‘The time is short and there is much work to be done'

Editor’s note: Last Sunday, a replica of Dr. Frederick Franck’s sculpture, “Seven Generations,” was dedicated in the Hallowed Ground Village Park at the corner of Galloway Road and Forester Avenue in Warwick. Here are the comments of Andrew McLaughlin, president of the Warwick Conservancy, made during the ceremony: It is becoming increasingly clear that we humans are making big mistakes in our relations with the rest of nature. And the pain of these mistakes will spread forward to those generations not yet here. We are creating a hotter and hotter world, and this is of great consequence for all life on this earth. We are now vigorously transforming the ecosystems of the earth and have made ourselves into one of the prime forces remaking nature. Unfortunately at the same time we are forgetting Aldo Leopold’s first rule of intelligent tinkering n if you start taking something apart and want to reassemble it, DON’T THROW AWAY ANY PIECES! But we are in the midst of a huge and escalating spasm of species extinctions. Over 15,000 known species face extinction - one in three amphibians, almost half of all freshwater turtles, one in eight birds and one in four mammals are known to be in jeopardy. And many other species will pass into extinction undiscovered and unnoticed and unnamed by us. One dimension of the problem is that we live within a culture which takes it as perfectly normal n indeed, rational n to approach every situation with the question “what’s in it for me?” as a guide to our conduct. When we approach the earth this way, the results are usually not beautiful to behold. But we can imagine an alternative. See in your mind’s eye an old man planting a nut in the ground. He knows he will never see, much less savor even one nut from that tree, as it will be many years before the tree matures and produces its crop. Yet once the tree begins to yield its fruit, it will continue feeding people and other critters for many, many years n indeed, for generations. What moves that old man to plant the seed of a nut tree? Part of the task which faces us in Warwick, in the United States, and in other communities around the globe is to recapture the wisdom and spirit which moves that man to plant nut trees. If we can arouse that wisdom in ourselves and pass it on to those yet to come, there is hope that humans can change profoundly their relations with the rest of nature. The Warwick Conservancy is one part of that effort. It was founded in 1998 as a land trust to help preserve at least some of what we love of our Town. Its first success was in preserving the Railroad Green, which has become a center of peace and beauty and celebration in the middle of our downtown. When I joined the Conservancy six years ago, its members were in the midst of a campaign to raise enough money to buy the land which has come to be known as the Hallowed Ground Park n this land where we stand today. This small but special place was slated for development into houses or commercial space. Had that happened, it would have changed forever one of the gateways into our Village. I was amazed that this small group of people had set themselves the daunting task of raising $175,000 to buy this land. Since I was a newbie, I kept quiet about what I really thought about this project and joined with the stuffing on envelopes and the rest of the nitty gritty of raising money. But silently I thought the project very unlikely to succeed. Happily I was wrong and we did it. Steady persistence led to many donations small and large, from young and old, and eventually we could move ahead with the purchase of this land, thus preserving it for as far into the future as we can see. But this success was not due to the Conservancy alone. What the Conservancy really did was to enable our Warwick community, along with help from friends outside our Town, to save this land. And now today we celebrate and welcome to this land Frederick Franck’s visionary sculpture n Seven Generations. This sculpture stands on an old cemetery next to an elementary school n making a visible bridge between those ancestors long gone and those young people just beginning on their path to becoming mature human beings. On this path, they will grapple with one of the profound questions Frederick wrote about: “what does it mean to be human.” Perhaps they will come here and be inspired by this sculpture to search deeper into the wisdom of the Iroquois and their answer to what being human means. Consider the words of a contemporary Iroquois elder, Oren Lyons: We [Iroquois] say that the faces of coming generations are looking up from the earth. So when you put your feet down, you put them down very carefully - because there are generations coming one after the other. If you think in these terms, then you’ll walk a lot more carefully, be more respectful of this earth (Oren Lyons 1995) This sculpture captures well their efforts to weigh their actions with an eye toward the generations yet to come. And so this sculpture may lead them to learn the right answer to Frederick’s question: “What does it mean to be human.” And then they may discover the deep joy of cultivating a keen reverence for life, for all life. Frederick’s work here and elsewhere reminds us that we need to think and act with eyes which see far into the future n far enough to preserve what is good and beautiful now ... and to strive to create a world fit for the flourishing of all life long, long after we are gone. The time is short and there is much work to be done. Thank you, Frederick, for being a model and an inspiration for us all n as we remember your exhortation to us n to be human against all odds.