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LOOKING FOR THE FOREST IN THE TREES
First Words by Jessamyn Schnackenberg - July4, 2010

A piece of a man had broken off in a road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
As he stooped to pick up another piece he came apart at the waist.
His bottom half was still standing. He walked over on his elbows and grabbed the seat of his pants and said, legs go home.
But as they were going along his head fell off. His head yelled, legs stop.
And then one of his knees came apart. But meanwhile his heart had dropped out of his trunk.
As his head screamed, legs turn around, his tongue fell out.
Oh my God, he thought, I'll never get home.

This poem, by Russell Edson, to me, today, is a good metaphor for how I feel, how maybe we all can feel, when we approach the challenges offered us by stewardship for our earth and for each other. It's as though the world keeps coming apart all over the place, no matter how gently we try to walk. And coordinating all the pieces to make the beautiful, capable body we all hope is still here somehow, seems impossible. It's that fragmentation that makes tackling even the smallest problems seem so daunting, so impossible. Like we'll never get home.

And then it's a matter of becoming used to a way of experiencing things, a way of thinking. You grow up in an unhappy family-all families are unhappy. You live a fragmented life-all life is fragmented, nothing is connected. It's harder to feel responsible to the things around us if we experience them as "other" than ourselves, whether the "other" is another person, or the earth. So nature, our environment, the universe-it becomes something "out there," something to get back to-that compelling metaphor, "going home." And maybe because it's harder to think that we're already home, because it's harder to make a home than to look for one, we look only in one direction.

And then we miss the big picture. It's like that saying, we can't see the forest for the trees.

But that's what we should be doing-seeing the forest in every tree, God in every person. Our interconnectedness is real. We are one body. And if we could see everything and everyone as a wholeness first, we could open ourselves to the infinite game of the universe.

I recently reread James Carse's Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life As Play and Possibility, in which he argues that there are two kinds of games, finite and infinite. Human beings invent finite games-games played to win, players that play within boundaries, rules externally defined. Life invents infinite games-games played for the sole purpose of continuing to play, and of keeping everyone in play, players that play with boundaries, games internally defined.

Western culture is adept at turning infinite games into finite games. We turn the infinite game of learning to the finite games of schooling, testing, degree-achieving. Vocation into job hunts, interviews, tenure reviews, corporate ladders. Humanity gets bound up in the finite games of society-race, gender, status. Nature into games played for profit by production and consumption.

With so many finite games being played at once, it's no wonder we lose sight of what our finite play is taking away from our infinite possibilities.

In a culture that asks us to tie our identities and our livings-funny choice of words-to our participation and our scores in these games, it can become convincing to feel that they are the only game in town.

It can become a commonplace that for us to "win," others have to "lose." As if every game were zero-sum. Even the most progressive player can fall into the trap of seeing only two sides in a game-the home team and the opponents. Either/or, instead of both/and. Us/them, instead of, you know, us. And then, once again, we're missing the forest for the trees.

Meister Eckhart says, "Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to approach the game as a beginner. Connecting the trees, and looking for the forest to emerge. Like a giant dot-to-dot. I'm trying to play the infinite game.

Finite games can seem reassuringly simple, because the end is proscribed. There is no surprise. It's why we often play with so much anxiety-there's always the chance that we'll lose.

In an infinite game, there's no knowing what might happen next. This can be disconcerting, too, because you never know what position you'll be called upon to play. But according to Carse, it's a defining feature of an infinite game that play ceases if surprise is not possible. But the surprise is also the pleasure. And it seems to me that the possibility of surprise, well, isn't that what hope is?

Paul Hawken spoke about sustainability and infinite games at the 2006 Bioneers Coference. He said:

What stands before us, I think, is a gift of self-perception, the gift of seeing who we really are. We will either come together as one globalized people or we will disappear as a civilization. [. . .] We become human by helping and working with others, and buried in [our] genes literally is faith and love. What it takes to arrest our descent into chaos is one person after another remembering who they are, where they are, and joining together to save and restore life on Earth."

Maybe saving the earth doesn't begin with hugging a tree, or even planting one. Maybe it begins by recognizing the forest. When we can see our connectedness, we can finally choose to play in ways that not only keep these connections alive-that sustain life-but that make these choices equally available to everyone. We can bring everyone into play, we can move beyond the finite to the infinite.

Call it God. Life. Hope.

But that forest. Those trees. Think of the possibilities.

 

Edson, Russell, The Tunnel: Selected Poems. (Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College Press, 1994).
Carse, James P., Finite and Infinite Games. (New York, New York: Ballantine, 1986).
Hawken, Paul, "Biology, Resistance and Restoration: Sustainability as an Infinite Game," Living Green Magazine, (http://www.livinggreenmag.com).