This weekend (Saturday) I am attending my 20 year high school class reunion. While I look forward to catching up with so many friends and classmates with whom I have lost touch over the years, I also savor the opportunity to look back fondly on the antics we pulled as well as the hopes and aspirations we each held as we prepared to venture into the wider world beyond our tiny town (There were only 81 students in my graduating class).
Before we left those hallowed halls, we shared our plans for life after graduation. Several of our classmates had already committed to military service while a number of us had plans to attend college. Education majors seemed to predominate among my friends, though some went off to study psychology or nursing or accounting, and one or two expressed interest in the legal or medical professions. One of my closer—and more unique— friends, however, Mitch, chose to study landscape architecture. I was surprised—fascinated really—to learn that there was an entire profession dedicated to the design and creation of landscaping.
As he advanced in his studies, Mitch would point out the way different types of trees, flowers and other vegetation could be brought together to complement one another in the setting of a park. Once, during my graduate studies in Chicago, Mitch had come to visit. Among the sights he wanted to see while in Chicago, he chose several parks (of which there is a great abundance in Chicago) and he told me the story of the man known as the “Father of Landscape Architecture”, Frederick Law Olmsted. This 19th century architect was responsible for the design of many famous parks including Central Park in New York City and Chicago’s Midway Plaisance, site of the 1893 World’s Fair.
I had not thought of Olmstead for many years until I was on vacation a couple weeks ago. While visiting friends in east Tennessee, we took a day trip to Asheville, North Carolina to visit the Basilica of St. Lawrence. While there, we decided to tour the famous Biltmore Estate. Olmstead’s name came up during the tour as the principal in charge of designing the gardens and forests of the estate. Though it is nestled into the forested Smokey Mountains, it is clear that the views from the large manor home were deliberately and painstakingly cultivated by Olmsted’s design. In his lifetime, Olmsted rarely saw the “finished” look of any of his numerous works, but he had the vision and perseverance to plant seeds and saplings in the right place so as to render a masterpiece to be enjoyed by generations to come. As disciples of Jesus, we are similarly called to sow the seeds of faith and to trust the Creator to bring about the effect he desires in generations to come.
-Fr. Joseph Totton