A Natural State
Watching our kids go from childhood to adolescence is a remarkable experience. We think we know them so well when almost overnight they are strangers: uncommunicative, moody, sleeping ’til noon. And so we launch a search, a search for the key to reconnection.
I was searching this summer when I signed my 15-year-old son Rex and myself up to participate with 10 other volunteers in a fence pull through Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) - returning desert areas to their natural state by removing obsolete fencing in wild areas. I was hoping the notion of “savingâ€? wild animals from grisly barb wire fates would light a kind of hero spark in him, open communication between the two of us, and inspire this city kid to bond with the natural world and find his natural state.
And it worked. Rex felt great about saving wild animals (”girls will love thatâ€?), he chatted and teased with me, and I smiled when he pointed out beautiful vistas, wildflowers and landscapes.
But something else happened. I watched as Rex fell in with the other males in the group ” ages ranging from 27 to 75. Without much dialogue they gave him direction, praise, teased and joked ” took him under their collective wing. My heart swelled as I watched Rex become one of them, one of a group of men working together for a higher purpose. In this natural world, he had found his own natural state. On our last night together the men proposed a toast to Rex, and while he grinned sheepishly I had to struggle to keep from tearing up with gratitude and pride.
The reason any of us participate in volunteer efforts is to make the world a better place, which is a very good reason indeed. But what I was reminded of during the fence-pull was that the personal rewards we reap as a result can be immeasurable.
For more information about ONDA and their efforts to restore and protect the Oregon desert, check out this story, or their website.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 6th, 2006 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Environmental Change, Personal Reflection, Positive Change, Who We Are. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.