I felt it in my shoulder on Wednesday, when the terrier brought me his rope and we began to play "tug."
I felt it in my back on Thursday, listening to a lecture in Zorn Arena at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire.
On Monday and Tuesday I carried 1200 pounds of concrete up our hill to the site of some future garden beds. The site is badly eroded and the earth has very little organic material to it. A few weeds grow there now but even they do not thrive. I am laying the blocks in a course two high to create a miniature retaining wall. Afterwards I will mix manure and topsoil to the native sand and, I hope, restore the area to productivity. I hope to get two such beds done in time to plant my corn up there.
It is a rare thing for organic matter to oppose gravity. Perhaps a predator occasionally leaves a carcass at a higher elevation but otherwise wind and water conspire along with gravity to move organic material toward the oceans. Where there was stasis, humans have largely disturbed it. Along the great plains where thick sod protected the soil, we sowed row crops. Forested hillsides once protected the ground from water while leaf debris acted as a series of obstacles to keep the earth close to home. We have harvested them for lumber and firewood, leaving the ground vulnerable.
Moving topsoil uphill is to co-participate in an act of creation. It is a way of bringing life to where there is no life. But it comes at a cost. One must care enough to be pained at the barren landscape. One must exert themselves physically and sometimes that involves physical pain. One must also realize that their best efforts may result in failure.
Greater than my little attempt at ecological restoration are those who work for peace, both in our neighborhoods as well as on a geopolitical scale. Human communities, large and small, seem to drift into conflict. There are periods and formulas of stasis, but they are easily disrupted then chaos and violence take hold. People begin to flow to violence as topsoil flows to the ocean.
The role of the peacemaker is to carry concrete blocks and topsoil up a steep hill. It can be a painful job as they carry the building blocks of peace and life against the gravity of violence and death. One must care enough to see the pain of others and having seen that pain to not look away. One must take the chance of getting involved. I only face the pain of a sore shoulder and back at worst I might damage my body and require time to heal. The peacemaker risks suffering a sore or damaged soul as they struggle to restore community to a place that it has been lost. That pain is much more distressing than the physical pain of physical exertion and the soul takes much longer to heal than a muscle.
There is also the physical risk. It can be a deadly job as one enters the conflict zone. Domestic dispute calls are the most dangerous calls faced by police. No one needs to be warned of the danger of a war zone.
Peacemaking, however, is co-participation in the work of God which makes the pain and the risk worthwhile.
God bless the peacemakers, returning to productivity those swaths of earth, those nations and neighborhoods, too long given over to barren weeds. There is no household too small to deserve their attention, there is no nation so complex to be beyond healing.
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