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