She's Back . . .
"Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven."
– Rabindranath Tagore.
She’s Back . . .
I attended a funeral last month and was sad at the reason for our gathering, but happy to see my former minister and wife, now retired and doing well. He approached me to chat and while we were catching up he told me that he missed my blog entries and asked if I had plans to continue. Well, here is his answer. I have been quasi-depressed with summer melting into fall (in Georgia that literally means “melting.”) Now, don’t misunderstand, fall is my favorite season of the year. It would be perfect though if we just jumped from fall right into spring and totally skipped winter. But, I am not the weather fairy so I will enjoy fall and ultimately, hopefully trudge with gritted teeth through another winter and wait for yet another Georgia spring!
So, Pastor—here we go again. Perhaps I do not write of earth shattering events and Heaven knows I try hard to escape politics—I mean, really, why throw yourself over that bridge?!!!
Therefore in the future I shall continue to write a great deal over feelings, nonsensical things, also some very important things, and of “shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.”* Sometimes it feels good to just type away my angst or melancholy by clattering the keys. I know I shall never be famous or probably won’t utter catchy phrases or proverbs, but I shall get to clear “my mechanism,” shout at the rain and generally get things out of my system. It is, after all, much cheaper than a therapist.
Today I choose to talk about where I live, and have lived, and the venerable China Berry Tree* that I sat under when I was five and dreamed dreams and solved riddles. We had one of these trees in the duplex where we lived so many years ago. It was the place I went to think, to muse about life, about anything that was a wonder to me. I cogitated on oh, so many things as I sat there under its berries. I thought a great deal about God and wondered if He lived in the sky and hid from me behind those beautiful puffy clouds. I thought of how unbelievably powerful He must be to have created this world I lived in. I wondered what angels truly looked like, where all the babies came from before landing here on terra firma. I wondered what it must look like “up there” as I only caught glimpses of the glory at sundown when I saw beautiful crimson and orange clouds, or those of early morning—those that glowed with a bluish gold delicacy.
I wondered how God knew just where to send me on this ol’ orb and what folks would end up with me as their child. (On this topic I had no complaints, God was totally and faithfully in charge when he sent me to Georgia and the two parents I loved beyond belief.) I wondered if people in other countries wondered about me and I thought how travel might bring forth many, many more friends. I thought of what I would be when I grew up. I thought about my bigger family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and even at five I realized what a pixilated tribe we were, but I loved it so so much anyway.
Yes, sir, that China Berry tree was really magical all right. I would sit there and I would seem to be in a dream-like state, but all the time the thoughts tumbled into my brain like a vessel filling up with questions upon which to cogitate. It was wonderful and all the time I sat, I felt as if I were under some miraculous spell.
Oh, to re-capture those days, the thoughts of that little girl I was. Oh, to be so near to the ethereal that I felt I might actually reach out and touch Heaven.
I have no China Berry tree, but I have some sturdy oaks and a mystical magnolia in my front yard. Just this morning I sat there and thought about my neighborhood and knew deep in my soul that I should never have questioned God in my little five year old mind, for He is truly Mighty, Magnificent and knew me before I came here so well that He had picked the absolute best place in the universe for me. Even now, after forty-four years of living in this house I still thank Him for sending me to this state, this city, this street.
If you’ll excuse me now I think I will go back for a few more minutes under my oaks and magnolia and let my mind wander as it will. And I shall save that fee for the shrink I was remotely thinking of hiring.
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*The Walrus and the Carpenter—poem by Lewis Carroll
want to know more about the China Berry tree?
Cultural Symbolism: Sacred Trees in Ancient Chinese Legends
The Chinaberry Tree holds an extraordinary status in ancient Chinese mythology and folklore, dating back more than 2,000 years.
In the Eastern Han folk classic Fengsu Tongyi (Customs and General Meanings), the legendary divine beast Xiezhi—a creature symbolizing absolute justice and integrity—was said to feed exclusively on chinaberry leaves.
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