Almost a year and a half ago I posted a photo of The Grateful Tree a few blocks from my apartment. In the intervening months, time and the elements took their usual toll, and the little tree eventually looked like it would be grateful for a bit of sprucing up itself.
I walked the dog past there today, and was glad to see that the treelet has been given new life as The Grateful-Hopeful Tree. Passersby are now asked not only what we are grateful for today, but also what we are hopeful for tomorrow, and a small lamp has been installed, perhaps to help light the way toward that brighter future:
I’m cautiously pessimistic about the future myself, but nonetheless I applaud the tree’s new forward-thinking mindset. I’m reminded of what I heard an irreverent newspaper columnist say when he was told that all the masthead editors were away at a retreat: “A retreat? Never retreat; always advance. Avanti! Avanti!” Whether the future is bright or dim, it is indisputably our destination, so the wry columnists’s exhortation is pretty hard to argue with.
4 Comments