The Forest vs. the Trees
Sermon by Emily Burr
November 26, 2000
It is all a matter of perspective. That is what Elizabeth Tarbox, who wrote the Words for Reflection, was saying. She uses the metaphor of a kaleidoscope to describe how the incomprehensible complexities of life are part of a pattern that might seem more sensible if only we could get a large enough perspective. When someone admonishes, "Don't lose the forest for the trees," they are warning you about losing perspective, getting lost in the details. What about losing the trees for the forest? Are there times when we should be warned of losing perspective from that direction as well? I think so.
When I was in high school, a science or math teacher showed our class a film about the powers of ten. Remember scientific notation? 6.02 X 1023? 1.5 X 10-11? What does 1023 or 10-11 mean anyway? The film was trying to give meaning to the concept of multiplying or dividing by many factors of ten. I'm not sure how many of us had a firm grasp of what 1023 was after the film was over but the images presented in the movie to illustrate the vast differences in scale have stayed with me over many years.
The film starts with an idyllic scene of a couple having a picnic in the middle of a field. The first camera shot is from the perspective of someone hovering about five feet above the couple's heads. Every few seconds the area viewed is narrowed by a factor of ten. From your first view of the couple, you zoom in to one person's hand and then about a square centimeter of that hand. This process continues through the cellular level all the way down to the atomic level where electrons are zipping around a nucleus. The atomic level is fascinating but seems to have little relationship to the couple enjoying a picnic. Once the filmmaker has taken you as far as science can give meaning to the miniscule, you are zoomed back rapidly to the couple on the picnic blanket.
From the same starting point just above the couple's heads, the view is next expanded by factors of ten. You are taken on a journey of widening perspective from the picnic field to the town to the continent. Soon you are looking at the earth as if from a spaceship and then the earth becomes a speck in the solar system, which gets lost in our galaxy. Finally our galaxy becomes one of billions of galaxies. The intergalactic level is as fascinating as the atomic level and seems to have as little relationship to the two people on the picnic blanket as did the atomic level. After exposing you to the mind-boggling view of the whole known universe, the filmmaker takes you quickly back to the original perspective of the two people in the park.
The images from this movie help me understand what is important about perspective and how understanding and meaning are connected to how wide or narrow a viewpoint we chose to use to view the world. I have always been interested in thinking about the world in terms of the two endpoints of this film's journey. I've studied both atomic physics and astronomy. It is important to me that I have some understanding and awareness of both the miniscule and the humongous but the information available when one focuses on such an extreme perspective isn't particularly useful in a practical way. What does it mean that I am made of atoms that are mostly nothing? What does it mean that the light from the star I saw last night was really shining eons before I was born? That information is all very interesting but it won't help me decide what to fix for dinner tonight, what to get my mother for Christmas, or what to do with the rest of my life.
As fascinating as it is to contemplate those extreme perspectives of our cosmos, it is comforting to come back to a scale that makes sense to us. I understand the image of two people having a picnic. That image has meaning for me in a way that atoms and galaxies do not. The world we function in on a daily basis deals with the views that are just a few powers of ten larger or smaller than the original view of the picnickers. That is the perspective that has meaning for us. If we zoom in too close or zoom away too far, it is still our universe but we lose the information that we need to function on a day-to-day basis.
The admonition not to lose the forest for the trees is not only about perspective. It is also about meaning. People are concerned about losing perspective because they want their lives to have meaning. How wide or narrow a viewpoint we chose to frame our world in has a great deal to do with how we make sense of and bring meaning to the world we live in. When we lose our perspective our world becomes less meaningful. It is difficult to make sense of the world or have meaning in our lives when we end up operating with too narrow or too wide a perspective.
Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of losing sight of the forest, or wider view, because the trees of day-to-day details become our focus. Especially at his time of year, during the holidays, it is good to keep in mind the meaning of the holidays. What is behind all our mental or written "to-do" lists. What is it we are really hoping the holidays will mean for us?
There are also times when our view can become too large and we need to be reminded not to lose the trees for the forest. When my view encompasses too many powers of ten, I can feel overwhelmed and hopeless because I experience myself as being too small or powerless to solve the really big problems of my life or the world.
I am trying to learn to "keep things in perspective" as the saying goes. I am trying to find a balance. I have a great deal of experience with zoom lenses that can take me too far to one side or the other of the most meaningful point of view.
Recently I found myself attempting not to lose the forest for the trees. This year, in my family, the role of Thanksgiving hostess was passed on to the next generation. I got to have Thanksgiving at my apartment. Granted it was not the usual 15-20+ people who have gathered at my mother's house in some years, but even Thanksgiving for eight had me in somewhat of a tizzy. I had lists here, there and everywhere; a list of the people who were coming, lists of groceries, lists of errands, lists of cleaning chores to be done. At least I didn't get to the point of making a list of my lists! Most of these lists were reasonable but one had the definite possibility of growing into so many trees that the forest would disappear. That was the list of cleaning chores to be done. I kept seeing thing to add to it: fingerprints on the cabinets and banister, smudges on the windows, cobwebs in the corners, dust on the bookshelves etc., etc., etc. As the list grew in my mind, I knew that I would have to let go of some of it.
The alternative would have been to ruin my daughter's Thanksgiving vacation and/or stay up half the night until my apartment had reached some particular level of cleanliness that I thought was necessary to be acceptable to my mother. Maybe because I've been thinking about perspective and balance or maybe because I'm mellowing a bit as I approach the half-century mark, I didn't get frenetic about getting everything done. I had the sense to take a step back and regain the forest. It was more important that I continue a good relationship with my daughter and be reasonably rested so I could enjoy the company and conversation on Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving has more meaning when connections are remade and deepened with family and friends than it does if you focus on having an immaculately clean house. I stopped adding things to the cleaning list and went to bed at a reasonable hour. You know what? I don't think my mother even noticed that I hadn't washed the windows or gotten the fingerprints off the banister, or if she did it didn't seem to bother her and I didn't let it bother me either. I had successfully kept a perspective that allowed me to truly enjoy hosting Thanksgiving for eight people, including my mother. In this case it was definitely worth not losing the forest for the trees.
Now, what about losing the trees for the forest. We are all familiar with getting bogged down in details, but it is also possible to get lost in too wide a view. When this happens, we feel very small and the problems look huge. Within the last year, I saw a picture of a child who was literally skin and bones. I don't even remember whether I saw the picture in the newspaper, or in a magazine or on television. This child looked about ten years old and it was hard to believe that anyone could be alive who was that thin. I had a difficult time getting the image of the child out of my mind. I felt so helpless. How could the world be such an unfair place that this child was starving through no fault of her own? What about all the children and people in all the war torn or politically oppressed areas of the world? For weeks this child's image would pop into my head and I would feel helpless and depressed again. I'm not saying we should shut our eyes to the suffering of people around the world. It is important information, but it needs to be kept in perspective. I wasn't doing that child or any other starving or oppressed child any good by spending my mental energies dwelling on that image or on thoughts of how messed up our world is. The meaningfulness of my life was getting lost when I worried that nothing I could do could ever make the world right. I was losing the trees for the forest.
We can also get too wide a view when a significant change occurs in our life. Most of us have experienced the end of some type of relationship where it felt like the unhappiness, dissatisfaction or lack of direction and meaning would continue forever. Whether it is the end of a long-term relationship, retirement at the end of a career, a divorce or death that ends a marriage, the loss of a long-term job, the last child leaving home or other major life transition the view of "always" or "never" can be too wide a perspective. A person can feel overwhelmed and life's meaning can become a little shaky. You can lose sight of the beauty of an individual tree if you are overwhelmed by forest-sized problems.
Finding a balanced perspective is often easier said than done. How can we keep the "proper perspective"? Why do we lose our perspective to begin with? I think it is the improper impingement of time. What do I mean by that?
Getting lost in the details and worrying about them to the point of losing the forest is sometimes a result of our past being carried forward into our present. Sometimes when we worry about long lists of "to-be-done"s they have been brought into our present by our past experiences of believing we should do this and this and this and this. If we don't get it all done then we are somehow falling short of the expectations that arise from somewhere back in our past.
On the other hand, getting overwhelmed by the big picture is often a function of being lost in the future. But what if it neverÉ or What if it alwaysÉ When we are feeling depressed or overwhelmed we are worrying about how things might or might not be sometime in the future.
To regain perspective, it is helpful to come back to the present, back to a point of view that helps us makes sense and has a better chance of keeping meaning in our lives. I am currently taking a class at Andover Newton in Church Administration. Guess what? It was not an elective!!! I expected the class to be full of talk of record keeping, policy and procedures etc. It is, but once again the seminary I chose surprised me. We have talked about the theology of administration as well as the record keeping. The professor, who has been a minister for over 25 years, gave us an excellent piece of advice. He said that when the details and frustrations of the job become overwhelming one question that it is helpful to ask is "What is the best use of my time, right now?" I have used that question recently when I seem to be losing my perspective. The question brings me back to the present and helps put me in a place where I can get a more balanced view.
When I get too narrow a perspective and get frenetic because I have so much to do, asking myself "What is the best use of my time, right now?" brings me back to the present. It has the effect of broadening my view to include at least a grove, if not the whole forest.
When I feel to small and overwhelmed because I know I can't possibly feed all the starving children or stop the fighting and killing in the Middle East, or fix all the other problems in the world that are even beyond my comprehension, asking myself "What is the best use of my time, right now?" helps bring me back to the present and helps me focus on what I can do rather than what I can't.
Details are important. Without them nothing can ever be accomplished. Visions of the big picture are essential. Without them we don't know where we're headed. There are some people who are masters at details. There are some who are experts of "the vision thing." The majority of people are somewhat proficient in both but masters of neither. We can all benefit from keeping the balanced perspective that gives us the view that makes sense of the present.
The search for a balanced perspective is really part of the search for truth and meaning. A minister once pointed out to me that our seven principles span a certain range. The first starts with the inherent worth and dignity of each individual and they encompass an ever widening scope until, by the seventh, we have reached the web of all existence. The one smack dab in the middle is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
What is most important is that we find a way to balance all the various perspectives that are available to us. We need to have the skill of the filmmaker I talked about earlier. Even if we live in the kaleidoscope world described by Tarbox, where we can't make sense of the ultimate pattern, we can at least find truth and meaning in our own piece of the kaleidoscopic picture. We need to be able to have knowledge and awareness of the extreme perspectives yet be able to come back to a point of view that makes the most sense for functioning in our everyday world. Asking "What is the best use of my time, right now?" is a tool we can use to help us keep both the forest and the trees in view at the same time. If we can do that successfully, we will be able to be who we are and do more of what we want to do.
Copyright © 2000 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
