Roots and Buds

There's a television series on PBS that I've found lately called Finding Your Roots. It is quite amazing to see how possible it is today to look into old records and examine DNA samples to find our connections, even hundreds of years back. I have a friend who's given up the better part of her retirement to such research and documentation for her children and for the fun of it. More power to her. I've considered going down that path myself and must admit some fascination with the idea, but in the end I've dissuaded myself with the argument, Does it really matter? Outside of small doses of bragging points to bring up in conversations the subject is so exhaustive it seems to me like setting out to eat a ton of cookies because a few taste so good. No matter where one root leads, it is, after all, only one root. Think of the ones I'd not trace!

Think again of the new buds coming out on my tree's branches and the ones that lie dormant, awaiting birth. How many of these! Someday they, too, will be classified as "roots." And then there are dead ends where families lose their name because no male heir is there to carry it on. No, the fascination of all this is undeniable, but does not compel me to spend my remaining years sifting the sands of generations past.

There is, however, another research that I find compelling. It is the delving into questions such as: What am I? Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And not only the "I" of me but also the "I" of all mankind. Sometimes I think I've picked a more difficult quest in this than the tracing of my ancestry. Still, the answers, I feel, are more accessible in the ether than in the musty halls of statistical records. I believe the answers to every question lie within us as surely as the roots and buds of a tree. But they are accessible only by looking outside the tree, outside ourselves. Connection with Truth should be as natural as breath but the curiosity to explore Truth is a more calculated effort.

I love the family stories I know and have learned first hand. I'm working on getting them down on paper for my children, but these are enough for me. Like the one great grandparent I knew in person when I was between five and ten. He was real to me and I was not, like some of the cousins, content to let him sit in his rocker and smoke White Owl cigars while looking out over the room with blue eyes that spoke but did not see. I had to talk to him, hear stories from him of his own childhood, know how he came to this country as a boy and grew up to own a team of oxen that broke ground for new settlers and carried heavy loads of supplies from the Mississippi River towns to the tiny towns of southeastern Minnesota. How he slept under his wagon on those long treks. And now that I tell of this I realize how very little I really knew him, how much more I could learn of his life and wisdom if I had known him better. How did he meet Great Grandma Pulford? What was there about her that attracted him?

Great Grandpa Thomas Pulford was only one of four great grandfathers. There were four great grandmothers too. Can't you see how books could be written of all of them?

In their little beds lie five great grandchildren of mine. Life is so rich and full when you're a child you hardly have time to be interested in great grandies except for hugs and kisses and maybe a treat or two. On my family tree there is plenty of fruit to enjoy for today. The roots are there and they did their part. The buds are already here and on the way. They will do their part. But I am content to let the roots stay underground in restful contemplation and the buds not yet burst to gather up their dreams until their days of awaking. As for me, today is enough. My favorite author, Mary Baker Eddy put it best.

 "To those leaning on the sustaining Infinite, today is big with blessings."
                                                                                                                                (Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures)