Barren? Fruitful? Be the Tree.

Namaste, my professional acquaintance said to me years ago, her hands folded, bowing slightly at the waist. Struck by the profound warmth of the gesture, I asked her what it meant. “The holiness in me greets the holiness in you.” Lent is coming to greet the holiness in ourselves. I’ve come to know a Russian Orthodox priest whose long white hair and beard surround a curiously boyish face. That contrast, suggesting some dance of wisdom and innocence, has proven true to me, and I admire his deep goodness, his ready joy. When I sent him a note affirming this, he told me that my note brought him to near tears, something that often happened when he was with me. He said that he thought that was because I was authentic. I believe he was saying that I struck him as being myself, being as I was written by my author. Lent is coming to know ourselves as written on the heart of God.

We’re 1/3 of the way to Easter, 1/3 of our way through this Lent, which we’ve described as a time of unwrinkling, returning to our whole-iest selves, by engaging our desire and our will within the sacredness of the Jesus story. 2/3 of our time remains, 2/3 of our way to our destination, to be our authentic selves, to encounter the holiness in ourselves. And the two feet we walk on are our daily Examen and entering the Good Stories left to us by Jesus.

This week’s Good Story is about a tree that is not producing. The landowner wants it cut down; the gardener wants to try to save it. This story can provide us with three steps toward our goal, three questions to consider:
 - What does it mean to be productive?
 - What does it mean to be cut down?
 - What does it mean to be saved?
Today, please join me in entering the doorway of the first question.

First be the tree. Why are you barren? Could it be that your roots cannot find water, that you have lost your source? Could it be that some parasite has attached itself to you, sapping you of your energy, preventing you from producing? Could it be that you are in the shadow of something, starved of the light and warmth that you need? Do you feel the ache of longing for fruitfulness?
Now be yourself. What does it mean to be productive? How do you measure your productivity? To what extent is what is asked of you your natural fruit, growing from your innate talents and inclinations? And to what extent are you in circumstances that require you to do something, make something that is not natural to you? Have life circumstances and choices put you in a situation where productivity is a struggle, an endless uphill effort?
Before we are joined by the landowner tomorrow and the gardener on Friday, let’s just be the tree today. In your Examen tonight, consider times during this day when you have been fruitful, when from within yourself good things have emerged. And consider times when you have been barren, when what you want from yourself or others want from you are not forthcoming. Trees cannot uproot themselves, but they can sense in their roots the moisture nearby and grow toward it. They cannot move, but they can turn their leaves toward the warmth and light of the sun. So today, be the tree. And tonight spend some time with your tree-ness, and notice how you feel when you consider barren and fruitful moments. Know so that when you meet the landowner and the gardener, you will know where you stand, so you can feel for the moisture near your roots, and feel the warmth reaching for your leaves.
Namaste!


 


FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.