What ever happened to integrity?

To Glenn Marshall:

The last several weeks have seen a divisive campaign in our small town; those who see a large casino complex as a rather negative influence on the future of our town vs. those who see a promising gain for the fiscal problems we have here. Now that the issue goes to the state government, there will be monetary and political issues at a level far greater than our town.

I myself have a strong philosophical disagreement with casinos per se., and am sorry to see one coming to town. After the election, my wife and I were sitting in out on our porch when two young men in a white pickup truck slowed down, saw our ‘No Casino’ sign and angrily swore, and made an obscene gesture at us before driving off. The sign had been tacked way up in a tree since someone would come by in the evenings and steal those put in the ground. I was both amazed and somewhat angry to have been treated like that by someone I didn’t even know. But, the election was over, and so I got the ladder and took the sign down. There was no need to stir up already inflamed emotions.

It was a little difficult to let go of this personal assault, until I read a letter by Jessie Little Doe on the pro-casino web site. (www.casino-friend.com) She was able to put things into proper perspective, and I applaud her.

In her 'letter' she graciously wished peace and respect to people of all descents, and then said something very profound: "Know that whatever you do that has its origin in Love and not fear is never wrong." and continued with: "The simple refusal to not move from the place of Respect or Love in the face of fear or anger is courage."

Her words resonated within, and I was reminded of a piece I had written about a year ago. It was about my understanding of the ‘keepers’ of the land. Please read it, in the quiet of your day, away from the distractions of leadership, from those who merely want money, from those who may often express anger. Regardless of my views about a casino, I have always thought, and still do think that there is something special about the keepers of the land. So . . . in the spirit of ‘Jessie Little Doe’

The Keepers

The place of my childhood was along an old Wampanoag Indian path, between their encampment at Titicut and the Nipinickut pond. It wound through meadows and woodlands following the terrain set down in the times of their ancestors of long ago. There is not much left of that path discernible to the eye; just a few artifacts and a chance meeting with one who is many generations removed.

For my brothers and I, the field on the stream side of the path was a place for long fly balls, freshly mowed hay and button hook passes, each in its season. Occasionally, after the field had been plowed, I would find an arrowhead, and would wonder about the keepers of the land who had fashioned it. My summer afternoons were just as long as theirs, and the autumn colors were just as spectacular. But, the trees must have been taller, the deer and trout more plentiful, and the dwellings fewer and farther between.

My musings about these people were interrupted by the decline of the afternoon sun and the appearance of the evening mosquitoes. This was the signal to head back across the field over the wide green yard to retreat into the safety and comfort of the old family home. Generations ago, descendants of the Pilgrims built this old house after the retreat of the keepers of the land. Like other artifacts, remnants of their dwellings are rather scarce, just the charred bases of bent pole row houses.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I was ready to learn what they had to teach. Their structure was built up from of a set of mating poles, each charred on one end. The burnt end was set into the earth bent upward and ached over to be tied to its mate; ‘earth to earth’. Love thus united formed the support for their rooftops, designed to fend off soaking rains, freezing snows and blistering sun. All this was necessary in order to sustain and grow new life, being as fragile as it was.

This protection however, brings with it a danger. A danger that life will not be experienced and not grow to become what it is meant to be. When you hide under a rooftop all the time you do not experience the warmth or the glow of the light. You miss the cleansing effect of the rain. And so, your existence becomes pale.

Finding the sun, the wind and the rain is the only way to come to understand how you are part of something bigger than yourself. Indian culture innately understood this, having lived the experience. The lesson they came to understand was their connectedness, and therefore, respect for all that was. Their rooftops were not edifices unto themselves, but rather a place of respite from overexposure, an acknowledgment of their own finiteness.

All too often we build rooftops to crown our achievements, always higher and bigger. The irony of it, is that the higher they are, the smaller we look. From the top of such heights you can not make out much of what is below. But, look up, and the rooftops themselves appear as they are . . . small, in the enormity that surrounds them.

Maples, oaks and wild cherries have taken over the forgotten cranberry bog across from the field on one side of the path. The small stream way behind the other has nourished tall pines and hardwoods giving visual respite to the current inhabitants of the field. New families with playful kids now run among the trees of these wetland buffers. At one end of the field, my son and his wife have built their new home, and at the other, there is a final lot, just waiting.

It is now 50 years after my days in the field; near time for my wife and I to retire and move to the lot just waiting. And so, there will shortly be new keepers entrusted at both ends of the field, on the old Indian path between the encampment at Titicut and the Nippeniket pond.