards there, I’m reminded of what made my father’s poetry particularly good. Refusing to generalize, he named things well, paying homage to the people, places, and things he loved. Especially the people. Especially my mother. And in naming the things he loved and admired about her, he was saying, I see you. I see and love these things about you. I can’t dance unless “the air assumes your form.” In your presence–and yours alone–I am “wholly moved.”

In notes he’d made for his university course, The Philosophy of Poetry, my dad urged his students to develop the kind of eyes and sensibilities necessary to name and recognize these kinds of things:

Can the ordinary be extraordinary? What does it take to see it, appreciate it? The innocent eye can see nothing. The rushed eye may see a little more, but not much.

By the world’s standards, my mother was an ordinary woman, a stay-at-home mom who learned to make-do in a barely middle-class life. She taught herself upholstery because buying new furniture was a luxury our family couldn’t afford. She sewed and mended our clothes, learned to stretch a pound of hamburger, and hosted anyone who needed a place to stay and a homecooked meal. Truth be told, our lives are filled with such ordinary people who bless us in extraordinary ways. But if we don’t have the eyes to see them, if we don’t take the time to name the things that make them uniquely who they are, how will they know they’re extraordinary? How will they know the ways they bless us and others?

In the years after my father’s death, my mother regularly reread the letters he’d written her. In these letters, my father declared his love for her by naming the ways she’d changed him and how he viewed the world, by reminding her that he couldn’t imagine his life without her, and by recalling the miracle of their union. In these handwritten pages and the poetry he’d written for her, he hoped my mother would see herself as he saw her. In the mirror of his words, he wanted my mom to know her value and virtue.

We’ll soon mark another Valentine’s Day with dozens of roses, boxes of chocolates, and greeting cards in large, red envelopes. I’m proposing a new Valentine’s tradition, an add-on to the traditional gifts and cards we buy. What if we helped others see how extraordinary they are by naming the very things we love and respect about them? What if we took the time to name these things well, offering a mirror through which they could see themselves as we do? As my father contended, this would be truly honorable and very good.

We have found it so hard to believe, so easy to disbelieve. Every good thing has suffered. –Don Welch, “An Interview with Don Welch,” Mark Sanders, On Common Ground

As I was loading photos into the new digital picture frame I received from my daughter and her family for Christmas, I came upon a photo of my grandson, Griffin, as he worked valiantly to rescue minnows that were being flushed through the culvert under our pond dam after a recent downpour. I remember the day well, how he scooped as though his life depended on it, carrying coffee can after can full of minnows from the river raging through his yard to the pond where he dumped them, returning quickly to bail again. This was Sisypean labor. For every minnow he saved, a dozen more were swept down the torrent that gushed through his yard into a ditch of cattails where they would die. This was a lesson in futility, as we worked, shoulder to shoulder, to save the same minnows that steamed through the culvert again almost as quickly as we rescued them.

But what do you say to a child-hero whose resolve is so pure, whose heart is so full? Oh, I could’ve schooled him on futility, all our scooping and living and loving slipping through our fingers–literally and metaphorically–too soon. I could’ve encouraged him to give up the fight and retreat to the yard for a game of wiffle ball. I could’ve, but I didn’t. Let him believe, I thought. If just for a time as this, let him fight the good fight. For too soon, the bright fry of these days will be swept away into the hard truth of moments during which he’ll see–with clear and grownup eyes–the futility of such acts.

In his philosophical essay, “The Myth of Sispyphus,” French writer and philosopher Albert Camus wrote that “[t]he gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” Immortalized in mythology for the punishment he received from the gods, Sisyphus has become the poster child for futility, endlessly pushing a boulder up a mountainside, only to have it roll to the bottom, where he’d begin the act again. In his essay, however, Camus ultimately concludes that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy,” that perhaps, like Sisyphus, we might find a kind of joy and purpose in the struggle.

It’s one thing to be a child who isn’t aware that his minnow rescue mission is futile, but it’s quite another to be a man who sees the futility of the labor to which he’s condemned. Some regard Sisyphus’ fate as an apt metaphor for postmodern life. You work, you pour your life into some venture, people and place–and to what end? For an exceptional few, there are monuments, written records, and legacies marking their labor. For most us, however, poet W. H. Auden says it best in his poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts,” when he concludes with these lines regarding Dutch painter, Pieter Bruegel’s “The Fall of Icarus”:

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, 
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Yes, for most of us, our lives and deaths aren’t important failures (or successes), and others have places to get to and sail calmly on. This has been the predominant postmodern sentiment, one grounded in a belief that our actions are largely futile and our lives largely unremmarkable.

In going through my father’s files and papers, I’ve been reminded again and again of how he championed a worldview founded on turning defeat into victory by refusing to be defeated. In poetry, he advocated “writing up,” even in the midst of stylistic trends that celebrated “writing down,” rejecting more traditional virtues of beauty, truth, and goodness and replacing them with irony, futility, and utility. In life, he celebrated the lives of those like his grandmother who struggled to keep her farm afloat during the Dust Bowl years and my mother’s grandmother who immigrated from Germany to Nebraska as a teen and ultimately worked as a housekeeper, raising two sons alone when her husband abandoned her. In love, he looked to my mother’s unflagging optimism and courage in the face of cancer, economic and family challenges. He lived his words: There is no more heroic charge than to begin again.

In the first few years after my retirement, I thought a lot about my life’s work. Professionally, this work culminated in my last position in which I was able to use what I’d learned over decades to affect change in one school district. I was–and am–proud of this work, for at the end of my career, I’d learned much from my successes and failures as an educator and was given an opportunity to share this with other educators as a professional development provider. Still, I was scooping minnows–passionately and with purpose–that would quickly be swept away. Within a year of my retirement, there were few remnants of my work alive. There was little to suggest I’d ever worked there, save for the memories of a few teachers. Some could argue that I was rolling the stone of my convictions up the education mountain of fickle preferences and trends, to no real avail. Some could argue that the best work of my life came to naught.

And yet, I’ve also thought about what I’d change now if, when I began my work there, I knew what I now know. And I’d have to say nothing. I’d change nothing. As my sister says (wisely), that was your work to do then. Indeed. There is a kind of heroism in work that some may call futile. After all, what’s the alternative? To regard every task, every word or deed as pointless? To never begin for fear of having to face those for whom your work will neither be an important success or failure? To sit at the bottom of the mountain in the shade, scoffing at those who roll their stones up each day? To sail calmly on as others strive for ends they may or may not achieve?

For years, I faced classrooms of students who quickly decided that the work of American literature or composition was futile because they’d never need such work in the “real world.” Having decided this, they often resolved to get through these courses by refusing to begin at all. That is, they committed to completing only what was absolutely required–without engaging in the work–and resigned themselves to enduring the required semester(s). But there were also those who believed they could benefit from the best thinking and writing of the best authors and speakers, who willingly pushed this challenging work up the mountains of the course, and who suffered every good thing they read and discussed. Most of these students wouldn’t go on to become English majors or to use what they’d learned in literal, practical ways in their careers. Still, they refused to see the work as futile, and instead, regarded it as heroic. This work, they argued, was necessary for those who wished to become better humans.

We’ve all known exceptional individuals like these students. We’ve witnessed the heroic futility of our children and grandchildren as they eagerly take on tasks most adults would regard as futile. We’ve lived and worked among such individuals who often quietly go about the business of beginning again, putting their metaphorical backs into the work of each day. We know these people, and we know futility. But perhaps we don’t recognize the impact of our responses often enough. I’ve tried to imagine what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t grown up in a family that saw many of my labors–some more futile than others–as heroic. Clearly, there are times to pack it in, to acknowledge that to continue in the same way hoping for different results is futillity (or insanity). But there are other times when we should celebrate the conviction that drives us, even as we fail (especially as we fail).

Like my father, I fear that we may be losing the heart for such celebration. Driven by our well-intended (but often damaging) desires to protect ourselves and others from futility, we may discourage those who would begin again. We may find it increasingly hard to believe in heroes like Vallie Welch and Minnie Zorn. And we may fail to understand Camus’ claim that we can imagine Sisyphus–and others who find purpose in apparently hopeless labor–happy.

  Photo Courtesy of Nebraska Tourism

I would therefore write a kind of elemental poetry that doesn’t just avoid the indoors but doesn’t even see the doors that lead inward—to laboratories, to textbooks, to knowledge. I would not talk about the wind, and the oak tree, and the leaf on the oak tree, but on their behalf. –from “Winter Hours,” Upstream: Selected Essays, Mary Oliver, 2016

In her essay, “Winter Hours,” Mary Oliver declares that she couldn’t be a poet without the natural world, that, for her, “the door to the woods is the door to the temple.” She’s not alone. Over the centuries, there have been many writers, artists, naturalists, and pioneers for whom the door to the natural world was the door to the temple. Like Oliver, they respected the natural world, revered its beauty and power, and were keenly aware that their destinies were irrevocably linked to it. And like Oliver, they strove to represent the wind, and the oak tree, and the leaf on the oak tree on their behalf.

I couldn’t help but think of artists like Oliver, of William Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau, of Aldo Leopold and Annie Dillard–to name just a few–as I watched the finale of the popular Paramount Plus series, Yellowstone, which aired just before Christmas. Inspired by the 2,500 acre Chief Joseph Ranch in Darby, Montana, the series’ fictional Yellowstone Dutton Ranch is portrayed to be the size of Rhode Island, a whopping 1,034 square miles. Although Yellowstone offers a variety of colorful and unforgettable characters (some who will reportedly star in their own spinoff series), the land itself is the protagonist. The struggle to keep and preserve it is central to the plot in every episode. Throughout the series, the family strives to keep the ranch for their heirs, honoring ancestor and pioneer James Dutton’s legacy profiled in the series’ prequel, 1883. In spite of their commitment and hard work, however, a host of developers and leaders of the Broken Rock Indian Reservation continue to threaten this legacy, throwing roadblocks and creating chaos in each season. When the family finally comes to the painful but inevitable realization that they can no longer cover the ranch’s enormous tax burden, they sell it to the Broken Rock Reservation for a price tag that ensures the Reservation will be able to pay the taxes ($1.25 an acre) and with an agreement to preserve the land for all time.

Yellowstone’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, profiles ranchers and indigenous people in their complex fight to preserve a way of life. And the preservation of this way of life is wholly dependent upon the preservation of the land. Sheridan is not the first, nor will he be the last, to chronicle this fight. Certainly, his series and its prequels have ignited a renewed interest in and passion for the West and its remaining undeveloped spaces.

To those who argue that that this theme has been done–perhaps overdone–and that there’s little more to be gained by plumbing it further, I offer these words from Oliver’s “Winter Hours”: “The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.” Next to my father, Oliver is my favorite poet, and her mention of the Platte River here solidifies this standing. For years, my parents routinely hosted visiting poets, and when Oliver visited the University of Nebraska-Kearney, she actually slept in my childhood bedroom (be still my heart!) I don’t know this for fact, but I like to think that she and my father discussed their shared love of the natural world over coffee at the dining room table where so many other poets sat and visited. As they talked, I know that my father would’ve shared his love for the Platte River, for the Nebraska Flyway that attracts as many as a million sandhill cranes, geese, ducks, and other shorebirds annually. I like to think that when Oliver wrote these words, she remembered her visit to Kearney. And I like to think that she remembered my father, who, too, spent his life writing the kind of elemental poetry on behalf of the Platte River, the sandhill cranes, the roadside ditches lined with coneflowers, the acres of buffalo grass, the wonderful and terrible natural world.

Oliver claimed that “[t]he farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, then closing the list.” And why should we close the list? Why should we forget the family to which we belong? Why should we refuse to see that we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together? Yes, the theme of land preservation has been done and redone; still, we seem to need and welcome the reminder, the renewed awareness, and the wonder of even the smallest and meanest thing in the natural world. We need and want the Mary Olivers and Taylor Sheridans, the Wendell Berrys and Don Welches. Each, in his or her own right, brings new eyes to the natural world that too many take for granted.

A few months ago, I heard someone remark that a new poet was just another in a long line of “nature poets, the likes of Mary Oliver.” And he wondered aloud if Oliver was really as good a poet as people thought she was, or if she just rode out her illustrious career on the laurels of some early–and perhaps lucky–success. Undoubtedly, he would identify me as just another nature poet, too, and certainly not one of Oliver’s caliber. For awhile, I thought seriously about my own writing and about the journals that had rejected it. Could it be that they found my work derivative of nature writers like Oliver and Berry whose themes they’d thrown over for newer social themes? Perhaps so.

I suspect Taylor Sheridan will continue to make television series regarding land preservation. If Mary Oliver and my father were still alive, I know they’d continue to write on behalf of the land they loved so dearly. If they were both alive, I’d invite them to walk the trails with me each morning. And in those moments before dawn, we wouldn’t talk about the muskrat in the north pond and the cedar trees and the berries on the cedar trees–but on their behalf.

Photo by Nicole Louden, Sandhills Prairie Girl

For the past year, Nebraska photographer and writer Nicole Louden and I have been collaborating on a series of photos and poems, and this photo took my breath away. Each time I look at it, I think about how the light breaks into our winter days, and “a weary world rejoices.” For me, Nicole’s photo is a stunning reminder of how “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [John 1:5]

The world at the time of Christ’s birth was weary with oppression and hopelessness. Centuries later, the world is still weary. At Christmas, as many move joyfully through their days relishing the spirit of the season, others struggle in desolation as they grapple with grief, conflict, and pain.

So, here is my grownup Christmas wish: May you know the consolation of Christ’s light that overpowers the world’s weariness, today and always.

Hoarfrost

On this day in December, the kettle sings 
and I walk through the house in sock feet, 
the woodstove humming with heat.

I sit at the table with coffee, 
remnants of sleep still matting my eyes,
the house still bundled in the comfort of night. 

But outside, the day breaks 
like a geode, hoarfrost splintering 
the air into carats of delight.

Outside, cold is an aria that shatters
the ceiling of night,
each note sharper, each facet cut 
with the delicate, blue stone of dawn.

In the silence of the room,
I think of you—
gone two years now.

From the mantle of grief
my heart breaks 
in a jubilation of jewels,

the magma of love erupting,
astonishing each fence post, 
each strand of barbed wire,

and crowning a weary world
with light.

Wishing you Christmas blessings, Shannon

Carl Bloch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2: 8-12

To live in a field among sheep, to stay awake, alone and vigilant, to live in solitude through long days and longer nights. For some, this may sound like a peaceful refuge in the midst of a busy, noisy world; to many others, however, this sounds more like a prison sentence. Separated from family and creature comforts, these shepherds faced considerable physical and emotional trials. To face these trials knowing that others looked down upon you, that you occupied the very bottom of the social ladder, and that you were crude, dirty, and uneducated, this might transform the consolation of solitude into desolation. As this solitude flooded your mind and soul with a tsunami of doubt and fear, you might struggle to maintain any peace and joy you’d found. And in your separation from others, you might also feel separated from God.

In his 2008 article “Shepherd’s Status,” Christian author Randy Alcorn explains the status of shepherds at the time of Jesus’ birth: “[S]hepherds stood on the bottom rung of the Palestinian social ladder. They shared the same unenviable status as tax collectors and dung sweepers.” To share the same status as dung sweepers is to share no real status at all. Add to this the fact that because shepherds were perpetually dirty from living in fields among sheep, they would’ve been regarded as ceremonially unclean, unfit to be in the presence of God. We could argue the stable was already unclean and question whether a few unwashed shepherds could contaminate it further. Still, this was a holy place with a Savior King, and a group of lowly shepherds would’ve been customarily barred entry.

God had another plan, though, as He brought the good news first to shepherds, invited them to see the sign themselves, and to worship the Messiah, their Lord. On a Sunday 30 years ago, God had another plan for the church I was attending. After our contemporary service ended and as we were hauling off musical and sound equipment to prepare for the traditional service which would begin in a few minutes, a man quietly entered the back of our sanctuary. I saw him tentatively make his way down the aisle and went to greet him. I quickly discovered that he couldn’t speak English, and given that my Spanish was woefully limited to a few conversational phrases, I couldn’t really communicate with him. There was an urgency in his voice, though, and as I led him down the aisle towards the front of the sanctuary, I could see that our pastor was already coming to us.

I won’t forget this moment. My pastor stuck out his hand in greeting, but the man shook and lowered his head, ashamed to offer his own filthy hand. He’d obviously not washed for days. His clothing was soiled, his hair matted, and his skin blackened with dirt. But my pastor smiled, never breaking eye contact as he grabbed his hand and welcomed him. This man wasn’t a shepherd, but he was the equivalent. He’d hopped a train at the border and was making his way to his cousin in Kansas. And here he was in southern Iowa, having unknowingly overshot Kansas and traveled many rail miles beyond. As our group stood near the pulpit and parishioners were filing in for the next service, our pastor looked out into the pews and yelled, “Does anyone speak Spanish?” A timid hand went up in the balcony, and a small woman made her way down the stairs. Through her translation, we learned the man’s story and his need to unite with his Kansas cousin.

A period of silence ensued during which the organist didn’t begin the prelude and the church service was delayed. In a huddle near the pulpt, our pastor and several of us formulated a plan. My husband, who worked for the railroad, took him to our home to find him a winter coat and a few provisions for his trip. Then, at some risk to his employment, he drove him to the trainyard and helped him hop the right train, the one that would bring him to his Kansas family. On that Sunday morning, we were less concerned about doing church and more concerned with being the church.

For years, I’ve thought about the courage of this man who was as unclean and lowly as a shepherd. I’ve thought about how he humbly offered his hopes and needs before us–before God. And I’ve thought about this encounter as a powerful affirmation of how God uses the lowly, the sick and weak, the alien and estranged, to bring us back to the manger. At the manger, we are all ceremonially unclean, humbled in our shared humanness. At the manger, we are all shepherds, perplexed and amazed that God would bring the Good News to us. At the manger, we kneel before a baby who will one day sleep, unbathed, under the stars, who will work with his hands, fish for his supper, and ultimately save the world.

On that Sunday morning so many years ago, we were able to offer some consolation to a man in desolation. On that night in fields outside of Bethlehem, God offered great consolation to a group of shepherds who’d undoubtedly experienced the desolation of their position and status. As tinseled and bedazzled as our Christmas seasons often become, this splendor pales in comparison to what must’ve been an amazing sight: shepherds kneeling at the manger and taking their honored place as Jesus’s first visitors. This Christmas, may we take consolation in the assurance that the last will be first, the meek will inherit the earth, and the spirit and good fortune of these shepherds lives in us.