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Isaiah 50:4
The Lord God has given me
    the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
    the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
    wakens my ear
    to hear as those who are taught.

It’s maple syrup season once again, in these earliest days of spring. Every year I’m lucky enough to be able to go up to the family farm in Haliburton County, tap trees, and make syrup. I have help from a few relatives, and one of our unnamed rituals is to stand by the steaming evaporator and speculate about what’s going on with the trees this year:

“Good run yesterday afternoon – must have been just the right temperature.” “Last year we had that cold snap in April, remember?” “Pretty dry spring so far…that might affect how much sap we get.” “More sunlight should mean more sugar, so maybe the trees further in the bush…”

It’s fascinating to consider the science of the forest, but in the end we know very little about nature’s plan.  Each year is different, and each tree is different. All the action is hidden from human eyes, under hard earth and behind rough bark. The power that drips sap gently into the buckets is free to do what it will. The more experience I get, the more I realise what a crude and ignorant guest I am in the woods, with my hammer and drill in hand. All I know how to do is to make a hole, tap a spile, hang a bucket, and wait for whatever the woods have to offer.  

My grandfather, after seventy years of making syrup, knew the habits of the trees better than anyone I know. But even as he taught us grandchildren the method, he never claimed to be an expert. “The only experts,” he would joke, “are the people who have never done it.” 

“Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear, to hear as those who are taught.” The wisest thing anyone can do is to listen: morning by morning, year by year, generation by generation. The only way to be a teacher, says Isaiah, is to listen like a student. 

The best part of making maple syrup is not to taste the final product, but to stand in the woods, close your eyes, and hear the soft chorus of drips into the buckets around you. Perhaps one day I’ll teach my grandchildren how to tap a tree. More important though, will be to teach them how to stand still and listen to what the older, wiser voices of Nature have to say.

- Timothy Wisnicki

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