Reflections from soil and soul
On my desk is a card created with a note written by 10-year-old Jessica Lee from Hong Kong. “The earth is like my mother. You get punished if you make a mess. Why do you think this planet is called Mother Earth?” No truer words, and a lesson for us all i
Christmas week 2020 — if ever there was a week suited to reflect
(20/20 hindsight), or look forward
(20/20 vision), this is it! Add in the winter solstice and prospect of Jupiter and Saturn shining closer together than they have in 400 years (I saw it with my grandson). Top it off with our global COVID pandemic and we have a compelling reason to reflect and muse over a sensible and restorative course for the future.
Let’s talk ecosystems. To a scientist, an ecosystem is a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. Simply put, how do we humans “get along”?
Two lessons:
First, from the land, our natural ecosystem — how we “get along” with nature.
Second, from the heart, our human ecosystem — how we “get along’ with each other.
How we behave in these two ecosystems will determine our future on this planet!
As a fifth-generation farmer, I treasure the ecosystem of our land — fields, forests, wetlands, and streams. Their health and our stewardship has everything to do with our ability to grow healthy crops in the face of extreme weather and climate change. Nutritious food, clean air, pure water, and healthy soil are treasures. King Midas was rich with gold, but you cannot eat gold or quench thirst with oil.
We Connecticut citizens must care for our natural lands and waters. During 2020, they have nourished our bodies and spirits as never before. Nutmeggers by the thousands have found peace and spiritual mending by getting outside in nature, and healthy nutrition by eating fresh from Connecticut farms and markets.
On my desk is a card created with a note written by 10-year-old Jessica Lee from Hong Kong. “The earth is like my mother. You get punished if you make a mess. Why do you think this planet is called Mother Earth?” No truer words, and a lesson for us all in the pandemic year of 2020.
Our ecosystem of humanity is also vital. Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy said, “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
Connecticut’s human ecosystem remains a kaleidoscope of communities and neighborhoods ranging from impoverished to affluent. The pandemic has stretched this disparity to extremes and ultimately our success as a sustainable society remains in our ability to pull together so all people can live with their basic human needs being met.
I have been awakened and inspired by former colleagues on the Connecticut State Board of Education
and more recently by fellow board members and staff at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the Valley Community Foundation to the needs, not only within some urban communities, but rural as well. Whether it is seeing the long lines at food banks or acknowledging the statistics that show much higher COVID infection rates and mortality among people of color, there is work aplenty to improve our human ecosystem.
Twenty years ago, at the opening of the new Shelton Intermediate School, Congressman Christopher Shays congratulated our townspeople. With passion he then reminded us that Shelton and the other suburban towns abutting Bridgeport will not have realized complete success until Bridgeport itself has made similar progress and overcome the achievement gap in education.
The quality of education our kids experience is key to Connecticut’s success as a society — our economic well-being, our health, our quality of life.
What happens to our kids between the age of universal innocence and curiosity and the twilight of their teens is our responsibility. If there is a gap in the academic achievement of these kids, it is not the result of a natural process. It is not like the frost or hail or floods or drought that capriciously affect my crops.
It is the result of failed stewardship by adults. And none of us are pardoned from that responsibility for that failure.
Community foundations in our region will continue to do more, faster; not only to fulfill basic human needs but to provide new opportunities to nourish our human ecosystems.
If we work together, with fierce cooperation, there is no problem we cannot overcome. Much time is wasted with political strife.
“Who among us have not been warmed by a fire we did not build, or drink water from a well we did not dig?”
Not a bad thought to contemplate as we move through Christmastime and enter 2021 with new resolve.