Hi. Happy rest of the week.
What is your favorite kind of tree?
I love them all—especially the graceful Weeping Willow and the papery Birch.
I’m thankful for the evergreen of conifers and their purifying scent that evokes my favorite Christmas memories.
There’s the American Sycamore that shades the kayakers on the St. Joseph River in Michigan. Resilient, strong, expansive, and interesting with it’s mottled bark.
Have you seen a Redwood in real life? That towering giant with a surprisingly shallow root system that is nevertheless effective because those roots are connected to all the other trees nearby?
The broad Baobab is more solitary, dotting the world’s hot and dry landscapes. It boasts a broad girth that allows it to store thousands of gallons of water.
Then there are the fruit trees, flowering trees, prickly trees…
What kind of tree would you like to be?
The quick growing papaya that sprouts within days and produces fruit within months? The slower growing avocado that can take up to 7 years to bear fruit—or the mangosteen (queen of fruits) that can take as long as 12 years?
Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m sitting with an electronic stack of drafts for this newsletter, none of which communicates the invitation to rest that has been wooing me this past week.
There are things I don’t write about yet because I’m still in the thick of it.
What is it?
I suppose it can be the glimmering experience of a paradigm shift that brings rest. It can also be the thing that restricts movement towards a place of rest, towards a place of being and being still.
And there’s this learning how to let go of trying hard—not in a way of giving up and settling for status quo, but in a way that creates space and energy to take action from a place of rest and trust.
Yes, there are things that we do and don’t do that impact our growth and I like a chance to reboot and make new resolutions as much as anyone, but we grow because we have life and that life is a gift outside of anything we have done or will do.
We do not have to carry the burden of forcing and producing what comes as a gift. We need only tend to it.
“ Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come” (Mark 4:26-29 NIV).
So, instead of promising to listen more and react less, or to determine (for the millionth time) to go to bed early and exercise more, I am surrendering to the work of God in me, remaining in that life and tending to it as best I can.
Like a tree.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Alicia