Eleven gathered
around the "Waltons" table for 8, lovingly hewn by a proud and
nurturing father from trees once tall and shady outside. They towered over fort builders, bug
collectors, flower pickers and giggling wrestlers and now horizontally host
family dinners, and cover feet and dogs and sometimes hide and seek places. We
celebrate life, my life of 53 rings, some spaced narrow through leanness of
soul, and mind, but most wide abundant
years of joy and hope, laughter and hugs. Six of our spirited trees sit
laughing, smiling, thinking; seedlings
or nutlings :) of we, the
knotted gnarled parents. Six holy mysteries growing in number and in
strength, 31 years of sowing, growing, bending, impeding and pruning. Not by parent trees alone but by Him who
makes it all come together in a sapling grown and growing to a tree of His own
engineering. His plan somehow included
our fighting and agreeing, loving and wrestling, hating and endearing, parting
and uniting in our wooden home in the pines. Soulless trees surround our
sanctuary each knotted individually, towering over the eternal seedlings grown and growing in their enclosure. The Vine Tender's formula too complicated to
reproduce, sprinkled redemption and
grace, discipline and love, consequence and merit, rejection and acceptance , nurture and famine
perfectly. These six trees have rings
too. Rings, evidence of mind, spirit, and desires in famine or in flood. Somehow my
rings and theirs correspond, but these are "things too high for
me..." to understand. Not enough
time to spend on that, when there is more watering, tree hugging and admiring
to be done. The brown topped blue spruce
in our window remind me time is short, rings are
being fitted for fingers , for trees who will continue to grow in our place, souls
growing here in the Green Street ring of
soulless pines.
Ps 131:1b,2 Nor do I
involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me.2Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned
child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.…
2013
