On October 23, New York Times reporter Rory Smith reported on a 10-year science experiment happening on a little piece of land curling out from the southwest coast of England. There, the Steart Marshes of Sommerset, are yielding exciting results.
Ten years ago an environmental trust group and the British government got together to come up with a plan for a low laying area of farmland. Famers were paid £5,000 per acre to surrender their land back to flooding by agreeing to abandon traditional methods to prevent flooding. “The idea was to turn what had been farmland into salt marsh, an ancient ecosystem that soaks up water as the tide comes in and releases it as the sea retreats.”
The results are catching attention. In one of the England’s wettest years on recent record, a nearby town was completely spared. The restored marshes act as a giant sponge, absorbing the rising waters and gently releasing them as the waters receded. But the natural flood defense hasn’t been the only benefit. There’s been a thrilling return of biodiversity including bird populations which have been absent to the area for some time. The other exciting result has been the growth of more marsh – the marsh has grown vertically sequestering carbon at a rapid rate.
I first heard this story on the New York Times podcast Headlines. At the conclusion Smith offered a beautiful summary of what’s happened: “It can be more effective to surrender to nature, to let the land be what it wants to be, than try to resist.”
The exciting discovery of the Steart Marshes is in some sense conventional wisdom for agrarian enthusiasts like Joel Salatin who has been railing against the farm bill for years and suggesting that the problem with our food system is that we won’t let nature be nature as is argued in his The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs. Salatin’s ethics are grounded in his Christian metaphysic, and while you might not agree with his logic even if you like his outcome, it’s hard to deny that this kind of observation in nature suggests something potent for our anthropology. That is to say, the Steart Marshes project doesn’t just imply something for our environmental ethics, but also for us as humans whose origins are hinted at etymologically i.e. humans whose Latin root hūmānus is thought to be a combination of the words homo, meaning “man”, and humus, meaning “earth.”
In what sense can humans be subjects of congruence? I have recently found myself remarking in several different conversations that one of the people I admire most in my life is an AA enthusiast who has been sober for 18+ years. His sobriety is not his most important identity, but it is certainly a substantive part of his constituency. He is also a father, husband, musician to name a few. I cite his sobriety though because it strikes me that for him and others I know, the philosophy to some extent and certainly the community of AA seem to be the most substantial piece of worldview formation in their lives.
I find my AA friend consistently articulating one basic desire, that is to be one who accepts. Acceptance. Accept joy. Accept disappointment. Accept responsibility. Accept challenge. Accept grace. Accept forgiveness. The list goes on, but in one way or another, his wisdom-and what emanates off of him feels like wisdom to me-is a constant desire to trust the higher power (which he calls God) and accept. I often think that this is the flip side of the coin of the 2nd noble truth of Buddhism; craving causes suffering. Or more colloquially the adage that expectations are prepaid resentments.
Another way to describe my AA friend is that he approaches the world open-heartedly, open-mindedly, and he brings with him the capacious imagination that allows for the possibility that what’s in front of him might be in fact what God has in front of him and that misery is wishing, pretending, or fighting for reality to be other than what it is.
I recently heard similar wisdom from another rock and roll star. Near the end of an enthralling two part podcast Brené Brown asked internationally renowned U2 front man Bono about the title of his 2024 biography Surrender.
Brené Brown: Here’s my question. Is surrendering for you, the title of the book, about this reconciliation within yourself? Because when I think of surrender, I think of War, I think of the song from the War album, “If I want to live, I’ve got to die myself someday.” This is not a far leap from what Richard Rohr is talking about here.
Bono: Yes. It’s important I think to say that surrender does not always have to follow defeat.
Brené Brown: No, yeah.
Bono: And for me who was born with my fists up, metaphorically speaking, and sometimes actually, it’s a word I don’t fully grasp and haven’t even fathomed the depths of. For me, it does not come easy, I’m not a natural for this to surrender to my maker, to surrender to my band mates, and to surrender to my wife, my partner, is a daily challenge to me. I’m not that person. This book I’ve written for, as in that sense it’s a prayer for where I need to be and I have to put down my fists and stop fighting with my father, stop fighting with myself, stop fighting with imaginary foes, and it’s a daily struggle for me because I like a row, I do.
This work of accepting life on its own terms is difficult. But I suspect that like the Steart Marshes, doing so will yield something desirable in us. Something, like peace.