Random, funny, fast-paced, and at times…pointless, that was my life in the city. I wanted to find meaning about something. After pondering upon that thought one evening, I decided to go back to my meager home of an island; where a small paradise is hidden on the other end from where a snow-coated sand sanctuary and a resting abode of the beloved departed folks dwell. I was drawn to that place once again; reminiscing the sweet and innocent adventures from my make-believe kingdom of the heavenly waters and the woody forests on the other end.
I went out when the heavy rain stopped. My boots crunched on the crust of a brittle drift wood but did not break, and I pulled my hood up against the wet soaked part of it that dripped as I started my walk through the woody forest. I had been away too long. The rain had kept me home and mostly indoors for nearly 3 days when I arrived. At last I was out to see how many trees were there, to see if the heavy rain had broken them as they had broken the lawn trees in the city. None did. The trees here fared well, and I walked easily, enjoying the radiance of the wet light under the leafless sunshade. As I walked I grew more and more content, more and more at home, settled and pleased to be there in my little peaceful place.
I grew up at the edge of the wood in the midst of a large extended family. My grandparents, five aunts and uncles, and I don’t know how many cousins and second or third cousins all lived along a dirt path. The lane ran beside a small stream, turned up a steep mound through woods, and then cut sideways just below a cleared edge that was usually planted in vegetables. Our house was on the low side of the path. A deep gulch sliced edge from our back yard. A short path switched back and forth down its side into the second growth hardwood that isolated us on our mound.
For the first six years of my life, those woods were my playground. My cousins and second or third cousins were my playmates. We were a grubby group. I didn’t remember having any toys other than wooden guns and punched-hole shells. But toys didn’t matter, for we were like the untamed animals when we were in the woods. It was a good life full of lessons both moral and practical.
My task walking in the woods reminded me of an incident. I must have been about six, for I was definitely a follower winding to the influence of my cousins and an older cousin just a few years older than me. They roamed farther afield than me and knew deep places in the stream where they could swim. They carried small axes. These weapons were a vital part of their equipment, necessary for hacking, one of their favorite pastimes. By hacking involved running through the woods striking huge hunks of bark from the trees, leaving a trace of white, and bleeding fires to blot a meaningless passage. I begged my older cousin to take me along. I wanted to hack my way through the woods the way he did with our other cousins.
But he looked at the rubber hatchet I brandished and laughed. “Get a real axe,” he said, “then you can come.”
When my father came from work that day, I asked for his axe, the one he used to chop the heads from the chickens and ducks I helped him slaughter.
“What for?” he asked.
“I want to go hacking,” I answered.
He turned to me a puzzled look. “What is hacking?”
“Chopping trees,” I replied.
“Are you making something?” he asked.
I began to sense that something was off. “No,” I answered, looking at my feet and pressing my hands together. “Hacking is just chopping trees.”
“Whoever gave you that idea?” he asked.
“Cousin Rex did,” I answered. “He said I could go. Can I borrow the axe Dad?”
“You don’t hack trees without a reason,” he said and turned away.
I looked off through the pattern of tree trunks mounting before me. I was astounded that such a seemingly small incident has stayed with me that it comes back so clearly after thirteen years. But more than that, I was amazed at my father’s wisdom. He taught so lightly I did not know he was teaching. That day he shaped my conscience. Like Jesus Christ speaking a parable, he did not even explain. It was clear to me that the earth is not mine to use as I please.
I understood his words now and as I walked, I echo them with words older than mine, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”
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