There is Hope for a Tree

I love trees.  I feel a strong connection to trees.  I've always loved looking at them, sitting in their shade, climbing them.  Growing up, I have fond memories of the trees we had.  In our front yard, we had a beautiful white birch tree.  I loved to peel the papery bark of that pure white trunk.  Sadly, it got a common disease and we had to cut it down.  In the back yard, we had several trees--a locust that left its seeds everywhere to come up as little shoots all over; a weeping willow that my parents hated (I'll come back to that); a redbud that was perfect for climbing and enabled us to jump the fence into the parking lot next door.  At my own home, we have a Rose of Sharon that yields hundreds of white blossoms every year.  We planted a crabapple tree several years ago, and someone must have tossed an apple core into our yard, because now there's an apple tree taking over the crabapple.  It was this tree that became "my tree" when I took a spiritual development class awhile back, and had an assignment to sit with my tree and journal every day for the semester.  She and I have an understanding.

But I come back to the weeping willow tree.  As I said, my parents hated it.  I think it was because the tree with its shape and its litter made it difficult to mow, but I was only seven at the time, so I don't have a clear memory.  What I do remember, though, is the stump.  After we cut down the tree, the stump that remained was a beast.  It was probably two feet in diameter (maybe closer to three), and tall enough to sit on.  That would have made it a desirable backyard feature, except it kept growing nasty-looking and -smelling fungus.  My dad took drastic measures to get rid of that stump.  He poisoned it.  He burned it.  He chopped away little pieces of the rotten wood, and eventually it was gone.  That stump taught my young mind a valuable lesson:  trees with strong roots don't give up easily.  

This morning I read a passage from Job:

    "For there is hope for a tree,

    When it is cut down, that it will sprout again,

    And its shoots will not fail.

    Though its roots grow old in the ground

    And its stump dies in the dry soil,

    At the scent of water it will flourish

    And put forth sprigs like a plant." (Job 14:7-9, NASB1995)

That image is so vivid to me.  Trees are hard to kill.  Once they take root, they're there.  For good.  They can get sick and die, but their connection to the earth takes herculean intervention to break.  Chop a tree down, and its trunk is still home to insects, fungus, and seeds that will grow into a new tree.  The nutrients that remain feed any number of creatures, and as it decomposes, it goes back to the earth it came from.  Death is not the end for a tree.  It's just the beginning of a new life, a new kind of symbiosis.

If there is hope for a tree, there is hope for us.  Some days, I feel as if I have been chopped down, and have lost my connection, to the earth, to other people, to God, to myself.  Sometimes I feel like a stump, like I've lost everything that identifies me as a tree--leaves, branches, blossoms, trunk--and all I am is the ugliest part that's only fit for growing fungus and having passersby sit on.  But there is hope.  I am still rooted.  I am still grounded.  There is still life in this stump, even if it's below the surface.  Here's the part I love the most:  "At the scent of water it will flourish."  At the scent of water.  Just knowing that life-giving water is in my vicinity can bring me back to life.  Studies have shown that even the aroma of coffee can make one more alert, even without actually drinking the coffee.  The mere scent of what nourishes us brings us back to life and encourages new growth.  That is heart-swelling good news!  

What brings you back to life, friends?  What, by its very presence, encourages you, brings you joy and energy, and enables you to step back from the edge of death?  For me, it's reading, music, and making things.  Deriving inspiration from others and creating in a way that may also be inspiring keeps me in a circle of life that fosters growth and renews hope.  The connection to those who have gone before and what I will leave those who come behind is the water that allows me to flourish, even when I feel my roots are old and my stump is dry.  

I hope you find hope today.  It's there.  I promise you, it's there.  All is not lost--there is new life, there is new growth.  Sometimes we just have to look for it.