The Giant Oak, And More Secrets to Happiness

I'm thinking about these beautiful words today, "A storm by its very nature seeks to move on, and a tree's grace is that it has no hands" (M. Nepo).

The picture you are viewing is that of the giant oak tree that graces our front yard and shields our house from the hot, summer sun. My guess is, the tree is fifty or more years of age. Can you imagine the wind and rain, snow and storms it has weathered in those many years?

Countless storms, no doubt.

So, what is its secret of survival? Could it be its flexibility? Flex-ability. It moves with the wind and rains instead of rigidly resisting them. Furthermore, it has no hands. That is it's "grace," as Nepo puts it. Which means, the tree does not cling to the difficult winds but allows them to come and go as storms typically do.

That has occurred to you, hasn't it? That a storm, even the most violent ones, never last very long?

If you are like me, however, unlike a giant oak tree, we, on one hand, are prone to resist life's storms. We want everything to be peaceful 24/7. We go through the day trying desperately to keep the peace, to make peace, or to preserve peace. It is exhausting, isn't it? Like trying to control a forest fire in the dry, California hills.

Yet, in our better moments - like this very one - we know that we rob ourselves of the richness of life by rollicking in some illusion that we can actually avoid all of life's storms. We cannot, of course. Nor should we. The Buddha reminded us that life will come as a mixture of pleasure and pain. Jesus demonstrated the same.

On the other hand, we have a tendency to cling to some difficulties... some storms... perhaps because they give us some definition, some measure of identity? Something about ourselves to talk about when someone asks, "So, how are you today?"

"Oh, so glad you asked," we respond. "Let me tell you." And then, we proceed to describe all the difficulties of life that won't go away (or, more honestly, we will not release).

Today, may I suggest that we meditate on both the flexibility, as well as the grace, of the giant oak tree. Resist not what comes your way - even if it is some unwanted storm. Further, cling not to any of life's experiences this day, good or bad, or however you're prone to label them. Instead, enjoy the pleasures, survive the pains, but be at peace with both.

This is the secret of happiness.

I've put up an entire post on my blog about this (and written a whole book about this and other matters related to the spiritual life), and I'd love to share some of the things I've learned with you. To get started, visit this article I recently posted at my blog http://www.stevemcswain.com/blog.

Still Fighting the Toxic Giant

A few years ago, USA Today did a two-page article about the problems faced by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in their battle to clean up a Superfund plant on the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. I am sorry to say the saga continues. This week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed rules that would let the company, FMC Corporation, bury its industrial poisons on site.

One of the areas at risk from the poisons is "the bottoms." It's low-land creeks and marshes that feed into Idaho's Snake River. It's world-class fishing. It's also home to Shoshone and Bannock people. Bands from our tribes have wintered there and been a part of this landscape for at least the last 10,000 years.

Ten thousand years.

I think of those three words and wonder what's in store for the next 10,000 years. The EPA and FMC are proposing a scheme to cover up fifty years of waste. One of the toxic chemicals left behind is elemental phosphorus or P4, a material that remains poisonous for 10,000 years.

The EPA and FMC want to cover up this industrial mess with dirt and hope for the best. Their proposed plan would rely on "natural attenuation" to neutralize and dilute the poisons as they work their way through the soil and groundwater. FMC will then make a futile attempt to capture remaining contaminants by pumping and treating some of the groundwater at the site boundary. So those industrial poisons will likely leach out over time into our bottoms lands, the aquifer and the Snake River system. Our region's waterways essentially become the company's toxic toilet bowl.

So we're asking EPA and FMC to take a closer look at cleaning the one area of the site that we know is especially dirty, where poisons have been detected in groundwater at 90 feet. The old furnace building area contains significant quantities of elemental phosphorus. This is common sense because a treatment plan that gets at the most contaminated area means less poisons will end up in our water.

As USA Today reported, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have mixed feelings about FMC because the company did create so many good paying jobs for Shoshone-Bannock tribal members, including three current members of the tribal council. The product from the plant, elemental phosphorus, is used in so many everyday products. We get that. But we also know, and have known for a long time, about the risky nature of those chemicals.

FMC says one of its corporate values is "to protect the health and safety of our employees, our communities and the public" and "to operate our facilities in a manner that prevents harm to the environment." This is a good value. One that I endorse. It's also why FMC should do the right thing here and clean up the most toxic area of the site before it leaves our region for good.

I want my children, and their children, to have the same pride in the Fort Hall bottoms, and East Idaho, that I do. We need to make the decisions today to make that possible for the years ahead. Make that the 10,000 years ahead.

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