Growing trees

By Colin Gibson in Articles

A forest in France, a church community in Dunedin

GROWING TREES

It was a very hot summer day, and I was taking a rest when he appeared at the head of the driveway I had been so painfully weeding. It was Old Maurice, our next-door neighbour in Normandy, France; the farmer who had sold the land and the decaying French farmhouse which my daughter Philippa and her family were now restoring, with my assistance. With Maurice came his even more ancient dog, Fidele, panting with the effort to keep up with his eighty-four year old master.

Maurice had no English and I had little French, but we had already met occasionally when he called to chat with Philippa and Desmond and check on progress on the building he had once owned himself. We had got on well, despite our language difficulties; you can do a lot with smiles and nods.

It was almost time for lunch-I had been expecting the usual call and had stopped to rest-but when I realized that Maurice had come to see me I knew there were more important things than midday lunch. After the usual polite 'bonjours' had been exchanged, Maurice indicated that he wanted me to come with him and see his 'foret' (forest). Puzzled, and wondering if I had really understood him, I stacked my tools, and followed him onto the road. I soon realized that we were heading towards his own nearby property.

The road, lined with shady trees, wandered on its country way, and we made small talk about the weather, and New Zealand, and my young family (who would no doubt be wondering where I had gone).

Maurice, smiling broadly, undid his farm gate and led me along a well-worn path. We stopped briefly for him to show me the now empty barn where he once kept the good Normandy apples he had harvested year after year, as well as the huge wooden presses which made the cider he used to send to the market in Avranche. Now he was too old for all that work, he told me, and his son (his only child) lived far away in Paris and visited his parents infrequently. Maurice had hoped that he would inherit the farm and become a farmer like himself, but that all seemed unlikely now.

We passed a long field where the previous crop of corn had been taken off, leaving it ploughed and ready for re-seeding. Then we reached the edge of the 'forest', pushed through the knee-high grass at its verge, and began to explore the plantings.

Most of the trees were well-aged, many of them almost ready for felling. They were set out in straight rows, block after block; he and his son had planted most of them, working together, Maurice told me proudly. They stood tall and leafy now: elms, aspens, oaks, sycamores, poplars, birches, but almost no pines. We identified them in French and then in English, and I congratulated him on their symmetry, their health and their number. For the forest spread out much further than I had guessed: there must have been hundreds of trees there. I asked Maurice what he intended to do with them. He explained carefully that he had planted them over the years for his son: they would be his inheritance. Would they be used for firewood or to make furniture, I asked. 'Je ne sais pas' (I don't know) said Maurice, 'ils sont la pour le future' (they are there for the years ahead). 'Ce sera pour mon fils a decider' (that will be for my son to decide).

At the heart of the forest there was a surprise. The old farmer led me down a slope to a broad pool of still water, exactly reflecting the trunks and foliage that sheltered and concealed it. The panting dog leapt in and paddled around vigorously, enjoying its coolness. Maurice quietly showed me to an old wooden bench at the edge of the pool; he came there, he said, after he had dammed the little stream that filled the pool, just to sit and watch the water. It was a good place to reflect on life and think about the world outside...so different from this peaceful scene. He came there often, he told me, especially after his son had left for Paris. We sat together for a while, enjoying the stillness, the silence, this small piece of paradise hidden away in the heart of Maurice's forest. Then it was time for me to return to my family, which I did after a glass of cider in Maurice's home and a conversation with his hospitable wife, who brought out some good freshly-baked bread and excellent Normandy cheese, both home-made.

I will always remember Maurice and his trees, planted not for himself but for his son. And I sometimes think I found there a parable about the church: in my case the beloved Mornington Methodist community which is the communion of saints for me. At its heart a quiet mystery, a peaceful inner place like Maurice's pool, where it is good to think calmly about life and death and the busy world. A place so essential to steadiness of mind and peace of heart that, like old Maurice, I have been moved to share it with others, even with someone from half a world away. A place of natural beauty and quiet growth and stored-up value, left as an inheritance for future generations, placed in their hands for them to decide on its usefulness and its value for their lives. For me the planting, for them the harvest.

-- Colin Gibson

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish Weekly Bulletin, December 12, 2010.