When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”

First published in Openings: Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968)

On Saturday Sept. 9 we were part of a Southern Indiana Ohio River Sweep, a unified effort from Jeffersonville to New Albany to clean the river’s shores and woodlands of flood debris and litter. At Origin Park, we were grateful to work with a group of volunteer women from The Healing Place who are clients in a program for addiction recovery.

Life has offered plenty of wildness but not much peace to these women. They mostly come from places that are painful, harsh, and sad. They’ve lost so much. And despite all this – or maybe because of it? -- they are strong and determined. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone work that hard. It was their second time in the park – during June’s river sweep they literally dismantled and hauled an entire abandoned car out of the woods, and then asked what we needed them to do next. It seemed like the more we cleaned, the more energy they had.

I overheard one of them saying to a teammate that she hadn’t spent much time in the woods in her life and wasn’t so sure about it. “Girl, you're safe here in the woods,” said the other woman. “It’s out on the street you’re not.” It was obvious -- seeing how much happier they looked at the end of the day compared to how stressed they seemed when they got out of their van that morning -- that being among trees and water was calming and restorative for them. As is being out in nature, truly, for any of us. It is part of being human to feel calmed and reassured by, as Wendell Berry puts it, the peace of wild things. The Healing Place has a policy that no matter how many times a client fails at staying sober and returns once again, they’re welcomed back. Some never shake their demons; others do and go on to have healthy lives. The organization has served more than 5,000 people since its founding in 1989.

I thought about that: the faith it must take on everyone’s part to keep getting back up and going at it again, no matter what, in the belief that grit and persistence will win. I also thought about how that has a lot in common with caring for the land. Being a steward is about knowing that you’re part of something greater than yourself that was there before you and will be there long after you’re gone.

Stewardship calls for patience, trust, and belief in a purpose. It’s a process (not a product) of redemption, not perfection. The river floods will come back again with more debris. People will continue to carelessly litter and dump. And when they do, we’ll gather once more to haul tires, bag up trash, and make things right again, scars and all. We’ll do it no matter how many times it takes, because we have something to believe in and protect that is worth working hard for again and again. I learned a lot from those fine women that day about strength and resilience. I hope they were able to take some of the peace they found back to their daily lives. And I sure hope they’ll be back with us again.