A year ago the campus grounds crew dug up a neglected ornamental garden plot and replanted it with hardy sustainable plants employees had brought in from their home gardens, and now we are seeing the results: Solomon's seal, ferns, hostas, and peonies ready to burst into bloom. I walk by every day to see what's new, and this morning that garden plot rewarded my patience with vivid pink columbine blossoms.
The thing is, nobody intended to plant columbines there. The groundskeeper believes the columbine seeds hitchhiked to campus in the soil of another plant from his home garden. So a whole bunch of people worked together to fill a gap on campus, and the effort produced unexpected dividends.
Today I saw this spirit in action at another campus event. We've suffered so many losses--budgets slashed, positions cut, valued employees moving on--but we don't have any formal ritual to help us recognize those losses and support one another through the pain, so a few creative colleagues got together and came up with Cookies and Caring. Employees were invited to spend casual time together being a supportive community. We sat and talked and shared plates of cookies; some wrote notes expressing gratitude while others did some therapeutic coloring. (A few of us kept breaking crayons. Maybe we're a little tense.)
And in the middle of it all, word came out that we've hired our new president. Most of us know very little about her but if I could speak to our new president today, here's what I'd tell her: We've suffered losses, endured storms, and struggled to know how to grow, but when we all come together to fill in the gaps, beautiful things can happen.
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