I just sat at the red light, ignorant to the world bustling around me, in complete awe of the gigantic trees dressing the sidewalk. I had no choice but to take in their robust leaves and branches one at a time.
"Jordan, you drive past these beauties everyday. Why haven't you stopped and appreciated them before?" my Friend asked me.
Jaw-dropped and wide-eyed with wonder,
"I'm a criminal...and a nature-hater..." was my reply.
I stared and stared and stared until a gigantic smile slowly crept across my face. I couldn't help myself but laugh at the fact that to any normal observer this would appear as though I was talking to myself. Its ok, you too, can believe that I'm nothing more than a tree-hugging crazo. I don't mind one bit. Neither does my Friend.
I continued to watch creation dance before me and daydreamed about the history of these trees. Who planted them? For what purpose? These trees look like they've seen so much during their reign of state road 436. To how many passerbyers did they become a comfy shadow place; a quiet resting spot for the everyday man? How many children played and laughed under their branches, climbed their stalky arms and legs like wild apes in the amazon, shared a snack pack at the bottom of their overflowing roots on the ground, played hide-and-seek in the richness of their leaves? I wonder if there are girl trees and boy trees? Mommy trees and Daddy trees? Do trees get married? I think I need to get a book on trees. Are these trees friends with each other? I mean, I hope so. They happen to be planted next to each other and will remain there for years and years, they might as well find each other a little bit dandy.
Can trees be sad?
I thoroughly enjoyed these sites as the wind blew through every limb, caressing their shiny, greened jewels of splendor, tousling them to and fro at the very whim of God's breath...
Heavenly.
And then I heard the car behind me honk a loud, impatient reminder that I was fantasizing about snack packs and emotional trees in the middle of a highway and needed to pay attention. They must have been in a hurry to drop off little Tommy at school so they could make it back home to catch the last segment of Regis and Kelly. This only makes sense.
The start of my day has since set me up on a quest to learn my own personal history. The kind that involves my origin and ancestry. So I voyaged into the only history book worth reading.
My bible.
I knew that when I named this blog "Planting Trees" I would come to understand the meaning behind that title more and more as the days go by, as the stories come forth. But as I begin to plant the tree of my own life, my own story, I know that I am digging into something lasting (Andrew Peterson, you're a rock star!) and I'm finding out where I come from and why I am the way that I am. This is highly important if I want to plant trees. I don't think the trees of my life--my character and abundance of love--should be haphazardly planted.
So I found out, in the great Book, that I am a distant relative of Shem, one of Noah's three sons. Yes, I'm talking "Noah's Ark" kind of Noah. That one. Yes. We are related. Pretty gnarly. I know that Adam and Eve are my parents from the way-back-original days of old, but to know that SHEM is a family member of mine totally blows me away. His name means "name" in Hebrew. That's awesome. I wonder how many jokes his brothers Ham and Japheth made...
"Hey you! Whats your......NAME?" bahahaha
This is where my mind goes.
But what is uber fantastic is that his son, Terah, was the father of Abraham, whom we are all descendants of. Just like the promise that God gave to Abraham, that he would be blessed with children as countless as the stars--for the Bible illiterate--we are now living out that promise. You and me. Whoa.
We are his many trees. We are the lasting evidence of a promise that was and will be...forever. How incredible!
Now my question is, how are we planting our own trees? I believe our trees consist of the character, abundance of love, and beauty that we allow to flow out of us unto all mankind. A steadfast monument, a never ending promise...something lasting.
Those trees are worth planting.
Have you started planting your own?
No comments:
Post a Comment