The View from Limestone

The cry of a loon across the moonlit lake. A cloudburst that sends the workers scurrying to cover lumber with tarps. Fields of fragrant potatoes. Harsh sun on our backs as we paint the boards covering the underside of a trailer. Fresh blueberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

These are some of this year’s sights and sounds for the eleven adults and teens working in Northern Maine on the Tikkun Olam Family Work Project. With so many of our regulars heading off to college this week, our workforce is diminished in size, but not in spirit. Each one of us has been to Limestone before and we can all handle power tools. 

As usual, we are adding insulation to homes where the wind whips around the underside and leaves no trace of heat within. We are also doing a little carpentry:  adding rails to a deck, rebuilding a stoop, installing a new door.

Each year we learn a little more about Limestone, Northern Maine, and what life is like in a community that has not thrived for many years. We also realized that, despite our best efforts and the strength and grace of the community here, we cannot repair more than our limited corner of the world.

Just weeks before we arrived in Maine last Sunday, we learned that the King family, the first family we helped in 2006, lost their home in a fire. Though insurance is helping them to acquire a new pre-fab double-wide home, none of their belongings were covered. With the generous support of our friends in Boston, we were able to purchase a new queen-sized mattress, box spring and metal frame, a new living room sofa, and a new flat-screen tv. We also delivered a few assorted used tables and chairs and dressers that we brought up from Boston. These are the bare minimum for them to furnish their new home. Yet they were so grateful, insisting that we let all of you know what a difference we’ve made.

“It is not up to you to complete the work; neither are you free to neglect it.”

This message from the classic Talmudic text, Pirke Avot, is my personal mantra for this annual trip. Do we feel sad that we can’t do more? Yes. Do we wish we could help every needy family in Limestone, not to mention those in need in our own Massachusetts communities? Of course. It’s heartbreaking to hear the stories behind the buildings we are repairing. It’s frustrating to drive up to a familiar neighborhood and see a slab of concrete where, seven years ago we had spent five days installing insulation, putting on a new roof and chimney, replacing windows and rebuilding the back porch. All gone in a puff of smoke.

And in the same week, to be welcomed to the lake home of the owner of the hardware store in Caribou, who treated us to a tasty barbecue dinner (veggie burgers and kosher hot dogs purchased especially for us). He took our kids out on their power boat for water skiing and made us all feel completely at home with his own family. All this hospitality from a man who regularly discounts all the material we purchase for our work. Such generosity and good will balance out the individual pain and sorrow.

The full moon of Elul reminds us all of the approaching New Year. It’s a time to count our blessings, to give thanks for all the good people and their generosity, to bask in the beauty of the landscape, and to prepare for whatever next year will bring—to us and those we love as well as to strangers we have yet to meet. It isn’t up to us to do it all, but what a gift to be able to contribute whatever we can.