Poem: The Tree of Life

I will be reading this poem at my church’s Good Friday service. It corresponds to another poem, “The Tree of Death” which I shared yesterday.

The Tree of Life

Can we ever imagine the weight of flesh
When it hangs from a tree
The pull of gravity
Upon the branches
The pull of the wind
On the ebbing leaves

When something hangs upon a tree
(perpetually on display)
We stop to gaze when we pass by
Little children throw stones
Young lovers carve their mutual adoration
Old friends bury each other

We lay ourselves at the roots of the tree
And beg that we would rise
Lazarus-like from the ashes of the rubble
We cling to the mere thought of resurrection

This resurrection beats through our hearts like blood

From the loss of man and its mortal sin
This tree with the fruit of victory over sin and death
Hangs with low branches
Beckoning for us to take and eat
Of life.

From the grit of the earth and shallow graves
This tree with the fruit of suffering and oppression
Rises ever before us.
If we cling to it then
We will see with eyes that see
We will hear with ears that hear
We will taste and not go hungry
We will drink and not go thirsty

A table will be set beneath the tree
For a garden party. There will be white table clothes
And much shuffling to seats. It will be hard to stop
The conversation in order for the host to rise.
There will be many toasts, many toasts.
We will eat and dance the night away.
Someone will taste his first sip of wine
In a very long time.

Poem: The Tree of Death

I will be reading this poem at my church’s Good Friday service. It corresponds to another poem, “The Tree of Life” which I will share tomorrow.

The Tree of Death

There is nothing more welcoming in this world
Then to sit in the shade of a tree
And eat of its flesh
To spit the seeds upon the ground
And watch the saplings grow
From your hunger.

I come to the tree and eat
When I feel the world pressing on my shoulders
When I am alone
When I am upset
When I am undone
It is a response as easy as pouring another tumbler
Is to a drunk

I eat of the tree
And the tree eats of me
It drops seeds inside my bones
And tangles its roots among my heart
And lungs

Sometimes I venture off
And the roots follow me
Like a string of breadcrumbs in a shadowy maze
I can always find my way back
It is my birthright

Sometimes a faint voice comes among the shadows
Of the forest
Pleading for me to break the bond
And come away
From the tree
But who would listen to such voices?
I do not listen
I do not do what I want to do
So I turn away
and cling to the expanding darkness of the tree
and it clings to me
with hideous strength of its magnetic pull.

Like Tables in the Temple

I think some times we get lost in the literalness of the text and we’re looking for the little truths of is this — did it really happen this way? Did the sea really split? Were there really these plagues? And we look for scientific explanations of how a sea could split and was there a wind? And we lose the profound truth that underlies the story. The miracle of the Exodus is not in the contradiction of physical nature, but really in the refashioning of human nature. What happened once upon a time happens all the time. – Rabbi Sandy Sasso (from On Being)

This quote has stuck with me since I heard it on Sunday. The parallels between the Exodus and the events of Easter are profound. My meditation this week has focused on how the cross and resurrection is a refashioning of human nature. Christ’s resurrection provides new flesh, new humanity, a new covenant. The Kingdom wins and the whole world and its paradigms are turned over like the tables in the temple.

In truth, I could really care less about scientific theories or rigorous apologetics. I hunger to be part of God’s dramatic refashioning of human nature and the whole universe.

The Eye of the Storm

Holy Week always feels like the eye of the storm. Lent has crescendoed to Palm Sunday, with the celebratory atmosphere. And now, this. The waiting. We all know what is coming when Thursday rolls around. But for now, it is waiting. It is the eye of the storm.

In the drama of God, there is a lot of waiting.

Israel constantly waits for salvation.

Christ waits in the desert, then waits during his ministry.

Paul waits around in prisons.

John waits around on an island.

In a church culture so focused on doing and mobility, waiting is a lost practice, especially when we are in the eye of a storm. We need to unlearn our first instincts—to engage, to fight, to fix, to solve—and learn the hard practice of patience, of waiting.

What Christ teaches us during Lent is that he took the time to prepare for the storm. He used the reprieve he was given in the desert to prepare for ministry. He used the time between Palm Sunday and the Last Supper to prepare his disciples for what was about to happen. As we follow Christ through his suffering, death and resurrection this week, we should also learn how he practiced patience during the eye of the storm.

Prayer for Palm Sunday

God Almighty,

Let our prayers be palms, jackets and shalls
lain softly on the ground for you.

Let our prayers be the fever pitched voice of crowds
filling the skies with resounding praise for you.

Let our prayers be a crown and robe
signifying that you are our only king.

We lay ourselves down for you
who gladly won victory
when you laid yourself down for us.

Amen

The Delicate Art of Saying No

I don’t say no to anything.

Opportunities. Offers. Scholarships. Extra Credit. Optional Assignments.

I have done it all.

I have accomplished a ton.

And I have really overextended myself dozens of times.

I have a real problem with saying no.

My daughter is currently in a “no” phase. She says no to everything. If she’s in the bath and I ask her, “do you like baths?” She promptly replies, with a smile on her face, “No!” All the while, she is vigorously shaking her head. She has no problem with it. But for me, saying art is a delicate art. It has required years of practice.

I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to excel. Everything comes easy to me. I’m a go-getter personality who loves being involved in as many things as possible. To boot, I also seem to do my best when life is crazy. Case in point:

Fall 2004 – I have decided, somewhat insanely, to finish my degree a semester early. In order to accomplish this I will need to take 21 credits. In addition to this workload, I am the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, parliamentarian of student council and participate in intramural sports. I am also starting to write a 90 page honors thesis and plan a wedding.

It was my highest GPA ever for a semester.

The epilogue is that I drove myself into the ground and slept off the stress all winter break.

Last night I talked to my wife about a decision I needed to make. I was beginning to think that I had overextended myself. I had an obligation that I had made that had sunk to the bottom of my to-do list as a bunch of other circumstances piled on and took the top spots. This obligation was now an albatross around my neck. I desperately wanted to write to the person in charge of the event, “Sorry, I can no longer take part. I overextended myself and take full responsibility,” but the weight of failure, the weight of saying no was paralyzing me.

My wife said nothing. Which is to say she simply told me: “You always amaze me the way you seem to balance everything no matter what.” It was implied that I was the only factor placing this burden onto myself. No one else was.

I had to say “No” of my own volition.

So I sat down at the laptop and typed out a regretful email. I could not take part.

Then the burden fell. I felt elated. I could enjoy myself for the next few days instead of agonizing and spending long, mostly sleepless nights trying to cram everything in.

In this Lenten season I could not help but feel that overextending yourself has its season, but most of the time we need to learn the delicate art of saying no. It is what Christ did during his forty days in the wilderness. He said no to food, to community and to the world to spend time preparing for the life ahead of him. The practice of fasting during Lent can teach us the delicate art of saying no, and as we learn through fasting we can all begin to apply this discipline to other aspects of our lives.