This is the first part of an article that just appeared in Issue #25, Spring/Summer 2010 of Terrain.org: The Journal of the Built & Natural Environments. I've been working on this article in one form or another for about four years, so I'm excited about finally finishing it and getting it published.

Moving toward democratic sustainability has less to do with technology than a massive change in human consciousness, one that encourages systems thinking and transforms the relations of people to each other and to natural world. Nonetheless, tools are necessary to facilitate this task, and the rise of the Internet and digital technology has provided us with new and potent means to do so. As Hawken observes, “There have always been networks of powerful people, but until recently it has never been possible for the entire world to be connected.” Even as we acknowledge the “other side” of the Internet—its potential to splinter thought and concentration, take time away from reflection, and exacerbate a growing nature-deficit-disorder among youth—its unprecedented ability to construct global movements beckons.

Community is the essential concept underpinning sustainability. Whether an ecosystem or social system, the dynamics of interconnectedness and interdependence are what make growth and health possible. In medieval society, the cathedral embodied this understanding of what was known at the time as the “Great Chain of Being.” An awe-inspiring structure, the cathedral by its physical presence affirmed the vertical hierarchy that held medieval society together, and its construction gave individuals in the community a clear and compelling sense of their place in the world and the links that bound them to each other. “Building a cathedral,” says Robert Scott in The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral, “entailed an ongoing, difficult, yet energizing form of collective enterprise in which people could take enormous pride and around which they could rally a community.”

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Just six weeks ago, Dad drove up to Maine to celebrate my brother George’s birthday. George offered to come down and get him, and his business partner and close friend Phil Shuman offered to drive him up. Dad was not in good health, but he insisted that the only way he was going to Maine was if he could get there on his own. So he set off in his trusty BMW, with Chilli his loyal cocker spaniel at his side, heading north. It took him something like seven hours to get there, he said later, in part because he wasn’t feeling well and in part because Chilli had important business to conduct on the way.

The drive back to Suffield a few days later was altogether different. Perhaps revved up by the birthday celebration and time with his family, he set his cruise control at 78 mph and got home in four and a half hours. To this day we’re not really sure who was actually driving that car, and I’m not sure Dad ever really knew either.Two things we do know for sure, however: first, there were no bathroom breaks for poor old Chilli; and second, Dad had done it his way once again.

Just a few days later, Dad was in the hospital fighting for his life. He was in tremendous pain, suffering from an infection of his esophagus and unable to swallow any food. Even then he did not lose his sense of humor. For a few days he shared the room with an elderly gentleman who was suffering from dementia and would call out from time to time, reliving some incident from his past. At one point, suddenly sitting upright, he shouted, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dad couldn’t resist and responded in as loud a voice as he could muster, "Giddy up, giddy up!" Even as I was trying hard to stifle my laughter, I thought what a perfect expression of my father’s personality this moment captured. Throughout his life, people had told him to slow down, trim his sails, don’t dream so big, and he would have none of it. Instead, with a "giddy up" or two, he would simply forge ahead.

One of the great truths is that we die the way we live. The courage and determination that Dad displayed in the last days of his life was simply an extension of how he had always lived. At 18 years old, he rescued a couple who had fallen through the ice. Afterwards he said nothing about the incident to his mother, who scolded him for coming home soaking wet on such a cold day.

Only when the husband and wife, grateful that Dad had saved their lives, went to the local newspaper did the story become public. "At no time during the proceedings did he show any indications of losing his head or becoming excited," the couple told the reporter. "‘Just hang on; don’t get flustered; I’ll get you out,’ he kept repeating reassuringly to them.’"

Dad was just as stoic and courageous during his last few years when he fought for his own life. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma just two days before my stepmother Ruth passed away, he never gave up. Although the loss of Ruth crushed him, he kept moving forward.

As his longtime friend Neil Smit told me in a recent phone conversation, "George was a hard plower." Neil was referring to Dad’s approach to skiing, which he gave up only a couple of years ago, but he was also talking about his approach to life. "Enduring the battle with his body as it began to fail, he continued to live his life," our son Jesse wrote after Dad died. "He did not throw the towel in and he fought for all his days."

One of my favorite quotes comes from John Shedd’s Salt from My Attic: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." If anybody ever embodied this spirit, my Dad did. Not that he went looking for trouble recklessly. After all, he was an accountant. But he was always eager to embark on a new adventure. That was why he loved sailing and why some of his happiest days were on his boat Freedom, cruising along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.

Dad’s love of adventure was not confined to the water. He had always wanted to go skydiving, so for his 75th birthday Ruth arranged for lessons and a jump at the Vero Beach airport in Florida, where he was stationed during with the Navy during World War II. I remember like it was yesterday the excitement in his voice when he called afterwards, still standing out on the airfield. "I did it!" he exclaimed. Included in Ruth’s birthday present was a video of the jump, capturing the exuberant expression on his face as he descended.To this day, whenever I watch the video, I laugh until I have tears running down my cheeks because the soundtrack is Steppenwolf’s "Born to be Wild." Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had nothing on my Dad.

Some of my best days with my father were when I visited him and Ruth at their place on the ocean in Vero Beach, just south of Sebastian Inlet. It was a magical place on the narrowest part of the barrier island, and only a few hundred yards separated the Atlantic from the Indian River. I would go in the spring, just as baseball was getting underway, and we would head over to Dodgertown on the mainland to watch the exhibition games, eat a hot dog, and have a beer. Afterwards we would stop at a bait shop, pick up some live shrimp and go fishing off the dock back at the lagoon, watching the sun set across the water.

What I realized during this time with my father was that, late in his life, he had learned to live in the moment. This was not necessarily an easy achievement for him, because as Neil says, Dad was a "hard plower." Patience was not one of his greatest strengths and he was always looking ahead. But it was different in Florida. He and Ruth had discovered a place where the land, sea, and sky all came together in one glorious symphony, and it made their hearts sing. Both the past and future drifted away on the tide, leaving only the moment in which they lived.

Loss, although intense, brings great clarity. During the last five weeks as I spent each day with Dad, rooting for the Red Sox, doing crossword puzzles, talking, and sitting with him while he slept, I slowly came to grips with the reality that his life would soon end. In those moments, I realized what I most admired about my father: his integrity. By integrity, I don’t mean just strong ethics, important as they are, but also a consistency between inner core values and outer behavior that creates a sense of wholeness and resilience.

Although Dad kept up to date on a lot of things, he was old fashioned in his belief that hard work, family, and education were the keys to a good life. And you couldn’t spend a day with him without understanding that he lived these beliefs, they weren’t just empty words. As John Adams once observed, "There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live." My father’s life was a testament to the wisdom of Adams’s insight.

So Dad has crossed the bar and put out to sea on his last great adventure. He will be sorely missed. But, as my father’s cousin Giorgio wrote from Italy when Ruth passed away, "We don’t ask you, Lord, why do you carry her away now, but we say thank you, Lord, because you gave her to us for many, special years." The same is true of Dad: he was a gift we will hold in our hearts forever. The flood may bear him far, but we rejoice knowing that he will finally meet his Pilot face to face. May he rest in peace.