Seeing the trees beyond the clutter
DSHEPPARD own the street from my house there is a beautiful sycamore tree, right on the edge of the woods along the road, but you’d likely not notice it for the power lines.
I have a hard time calling favorites on something as magnificent as trees, but I have always been particularly fond of sycamores. Their tall, lean and elegant shape, the smooth white trunks mottled with gold and green as the bark peels away in unique puzzle shapes, even the tooth and texture of the leaves, are all beautiful to me.
I’m sure the childhood Bible story of Zacchaeus climbing a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus as he came into town has something to do with my affection for them, too. It’s a really great story!
The idea of this short guy placing himself high above the crowd to improve his perspective on something so monumental feels right and exciting to me. Sometimes we have to remove our focus from the fray, maybe change our perspective completely, in order to better see the truth.
In Zacchaeus’ case, that effort was rewarded, just as I think it usually is when we push ourselves to look beyond the clutter and get a better view.
Most days, when Hansel & Gretel and I are on our evening walk, the setting sun shines perfectly on the trunk of that sycamore tree I mentioned, and the light causes it to glow a beautiful shade of rosy gold.
That purely focused light reflects off of the white sycamore trunk more than anything else, causing it to pop out from all of the weedy shrubs and trees around it. All, that is, but the power lines that run along the street in front of it.
Every single time I see it, I ache to be able to photograph the magical glow of that tree, to document it and share it with others. It is that spectacular to me. But, those darn power lines clutter an otherwise bucolic scene irreparably. I can’t tell you how often I have considered how I might change my perspective in order to capture it.
Were I a painter instead of a picture-taker, it would be easy. I would translate those power lines right out of there and allow that gorgeous tree to enjoy its day in the sun.
You could say that I have that opportunity as a writer. As a columnist rather than a reporter, I have the freedom to distill out whatever I feel is inconsequential to my point. If it had better served my point, I could have written about that gorgeous glowing tree and left the power lines out of the story completely.
It has happened more than once that my parents will read one of my columns about our family experiences and point out some discrepancy in their remembrance over mine. You say potato, I say potahto, if you ask me.
My perspective and those of the other columnists you may read here are individual to each. My personal hope is usually to provide some remembrance or observation that may ultimately encourage us to be kinder to each other and to care about those around us more completely.
You may not always agree with the opinions expressed in these pages, heck you may not even enjoy reading them, but I believe it is always the hope of each writer to seek and provide a different perspective that might be helpful.
Plato (supposedly) said, “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.”
All day, every day, we are bombarded with opportunities to seek truth in the information that is constantly blurted at us. There is so much important stuff to process and consider, but there is also a whole lot of informational and speculative clutter that is constantly blocking our view of the truth.
How do we figure out what parts we need to look beyond in order to find what is right and helpful?
To cloud the situation even more, what is the good and comfortable truth for one isn’t necessarily the same for another.
There’s probably someone in the world who would look at that same sunset tree scene and think, “Wow, look at those multiple lines carrying power and cable and internet and phone service to all of the homes along this street. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Tree? What tree?” Such a person would laugh and wonder why on earth I would care about the tree. You say tomato, I say tomahto, they might point out.
While the “tree” may look different for each of us, can we at least agree to work to focus our minds away from the clutter? It takes true focus and strength of conviction to avoid being dragged down the random rabbit holes of conjecture.
The report that my sister’s friend’s cousin saw somewhere that someone concluded that the sky is falling, doesn’t mean that it actually is. Even if I really want to believe that the sky is falling, I still need to root out the true facts behind such a claim.
Doesn’t it seem like we often forget that step when it comes to the information highway we live on these days?
If for no other reason than to clear our own perspective, let’s work hard to look beyond the clutter in search of the real view. And in order to avoid cluttering someone else’s view, let’s make sure we have that perspective clean when we pass information along.