Wisdom from the Forest Floor
Remarkable Life Lessons from Tree 103
When a mid-December storm swept through the region, it claimed the life of a little-known elder statesman. Believed to be one of the tallest trees in the state, Tree 103 toppled after spending its life as part of a group of giant white pines known as “Elder’s Grove.”
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/a-fallen-giant-tree1
Wisdom from the Forest Floor
God answers our prayers.
I asked him to send me wise teachers, and he did.
This week, he sent the remarkable Lore Ferguson Wilbert, author of “The Understory: An Invitation to Rootedness and Resilience from the Forest Floor.”2
Listen to Part 1 of our conversation:
Tree 103 Couldn’t Hold Up Anymore
“It was a terrible windstorm that made a tree nearby fall and fall against Tree 103. And she held up for, we don’t know how long, because we don’t know the exact day she fell, but she held up, we think, for a little while. And then she just couldn’t hold up anymore. And she fell.”
-from Part 1 of my conversation with Lore
When Lore shared that a windstorm knocked another tree into Tree 103 to the point that Tree 103 “just couldn’t hold up any more,” I stopped breathing.
She couldn’t hold up anymore.
If my soul’s resonance with that comment could have been heard through the broadcast, it would have shaken a few more trees.
I feel precisely like Tree 103.
I don’t share this for pity or concern. I share it because it is true.
I think women are like Tree 103. I love that Lore refers to Tree 103 as a “her.”
As women, we hold a lot of things up and together, don’t we? Some are visible; most are invisible. Some are thanked; most are not. Some are applauded; some are unlauded.
And sometimes, when a strong windstorm of persistent trials takes its final toll, we collapse.
We couldn’t hold up anymore.
Read more of Tree 103’s amazing story right here.
Three Life Lessons from Lore and Tree 103
In Chapter 10 of The Understory, Lore writes, “The phrase Ecce Adsum is used to say, in a sense, ‘I recognize my place and what is to be done from it or with it.’ Benedictine monks use it to say, ‘I am rooted, yet I am clay, malleable and moveable.’”3 Lore shares it another way, “At peace and in place.” It draws me to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and how strategic and specific God is about time and place. I ask myself, “Am I at peace and in place?”
In Chapter 2 of The Understory, Lore writes, “Perhaps a person can move through life, every action of theirs birthed on the precipice of ‘Tomorrow I might die.’ But I wonder what might change if instead we said, ‘Today I am here.” I ask myself, “Am I giving it my best shot to be fully present?”
In Part 1 of our conversation, Lore talks about staying in a system that is not good for you. I ask, “Have you stayed in a career, situation, friendship, marriage, church, etc., too long? What effects did that have?” I have many times, and like Tree 103, I find I can’t hold up anymore.
Heartlifter, listen to Part 1 and then download Lore’s excellent study guide to The Understory. Its simplicity is its power.
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/a-fallen-giant-tree.
Wilbert, L. F. (2024). The Understory: An invitation to rootedness and resilience from the forest floor. Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Wilbert, L. F. (2024). The Understory: An invitation to rootedness and resilience from the forest floor. Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.