What an amazing read....
The Giving Fraternity
Congratulations to those graduating this year! You deserve to celebrate and reflect upon your achievements. I also invite you to understand that in regards to fraternity, it ain’t over. Not by a long shot.
The other night, my son Jack pulled Shel Silverstein’s
The Giving Tree off his shelf. In this tale, a young boy develops a relationship with a large tree, climbing her, playing in her branches, incorporating her into his imaginary stories, and simply resting beside her large trunk. The tree loved the little boy and the boy loved the tree.
As the boy grew, his use for his beloved tree changed. Life circumstances drew him away from the tree, which saddened her. She would wait anxiously for his return, and through the book, we see him come back to her at pivotal times in his life. As a young man, he tells the tree that he needs money. She tells him that she has no money, but he can harvest her apples and sell them, which he does. Later, he returns as a middle-aged man, and tells her that he wants a house. She has no house to give, but encourages him to take her branches to build a house. He does. He comes back to her as an older man, with a desire to go far away from home – to sail somewhere free from problems. She offers her trunk so that he may build a boat, and he takes it. What’s left of the tree is a stump, still firmly rooted in the ground.
Each step along the way, when the boy would return and request more and more from the tree, she was excited to give him what he needed. Each time the boy would take something, the book tells us: “and the tree was happy.”
Many more years pass, and the boy returns as a very old man. The tree is excited to see him, but tells him that she has nothing left to provide – no apples, no branches, and no trunk. All she is, she tells him, is just a stump. The man tells her that he is too old to need anything but a place to rest his weary bones. The tree tells him that a stump is good for resting, and encourages him to come rest on her. He does.
And the tree was happy.
Consider this story as you prepare to leave your undergraduate years....
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