Borrowed Keeper of Someone Else’s Land
Borrowed Keeper of Someone Else’s Land
This phrase popped into my head right before falling asleep one night. I don’t know the source of it, the origin of my thoughts, or where the train of my musings were headed, just that this held enough importance that I jotted it down.
First, to explore the initial part of the phrase: borrowed keeper. If I’m the keeper, I’m not the actual keeper, but a keeper from somewhere else. Do I keep something else, somewhere else? Is the keeper me? To borrow something is to imply giving it back — a temporary loan. So the keeper is on loan to us temporarily.
A keeper can mean a caretaker. It can also mean someone who is worthy to have stick around — he’s a keeper. But a zoo has a keeper, too.
To keep something means to not give it back, so a borrowed keep? Is that an oxymoron? Or does that mean the person taking care of something is only doing it for a short time, and will go back to doing whatever they do — caring for something else — when they are done? When is their borrowed time finished? When do they leave? Who decides this?
Let’s look at what they are keeping: of someone else’s land. So we are borrowing another caretaker to care for yet another person’s land. Not our keeper, not our land. Who’s land is it? Why do we care? Why do we have an investment in this land, if it’s not ours, and if we aren’t the keeper? Or if we are the keeper — if we are borrowed — are we paid, or why do we stick around caring for someone else’s land?
Where is the person who owns the land? Why aren’t they caring for it themselves? Did they send us to do it? Did the landowners borrow the keeper to care for the land because they care for the land, but can’t be there to do it themselves?
Perhaps, then, this is an acknowledgment that, though we live on this earth and are made of this earth, we are not permanently on this earth. We are borrowed for a short time only. And because the Creator, the Life Force, the spark behind the science, whatever you want to call your higher power or God, is the maker and owner of all that is around us — we are not the owners — and because we want to leave this land for our next generations — it is in our hands and minds to care for and keep this earth as best we can so that it lasts and remains diverse and beautiful.
We all are the borrowed keepers of someone else’s land.
It’s about time we started caring…and acting like it.
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Thanks for reading.
Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold
June 5, 2022
