Wholeness and Jack Pines

The educator Parker Palmer writes, “Wholeness doesn’t mean perfection: It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.” When Palmer speaks of wholeness, he doesn’t mean a perfectly functioning body, or even a worldview where all the pieces fit together. What he has in mind is closer to the idea of integrity. He uses Douglas Wood’s meditation on a jack pine to illustrate:

Jack pines . . . are not lumber trees [and they] won’t win many beauty contests either. But to me this valiant old tree, solitary on its own rocky point, is as beautiful as a living thing can…