Recognizing and Understanding Our Filters

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Our Alabama home sits in a development on a four-acre lake/pond. I say lake/pond because were we in Minnesota (Land of Ten Thousand Lakes) or Alaska (its number is two million!), ours would unquestionably be a pond. Quite frankly, I prefer the image, character, and significance that the term lake conveys. The Infoplease web site offers this: “Both are small bodies of water, either natural or man-made, that are completely surrounded by land. The primary difference between the two is their size. Simply put, lakes are larger and ponds are smaller. However, there is no standardization of lake sizes.” Okay, that does it — if I call ours a lake, it’s a lake, period!

Consider that a sidebar. I’m delving into something of greater philosophical merit. Something that amounts to a nature-derived lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading. Simply, what we see depends on which filters we choose to employ. Years ago, as a young forester and nature enthusiast/purist, I am sure I would have looked at our so-called lake with disdain. A four-acre farm pond, its surrounding cotton, soybean, and corn fields now having sprouted homes on three-quarter-acre lots. A development blanketed with manicured Bermuda grass and no mature vegetation, the last of the two shore-side lots with homes now fully-structured and finishing being completed inside. Were the young idealist Steve visiting a water-front resident, he would have seen only the houses, and a pond absent nature. He would have wondered why anyone would want to live in such a domesticated setting. He would have found disgust in the sterility. He would have felt an absence of nature, an affront to his sense of the natural condition as sacrosanct. He would have seen the pond as merely a catchment basin for run-off from the high density of neighborhood impermeable surfaces: roof tops, driveways, streets, and likely compacted lawns.

My how we change — or should I say, “My how life changes us!” I’ve matured (some would say aged). The late Pope John XXIII’s motto is so apt: “See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.” Pope John also observed, “Men are like wine — some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.” I like to think that with respect to how I view a lake such as this, and so much of life, I have improved with age. I will elaborate.

Judy and I spend a lot of time on our patio. We are covered by a roof and open on three sides. We’ll tolerate most types of weather. We are higher than all of the surrounding land within our 270-degree field of view… to the east, south, and west. I see everything from our perch fifty feet above the water:

  • Sunrises; sunsets; changing skies; summer’s cumulus; winter’s stratus; starry nights
  • Rain approaching, falling, and departing
  • Night-time lightning flashing
  • Birds at the feeder; on the water; flying and feeding elsewhere nearby
  • Big Blue, our resident great blue heron, stalking and feeding
  • Wind patterns and reflections on the water
  • Vegetation bending and bowing in the breeze
  • Critters disturbing the water’s surface
  • Planes approaching over us inbound to the Huntsville Airport a dozen miles south; and with a northerly breeze, departing over us on their way northbound
  • Yes, I even see the houses and some of the neighbors coming and going, yet mostly, that is what I overlook.

I am convinced that Pope John did not limit his seeing to sight alone. When I urge my clients and others to look and see, I speak of seeing via all senses of experience: touch, smell, hear, and even taste. What else do we see from our patio?

  • Bird voices: killdeer, geese, ducks, kingfishers, night hawks, mourning doves, and even our heron croaking to a landing
  • Peepers and frogs
  • Warm breezes; chilling wind
  • Moisture at the dawn and dusk of day
  • Mists
  • The warming comfort of en evening wine or Scotch
  • A neighbor’s grill aroma
  • An occasional barking dog; nighttime coyotes in the distance
  • Distant traffic and sirens
  • Rain — from gentle dripping, to pounding downpours
  • Geese landing or taking flight in loud disturbance of the water
  • Voices
  • Children’s laughter
  • Summer lawn mowers; the fragrance of cut grass

The list goes on. I could choose to be disturbed by the man-made distractions, yet that is mostly what I elect to screen and overlook. Life is far too short to embrace irritation rather than accept the pleasant. I can partition our lake environment to a degree where it becomes my own Golden Pond, or Walden.

A related old idiom, not dissimilar to Pope John’s, cautions against not seeing the forest for the trees. I encourage my clients and readers to see the forest and the trees. A tree does not stand alone and isolated within the forest. The forest comprises a community of trees, other flora, and diverse fauna, from soil micro-organisms to the largest mammals and the tallest trees. Likewise, no enterprise or individuals stands alone. We are interconnected and interdependent. Great Blue Heron brings that knowledge and wisdom to everyone we touch, reminding all that we are part of a complex ecosystem.

Even our lake is not an isolated former farm pond. This evening as I appreciated (no, relished!) a late January sunset exhaust the day, I watched geese wheel in from their day’s marauding of nearly spent fields and other water bodies. Some groups landed on our lake; others chose alternative destinations and flew past. We observed flocks of ducks look down, and then reconsider; where they alighted we know not, nor could we speculate as to why they alighted elsewhere. Our lake is a node on the web of life that ebbs and flows around us. The same is true of our individual lives and the enterprises we lead.

I choose to see elements of current value to me during this period of my semi-retirement. I cherish this lake; it enriches my life. I devote far less attention to those facets that do not elevate and inspire. Interestingly, as I meet neighbors who occupy the lake-shore residences, I am dismayed by various reactions to what I see as a nearly sacred gem. I’ve heard some express deep concern that the lake attracts snakes, terrible and despicable denizens of this bit of nature. To them, all snakes near this body of water are moccasins, hell-bent on placing the residents in an early grave. Others tell us of their frustration that bullfrogs keep them awake at night. I can imagine no finer chorus! I am astounded that others do not share my enthusiasm for nature’s magic. I paid a little extra for this lakeside, ringside seat; every day, my investment returns tenfold! Pity those who see or discern no such dividend. Perhaps they view the houses and overlook the lake. What a shame. Small wonder we as a society do not share a compulsion to care for our common home. Pity those who do not embrace an Earth stewardship ethic.

Great Blue Heron, LLC urges every individual and all enterprises to see the invisible; so that together we might do the impossible. My life here in northern Alabama orbits this small lake, the node of a delicate and complex ecosystem. If only others understood and appreciated how life and living for all of us rest upon knowing our place, and accepting a set of obligations and responsibilities… from our hone-place to our home-planet. The future depends upon us — all 7.5 billion of us — knowing our place and accepting our obligation.

Where do you fit? How can you assist in assuring a brighter tomorrow — for you; for your enterprise; for society; for our one Earth?