Trees

I’m still not used to trees.

Mind you, I LIKE trees. But twenty-some years later, I still think of the glacier-scraped-flat-trees-only-planted-in-straight-lines of my early years. Not many trees on the plains, or hills, or much of anything. Stark, open, easy to see, austere. Driving as an adolescent was extremely easy…nothing to block my view!

When I moved to Nashville, the most striking thing to both hubs and myself was the vast number of trees. They were positively EVERYWHERE! And hills. Lots of hills. A wee bit claustrophobic, we were.

Nowadays I drive through areas filled with trees for hours and hours each day. Whether doing the school route to the high-rent (and, as a result, still heavily wooded) part of my city, or driving to Teleios when I can, trees are everywhere. And I’ve started to notice them.

In the spring, summer, and fall, they are lush. There’s little or no snow here, and a very long growing season compared to the should-I-get-air-conditioning of my home state.

Trees adorn the landscape, clean up the air, do a lot of great things. When they are laden with foliage, they cushion the visibility, blur the lines a bit, obscure some places.

It’s winter. All the leaves are long gone. And I can see a long, long way. In the rich part of town, I can see beautiful homes that were not visible the other three seasons. Animals (including deer that nearly collided with my vehicle) peek out of the branches. In a snowstorm or visitation of ice (not an everyday occurrence around here in winter), they are especially striking.

Teleios is on top of a mountain, but isn’t far from some “hollows”, where often folks live in old homes, some in disrepair. The other three seasons, things look fairly normal. When the leaves drop, the piles of hoarded junk and dead cars can become painfully obvious.

In both cases, there’s a whole lot more than meets the eye, for good or ill.

In the last year or so, many of us have seen the leaves of our “trees” dry up and blow away. I know of many who currently seek jobs, or try to get things back to “normal” (whatever that is) after an extended period of unemployment that has recently ended, or see their retirement savings dwindling and have decided to go back to work. It’s particularly stark out in the forest of each of our existence these days. Even if we ourselves are moving along with little adjustment needed (are those folks even out there now?), we all know others who are dealing with lives that have lost a lot of their “greenery” and are struggling mightily.

An ancient story speaks of a really great guy who totally had it made…rich, great family, strong spiritual life, you name it. Justifiably, the question was asked: is he the wonderful, spiritual person he is just because his forest is in all its glory? Not surprisingly, the guy’s forest eventually dropped the leaves. ALL of them. He went through hell right here on earth. All the stuff he had, and all his kids, were dead and gone.

In the starkness of that experience the guy learned what he really had, and embraced it fully. Eventually his forest sprouted leaves again, after he had learned hard yet extremely valuable lessons.

The starkness of “winter” in my life has taught me a great deal. I learned how much more I had than I thought. The losses hurt deeply, but made strong, downright “wealthy” areas of life more visible. I had things to celebrate that I didn’t consider fully till the leaves dropped. Additionally, there were piles of “junk” that became more visible amongst the empty branches. As I work on getting them cleared out, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m getting a wee bit stronger. Or maybe a lot.

Here’s hoping there are great things for each of us in the middle of the bleak, austere forest, and that we can help each other out along the trail.