The Lesson in a Tree

From John 15: Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every one that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bring forth more fruit.



This past year I have felt like a tree whose leaves are being torn away by a merciless wind storm. I have watched them cartwheel across the landscape of my life recklessly, without direction, skittering across wet ground, rocky pavement, and everything in between. If they were heavier or more significant than just leaves, they might have done permanent damage. But fortunately, the most anyone needs to do with an out of control leaf is take a broom and sweep it out of its corner and send it back into the wind. There, the leaf careens into other shallow harbors, scuttling then clinging over and over again until it disintegrates. If my tree had a mouth, it would have cried out, "No! Don't Go! I need you, love you...!" But there was nothing left to call to. I will mark the first anniversary of my divorce at the end of March.

I hope my hurricane has passed. The passion of the storm with its tumult of emotion is receeding, and the old, frightened me is crumbling, breaking away, revealing something new. If I extend the metaphor of the tree further, I see my useless parts dying and becoming part of the earth, renewing it, renewing me, oddly enough. I embrace that idea because my faith teaches me the only way to fully live is to die to oneself, to empty oneself of all ego and desire, to become, as Thomas Merton says, a pane of glass, and to allow that which is light to shine through. In my own words, the words of a Southern Indiana woman, raised in the backyard of the greatest and most diverse deciduous forest in the world, to become like a tree. Trees in their lovely, green way, filter the summer sunshine through their supple leaves. They are a rare, awesome way we can see the wind; they even bow to it. God speaks through a tree, I have learned. If we listen. I'm listening.

The moment a leaf separates from the tree, its life is over, even though to the human eye it remains remain supple and green for a time. Love with my husband was over for years, even though I believed it sustained us. He separated from our family. When I realized that fact, it hurt me, and I was confused. I felt I was severed from those I loved, that it was I who had lost my roots. The pain was such that it was hard to understand where my living body ended and the injury began. It can be difficult to know if a tree is dying. A tree can put out leaves year after year and be dead at its core. One wind storm can bring the whole thing down. This is one reason why there are storms--there has to be something greater than the tree that decides, for the tree's own sake, what limbs stay and what limbs need to go to bring about a good harvest.

During the tumult of this year, I have lost pieces of myself. Like a tree, I have been chipped away, bit by bit. Emily Dickinson wrote that after great pain, a formal feeling comes. In the stiffness and formality the season of grieving requires, the soul is dormant. It cannot take in sunlight, nor can it be watered with wisdom. It must simply exist until the season changes. Like a tree, I have been dormant. It is the time for cutting away the emotions that divert my strength and energy. In spite of this necessary task, an arborist knows that every cut is a wound to a tree.

A tree stands naked in the coldness of the winter sun, in stark relief, a silhouette, exposed and bare. But inside it is a secret life that awaits the warm breath of spring. There will be rebirth, a leafing-out. Scars from cut branches will form and bestow a beautiful, knotted complexity to the trunk. There will be nests of robins in her hair, whirlygigs that helicopter down in a confetti celebration of summer, new growth to harden off in the chill of fall, a final, triumphant blaze of color, and an offering of fragrant fruit. I, like the tree, will practice loss and death, and celebrate life over and over again in my own seasons, until the final harvest. There will be storms, and a need for constant pruning. But my roots are planted in a place where eternal springs bring forth sweet water, even in the desert.

My Father is glorified when you bear much fruit. It is then you become my disciples.