THE GLORY OF THE TREES

Even in the dark the trees obey the call to show forth their colors: they will be glorious, whether the world watches or not, whether the sun shines on their splendor or the rains rip their very essence from them. I like the fall foliage on a bright day, today's weather fills me with inexplicable sadness: it seems too much, to burn with fire only to have the heavens rain down on the parade and leave less. Less brilliance, less beauty, less hue, as color is lost in a world of gray. So it is with our souls.

We prefer the splendid, the exciting, the thrilling, the glory of it all, but this will not sustain. Dark days will come. We must learn to rest like the trees: they gather all summer working their magic of making sugars and our air to breathe, and then, as light fades they stand aloof from the world's harshness and wait. For us, all our blessing is stored in our soul like some scientific equation:

Blessing + life = joy. Stored joy + hardship = perseverance. The sap, running hard after a cold winter, producing the sweetest of syrups, is merely the trees' stored nutrients. Gathering sunshine from the previous summer, allowing leaves to swirl mid-air, releasing the hope of life-sustaining processes, the tree welcomes winter and emptiness so that fullness and blessing will come again. Through it all there is glory: glory to gather light and glory to store it deeply within.

We miss those we love, we are torn from relationships we once held dear, children grow, friends move on, life changes, we are stripped like some oak in the woods, and yet, the oak stands strong, "like a tree planted by streams of water." Psalm 1:3 We are transformed as the colors of our life fade and our true glory is revealed. God's love and blessing is stored carefully in our being, and we wait  for the, "season of singing." Song of Songs 2:11  I am deeply affected by the evil in the world, not necessarily afraid, but troubled, that beauty and life and goodness are slipping from humanity, cutting off the source of living water. Jeremiah 2:13; John 4:14

One tree, though, braced for winter, will give off life giving oxygen when summer comes again. Will we breathe life and light into the world around, though all seems gray and lonely?

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

“Let us henceforth stand aloof from the things of this life, that we may find grace and mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John Chrysostom Fourth Century

FORESTS ABLAZE WITH COLOR

 It seems I am always running. How about you? Seasons come and go; leaves, set fire by some Heavenly paintbrush, cry for me to slow my pace, but I barely hear their whisper. How is it I am still deaf to their call as they burn brilliantly in the late afternoon sun; interesting that I wait till dusk to walk, as if I am afraid to confront their query. I stop, take a picture and move on, unmoved it seems. Life has to be lived, dishes washed, laundry folded, dinners made, and the leaf dances before my closed eyes. The window of my soul needs to be cracked open.

 The mountains and valleys are awash in light, as if the God of the universe spends the evenings dipping the edges of each tree in gold or crimson. He is powerful, the psalmist says, "The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare. And in His temple all cry, "Glory!" Psalm 29:9 It is glorious, what He does to the trees, to the seasons, making them march at His command and sending His storehouses of snow for us to play in, as if He knew we were little children needing a gift. I marvel and yet gain perspective on my unwillingness to stop. Stopping in His temple to cry, "Glory!" is another matter entirely; I admire the canvas He creates, but tremble when His voice touches me.

He has already stripped so much, how can I trust Him to take the last little budding blooms and wipe them out as well? How in this world, bent with so much brokenness and evil, can I believe that He is good and will be faithful to those I love? (Crying, "Glory!" is affirming His holiness and goodness). If I keep making, baking, creating, cleaning and loving, in my broken way, maybe I can keep the tall trees safe from the One whose voice strips the forest bare. Maybe He will stop His stripping and let them flourish. I confuse bearing leaves with bearing fruit, that what looks like death on the outside is new life and greater growth from within.

I want  to cling to my small little flower, heedless to the majestic mountains that sing their song. I wonder if the symphony is made of color?

Medicine from Sacred Scripture:

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways not your ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Isaiah 55:8-12

BOMB THREATS, EVIL AND CURTAINS

                                               A bomb threat created chaos this morning as police redirected traffic from our local high school and spent the better part of the day clearing the building. Why? Why this dark shadow falling on this community creating fear and concern. I am always fascinated that, 'perfect love casts out fear." 1 John 4:18. If I know myself to be loved and cared for then I can live outside of fear's strangle hold. I take precautions, of course, I do not live with my head in the sand, but neither do I become paralyzed in the face of an evil twisted world. I spent the day praying and sewing, creating beauty in a world hell-bent on destruction.

Rain drops fell all day, gathering the weight of the world's sorrow, maybe God's as well, as violence rages and threats of bombs bursting turn the life God has given us into a screening for a horror show; our daily life now somehow seems to be X-rated for violence. What God desires and continues to shower on the world is life. He sends it in creation, in the newborn, in the laughter of a toddler, in a  child's embrace. He comes to each of us: "I come that you might have life and life abundant." John 10:10  I can agree with God and create life and beauty and fight evil in this way: making curtains.

I can soften the harshness of an evil world, I can influence it for good and join with God in His creative life giving work. It may be small, but somehow hope finds wings here in believing I can make a difference. I can love and be kind and embrace another. J.R.R. Tolkien said in Return of the King, "Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." pg. 851

Are you joining with God uprooting evil where you find it, in the fields you know: in your heart, in your family, in your friendships, in your community?

Medicine from Sacred Scripture:

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appoint you...

to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." 

Jeremiah 1:5, 10