Olive Trees, Goslings, and Graduates

The cycles that keep going

May 12, 2026

(Possibly too long for email - so click/tap through for all the photos)

I've been reflecting about resilience this week - the kind that doesn't announce itself, but the kind that just quietly keeps going.

One of the two books I’m reading right now is called The Future is Peace by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. It is a recounting of their journey together through key places in the Holy Land as friends and as a Palestinian (Sarah) and an Israeli (Inon). It is an amazing read, but a hard read as well. A few days ago, there was this section from when they were at what is referred to in the Bible as The Mount of Olives. After talking about some of the history in that place over the last 2000 years, they write:

Today this ancient garden endures as a place of serenity and contemplation. Sunlight dances through narrow silvery-green leaves. Goldfinches and house sparrows dart from branch to branch, and the pealing of bells reverberates from the church below.
The fragrance of rosemary fills the air, and bees devote themselves to gathering nectar and pollen from the bright blue flowers. In spring, the trees are blanketed with clusters of white blossoms, followed by tiny green olives that mature into blackish purple-hued fruit in the fall. Century after century, the olive trees do what they have always done: produce fruit, no matter what human turmoil is playing out nearby. Empires have risen and fallen around this timeless place, the trees a living witness to the drama of history. Just as the hedges of prickly pear cactus keep watch over the demolished villages of Palestine, these olive trees will stand for centuries more, silent spectators to the choices we make. Nature’s calm perseverance in the face of ongoing human discord almost seems a rebuke. Having witnessed humanity’s past, what could these trees tell us about our future?
Because of its ability to regrow from rootstock, the olive tree is a powerful symbol of regeneration and resilience. A new beginning can sprout from an old and painful past, and no rupture is ever truly final. Like hope, life can spring from even the smallest seed. We were about to see this in Jerusalem, a city that has been conquered and reborn from one era to the next, time and time again.
As our third day in the Holy Land came to an end, we had dug deep into our pasts and shared parts of our story with each other for the first time. We had learned that friendship can’t endure without vulnerability. We had asked each other questions, cried together, and pledged to continue this learning journey, to examine our motivations and what brought us together.1

What I heard as I read this was resilience - specifically the resilience of nature that just keeps going no matter what we throw at it. Yes nature does get wounded, and sometimes irreparibly in extinctions and destruction, but nature seems to find ways to adapt even as it is scarred. The cycles and rhythms of nature keep enduring time and again.

I saw that same resilience in recent days at the lake where Scout and I have been walking. Looking back on these same days in past years in my journal, I see photos of new goslings and ducklings swimming around the lake in past years. And the last few days - ducklings and goslings galore. As I have seen the pairs of adult geese with their goslings and the mother ducks with their ducklings, I wondered whether any of them were some of those little ones I photographed in years past and here they are as new parents themselves? Regardless, the cycle is continuing.

And I’m experiencing that myself as later this week, two of our children will be graduating from college. It didn’t feel that long ago that we were walking those little ones to their first days of school as kindergarteners or their first days in middle school or as they walked on their high school graduation days. It also doesn’t feel that long ago that I was waiting for my graduation day to begin when I was in college. And now here I am. While there is a bit of “yikes” in all of this, it is far more just deep pride and admiration for their resilience and growth into the low-mileage adults they’ve become.

But I am hopeful and believing in them and so many others right now who are growing into a world vastly different from what I entered into after I graduated from college. But I am grateful for the wisdom of people like Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon as they bear witness to a new way of moving through this world, not as enemies but as peacemakers and friends together. I am grateful for the resilience of nature that shows us how to keep going. And I’m grateful for the celebrations that are ahead not only for my family but for so many others.

Here’s the new life around the lake the last few days (and full disclosure - there are a couple of heron pics that aren’t of babies but were just perfectly photographed moments that needed to be shared).