One Small Candle May Light a Thousand: A Thanksgiving Message from the Digest

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... I happen to carry a copy of William Bradford’s journal Of Plimouth Plantation, written during the first decades of the Pilgrim experience, with me almost anywhere I travel. ... A copy from that first edition sits on my shelf not two feet from me when I write for The Daily Digest, so that I always remember, as Bradford remarked, that “All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.”

I think upon the struggles of the bioeconomy, which also went through a period of great popularity and today has a more mixed reputation amongst the nabobs of national policy. Success has brought disappointment; when a thing is done it is never as pretty as when it was first dreamed — shortcomings are the livery of great ventures. And so, too many people choose to sit on the sidelines and criticize the athletes on the field, because they are human and imperfect, as if one man failing to run a marathon is proof that a marathon cannot be run at all. As was observed in the Book of Ecclesiastes many centuries ago:

“He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.”

The bioeconomy has many things in common with the Pilgrims, besides being often out of fashion with the smart set. Both looked to the land for their nourishment. Both have given back more than they took. Both sought freedom to operate. Both had many failures offset by a handful of transformative achievements. Both were grounded in a spirit of community rather than the principles of Dog Eat Dog. Both looked upon waste as a failure of imagination that could be corrected.

Both knew that values drive habits, habits drive actions, and actions change the world — and those who would change the world must place values before value.

It will not take 400 years for your small candles to light a thousand, for the times are more urgent and opportunity awaits those who have the fortitude to endure the indignities of the long winter that comes before the spring.

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you, and joy in the holiday time ahead. Those of us who watch your work give thanks for all you do. READ MORE