Sequoias

We are visiting friends in Missouri right now, and my friend was telling me a story she heard regarding the oaken beams in the dining hall at New College, Oxford. The beams were rotting, so they wanted to replace them, but the oaks had to be very tall in order to be made into beams for this particular building.

They asked the college forester if there might be some oak trees on college lands that were tall enough for the beams. He said there had been a grove of oaks planted for future provision. The administrators had some of the trees cut down and used for beams.

I love this story so much, although the folks at New College say it isn't true. It reminds me of one of my favorite Wendell Berry quotes:

Invest in the Millennium. Plant sequoias.

I want to plant sequoias. I want to teach my kids to plant sequoias. I want us to have a long-term view.

They are learning a lot about singing this summer. I majored in vocal performance in college. I was thoroughly trained to sing healthy (healthily?), and to resist poor technique. In the last year, I have come into conflict with my children over this issue. (I don't think they realize how very thoroughly I was trained to resist unhealthy singing.) They have figured out that they can get more volume with less work by belting out their songs, and naturally want to take the easy route. I have alternated between discussion and masterly inactivity in dealing with this issue. I feel so strongly about them learning to sing in a way that will preserve their beautiful voices, although the process is longer. In the end, they will have to decide whether to bloom quickly and fade, or grow slowly with a good foundation.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

And as I work on next year's plans, I, too, want to remember I am planting sequoias, that my profit is the forest I "will not live to harvest." I want to keep the long-term in view.

Guest Blogger: George Washington's Limits

(Written by Aravis)

George Washington started his career as a surveyor, measuring off how much land belonged to a certain person. As a teenager, he was already learning the value of limits and boundaries, which would later become important in his political career. He was a soldier for several years, participating in the French and Indian War as well as the American Revolution, during which he rose to national attention. He helped to create the nation in the Constitutional Convention, where he was the head of the meetings.

Washington was what is now referred to as a “control freak”, but not in the usual meaning. He wanted complete control of himself, not others, and had set precise rules for himself since he was a child. This may have influenced him when he advocated a government with limited control over the individual – he believed people should be in charge of themselves, but knew that some civil government was necessary to deal with those who would not deal with themselves.

Technicalities for the role of President were still being hammered out when Washington assumed the position. If he had not been the right sort of “control freak”, the job of President could be drastically different today, because he was the one who shaped it. But he was aware of the human lust for power and also of the damage it could do, and kept himself from doing anything that was not for the good of his country. The limits he set for himself helped shape the entire nation.

Guest Blogger: Bread

(Guest post written by Mariel)

Bread is a chemical compound. Have you ever thought of it in this way? Neither had I until this exam question: Explain bread-making in a scientific way. So, here goes.

First you take the water and put it into the pan of the bread machine. The 2tsp butter, made up of pasteurized cream and salt, is melted and put into the pan. The 4 cups of flour goes in next. This Great Value All Purpose Flour is made of enriched bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, reduced iron, and thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid. So then you put the sugar and salt in. They are made of sugar and salt. After all that, the yeast is put in. Now the yeast is a bacteria that makes the bread puff up. You have to measure it very carefully, or else you will have very puffy bread. I know, because I made bread once and I think that I put a little too much yeast in. But the yeast does not affect the flavor. The yeast is made up of yeast, sorbitan monostearate, and ascorbic acid. We keep the yeast in the freezer to keep it alive but dormant.

The funny thing about yeast is that it is a living thing that you eat, like chicken. Except it is not a meat. That is all that I know about bread-making. But remember, ‘Man cannot live on bread alone.’