Brother Ansgar's Woods

[This article is from Fr. Eric Hollas’ September 7th post in his weekly blog, A Monk’s Chronicle]

Most funerals at Saint John’s Abbey end with the same ritual. We monks process two by two from the monastery to the cemetery. Gathered around the grave, the abbot leads us in prayer; in silence the body is lowered into the grave; we sing a hauntingly beautiful Latin hymn called the Ultima; and in a final gesture of goodbye we drop handfuls of soil onto the casket. Then we drift back to the monastery in twos and threes and fours.

Normally the chatter on the way back is about nothing in particular. But for Brother Ansgar’s burial in 1981 it was different. I walked back with Abbot Jerome, and I distinctly recall that we talked about something very specific. We talked about trees.

Brother Ansgar was not an academic. He never went to college. He never gave a formal lecture or taught a class or published a book or said a Mass. All the same, or perhaps because of it, he was a rare bird in our community. He planted trees.

In his book The Nature of Saint John’s, author and Saint John’s alumnus Larry Haeg writes about Brother Ansgar’s work as a forester. In the early 1920s he raised some 14,000 seedlings of white pine, white spruce and Douglas fir; and in 1926-27 he led in planting them in bare spots throughout the forest. Of course he didn’t stop there, and until late in life he added to those plantings. No one really knows how many trees he planted, but “an awful lot” is a pretty accurate tally.

In a recent essay journalist John Allen recounts the old saw that “there’s no limit to the good someone can do if they don’t care about getting the credit.” In a coda he adds a personal comment that is very good advice, unless of course you crave the limelight. “It takes a special kind of courage — one might almost call it faith — to plug away, year after year, without really caring if someone ever applauds you for it.”

I suspect that Brother Ansgar never got a formal retirement dinner, nor did he get an engraved watch to commemorate decades of service. Had someone labeled his work “courageous” he would have blanched. Had someone called it “faithful” he likely would have blushed. But of one thing I am sure. In the nearly hundred years since he began planting trees his work has touched the life of everyone who has ever been on our campus. One might even say that he helped to define the character of our landscape.

Since Brother Ansgar planted his first pine tree seedling, the abbey archivists have carted off to the files bales of sermon and lecture transcripts as well as tons of minutes of countless meetings. Ironically, it’s not them but rather Brother Ansgar’s trees that we see today. For decades of plugging away he needed no plaque or medal. The woods are epitaph enough for a life quietly and faithfully lived.

I suspect that life itself was the reward that Brother Ansgar enjoyed most. And as for us, we get to enjoy the legacy of Brother Ansgar’s woods.

Fr. Eric’s reflection on Br. Ansgar’s lifelong dedication to planting conifers is well-timed as we recently brought in a large load of pine from the Arboretum to begin crafting coffins.  These pine coffins will eventually be used by the monastic community (as seen in the photos above) and have more recently become available to neighbors, family and friends who wish to purchase a pine coffin that comes from our forest and is crafted in our shop.  We will be writing more about this ministry in the near future, but if you are interested in more information, here is the link to our funerary page.

Apart from building coffins, this time of pandemic has given our shop the opportunity to continue work on longer term projects such a desks for the dormitories and bible cabinets for a number of universities and museums. It has also presented some more time-sensitive projects for the return of students during this time of COVID 19. One such project was to create durable boards for Bean Bag Toss so as to get the students recreating outside. It seems that others are also looking to spend time outside as we made a few runs of both rocking and stationary Adirondack chairs.

In our last blog, we offered the opportunity to order one of our Plateaus. Due to high demand, we are in the midst of crafting another batch. These Plateaus will be available in Red Oak, White Oak, Elm, and Cherry. If you would like to order a Plateau, follow the link below.

Abbey WoodworkingSaint John's Abbey Woodworking