Tending and being tended by the Tree of Life

I found myself in Dunham Massey once again the other morning. It was siling it down with rain. I took shelter for a little while under a great tree, as I did I reflected on the week that had gone by. It had begun by attending the funeral of my friend’s young wife, they had married just a few days before she succumbed to cancer. It was a beautiful service, a wonderful celebration of “Hannah’s life”.

As I sheltered I was filled with a deep grief and sadness for my cousin Cheryl who is still with us at the time of writing, it was her birthday on Friday, she turned 42. There are other deep sadness around too, my heart feels broken, certainly tender. As I stood there sheltering, protected by the tree, Barbara a lovely member at Dunham Road, one of the congregations I serve came running past. She stopped for a while and we chatted. I then left the shelter of the tree to return to life. I have bumped into Barbara several times over the last couple of weeks, what a deep hearted caring woman she is.

As I carried on walking in the pouring rain the wonderful poem “I go among trees” by Wendell Berry was singing in my heart.

“I Go Among Trees” by Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

As I walked on I felt some of the fears in me leave me and I found myself singing some familiar songs. I’ve been singing a lot recently, so many songs. I found myself singing songs to life itself. I felt I was being held by the tree of life, a celebration of life in midst of love and loss and grief. I thought of the Jewish toast “l’chaim”, to life. Don’t we all tend the tree of life and don’t we all shelter under it too.

I love the symbolism of the tree of life, it is beautifully universal. It represents such a nurturing love. I think in our secular age we have lost some of the power and deep meaning of symbols. I have a growing appreciation for the old symbols, they reveal deep truths that are sometimes hidden, that words alone do not reveal. The mythologist Joseph Campbell taught that certain images and pictures invite the eye not to merely rush along but to rest a while and dwell within the revelation that can be found by looking deeply into them. I was thinking of this as I passed all those beautiful trees, so strong and sturdy, offering shelter from the rain. They are a toast to life itself. The tree is the symbol of life. This is why the “Tree of Life” is a universal symbol.

“l’chaim”, to life.

The trees have much to teach us. My name sake and American colleague Rev Greta W. Crosby recognises this. In “Tree and Jubilee” she describes a silent none judgemental presence that the trees offer her, something we humans cannot give no matter how well we may think we are at listening. The trees simply stand there erect and open, never shrinking away or rejecting, offering unconditional love and acceptance. She wrote:

“I have long had a sense of fellowship with trees. Since I was a child, I have sought their company from time to time because I like the way I feel in their presence. I enjoy their beauty, but it is more than that. I used the word “presence” in a very strong sense. I felt their presence as living things. And in that presence, I often feel relaxed and centered, peaceful, restored to inner equilibrium.”

She continues…

“For many of us, life is the meaning of the tree. But for me, perhaps the greatest thing about the tree is its silence. Whatever the tree says to us, whatever it answers to our questing, the tree gives its message without words. And the tree bears with us well. It does not judge. It does not react to our anxieties. It does not run after us. It just stands there with open arms.”

The tree to me is the ultimate symbol of life. We all tend and nurture the tree of life. “l’chaim”, to life.

The “Tree of Life” is a beautiful and universal symbol it can be found in many of the worlds religious traditions. The ancient Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Baylonians and Samarians all had a tree of life symbol. There is Ygdrassil, the Norse Tree of Life, The Etz Ha Hayim of the Kaballistic Jews. The Bahai's speak of it and Christians of all kinds speak of the tree of life, with healing leaves, found in the Book of Revelations. The book of Genesis tells of two trees: a Tree of Knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil, and the Tree of Life, the tree of immortality. Of course in Genesis 2 they ate the forbidden fruit, the “Tree of Knowledge”, as the result Adam and Eve are banished from paradise, from life I suspect.

As I continued to wander round Dunham I recalled a conversation I had a few days earlier, in the very same spot, with a friend. We were talking about where this sense of wrongness we humans can feel at times comes from. Something we have both shared, something sadly so many do. Where does this rejection of life come from? We talked about the foundational stories in Genesis. Of course it is all Mythos. It is not history to be argued over factual accuracy. Mythos is Universal Truth, the question to ask is does this speak to a deeper truth that we can find in ourselves, does it speak throughout time?

Now of course some reject the Bible as outdated and not only inaccurate but downright destructive. I do not, I think there is so much to engage with still. That said only in a symbolic sense. I explained to my friend how it actually begins with “Original Blessing”, in Genesis chapter one. God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. That life is a good thing, that we are formed from good, not wrong. There is no original sin, only original blessing, that blessing is formational, that life is formed from goodness. The concept of “Original Sin” was actually a creation of the later church, mainly Augustine and his self-loathing, Which I believe is a rejection of his own original blessing, something I can personally relate to at times, as sadly so many folk do.

The trouble begins in the second creation story, in the Garden of Eden. That said if we look at this symbolically rather than literally there is so much beautiful mythos to be unearthed. The original human Adam meant born from the earth. Human, humus, humility all share same linguistic root, born from the earth, not God, but finite, limited, but beautiful. Yes we are born, but we also die. This is life.

Originally we enjoy paradise, the fruits of life. There is no shame, no sense of wrongness no rejection of our lives, no destruction of ourselves and or others. We simply enjoy paradise. We have something else though. We want more, we seek more. This is where all creativity is born, but can also cause trouble. We are the only aspect of created life that experiences dissatisfaction. We want more.

So we eat the forbidden fruit, we want the knowledge, we suffer Hubris. We lose that beautiful gift of innocence, we are cast out by a sense of shame, especially with our humanity. We leave paradise.

We can though return to love to blessing, but the journey is long and arduous, not that we go anywhere. To quote Meister Eckhart, it could be of one inch, but a depth beyond any depth, layer upon layer. We return home, we go full circle, we don't go back on ourselves. We come home with treasure to share. This is the classic heroic journey. The truth of every great story, the Universal Mythos. The key is to return home to love. That though comes in later stories. I often think of the prodigal son here. With the boy returning home to the open arms of his father who greets him halfway, celebrates his return and embraces his son, with a kiss. An act of pure love. Can there be anything more intimate. It seems to me there is nothing considered wrong in this child born of love. Yet so often we do not feel we are formed from this, it is just so sad.

Now of course this is only my view of the mythos and it is certainly not orthodox in any way shape or form. My interpretation is life affirming, it celebrates life, the traditional view does not. As Joseph Campbell, that great mythologist, has said the orthodox interpretation is “a refusal to affirm life.” Life is seen as corrupt. It sees the serpent as the symbol that brought sin into the world and woman as the figure who handed the apple to man. My friend was explaining this to me as we walked round Dunham the other day. As Campbell says “This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere.”

The traditional understanding sees life as the problem, especially human life and sees the female, the bringer of life, as the root of the trouble. How long have we all suffered as a result of this rejection of life and woman as central to it. We see it clearly today, it has not gone away, in fact if anything the trouble seems to be intensifying. For me the problem stems from this fear of life itself. Surely though life is good. Maybe the solution is the “Tree of Life”. It nurtures us if we tend to it and it will offer us shelter. “l’chaim”, to life.

There is an eternal wisdom in the trees. The Buddha gained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree. The tree blessed him as it did so showering him with blossom. In ancient Christian imagery Jesus is crucified on the “Holy Rued”, “The Tree of Life”, the second tree in the garden of Eden, from this life comes again, as does fruit that can sustain us. As Joseph Campbell highlighted man was expelled from the garden because he ate from the first tree, the “Tree of Knowledge”. The garden was the place of unity of none duality, “non-duality of male and female, none duality of man and God, none-duality of good and evil.” The tree of immortal life brings us back to paradise, to unity to life itself. Where two become one. This is identical to the tree that Buddha sits under, the tree of life is the universal symbol of life itself.

“l’chaim”, to life

Sadly it seems that so many folk are as afraid of life as we are of death. It seems to me that these ancient stories, in their essence at least, are trying to teach that death is in life as life is in death. This is the story of existence of which we are all a part of. Yet for me some reason we reject life in so many ways, we are frightened of being cast out of it, we crucify it, we torture it we persecute and distrust. We fear our own humanity, our mortality. We say there is no good in us and no good in the other.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We are born from “Original Blessing”, original goodness. This is our natural state, that too often we lose sight of. We are all formed from the tree of life, the tree of renewal, the tree of re-birth. We need to recognise this. Sometimes this comes when we lose something or someone precious to us, somehow in this suffering we turn back home again, we return to paradise. We find wholeness once again, we recognise our own sacredness and that of others. We return to the “Tree of Life” and we tend to it and it tends to us. Just as I did that rainy morning seeking shelter under the tree in Dunham Massey.

May we know this wisdom and may we bring it to life through our very being.

“l’chaim”, to life

I am going to end with a little bit of Mary Oliver “The Summer Day”. Mary has been singing in my heart a lot these last few days.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Below is a devotion based on 

the material in this "blogspot"

Rooted Like The Trees

At a recent “Colours of Grief: Our Shared Experience of Love and Loss”, a group we host at Dunham Road, that offers space in which we share and hold each other in our experiences of grief, a man in attendance shared some wisdom from a nature program he had watched online. He spoke about how a certain type of tree survived hurricanes; how the trees in question while appearing to be standing alone were actually connected and supporting one another. It would seem that their roots not only spread far and wide into the earth, but actually connected together and held the trees firm while the branches and trunks were buffeted and all around was devastated. He shared this beautiful wisdom as we spoke about the need to connect and hold one another in our struggles and suffering that no one is an island. That we need one another, that we are held together by a web of mutuality. As you can imagine the conversation sparked my homiletic consciousness.

A couple of days later I tried to contact the man to ask if he could remember where he had seen the program, unfortunately he could not. I was going to give up but the thought would not let me go. It got me thinking about community and roots and how strong and interconnected roots not only protect the individual but allow them to grow and thrive. It also got me thinking about trees. I have been noticing the trees ever since, paying deep attention.

As I look at the trees I feel humbled. They outlive most of us, they live for centuries standing still and silent throughout the changing seasons and years. Yes eventually their lifespans do come to an end, they do not live forever like no element of life does. They come from the Great Mystery and return to it too. They experience the changing seasons, but offer no commentary on it. Their presence keep our all our too human hubris in check.

I have grown to love the way that trees celebrate the changing seasons, in silence and security. Just standing there as symbols of the changing nature of life. Yes they bend and reshape and change in colour. They look different as the seasons progress and yet stand there safe and secure expressing the eternal nature of life.

The trees have much to teach us. My name sake and American colleague Rev Greta W. Crosby recognises this. She describes a silent none judgemental presence that the trees offer her, something we humans cannot give no matter how well we may think we are at listening. The trees simply stand there erect and open, never shrinking away or rejecting, offering unconditional love and acceptance. In “Tree and Jubilee” she wrote:

“I have long had a sense of fellowship with trees. Since I was a child, I have sought their company from time to time because I like the way I feel in their presence. I enjoy their beauty, but it is more than that. I used the word “presence” in a very strong sense. I felt their presence as living things. And in that presence, I often feel relaxed and centered, peaceful, restored to inner equilibrium.

For many of us, life is the meaning of the tree. But for me, perhaps the greatest thing about the tree is its silence. Whatever the tree says to us, whatever it answers to our questing, the tree gives its message without words. And the tree bears with us well. It does not judge. It does not react to our anxieties. It does not run after us. It just stands there with open arms.”

I was thinking about these qualities as Sue and I walked around the grounds of Chatsworth House last Monday. Sue, like Greta, often embraces trees and she did several times that day. I did not, I simply observed them reverently, occasionally finding myself bowing toward them and as I did my mind wandered to concept of “The Tree of Life”

The “Tree of Life” is a beautiful and universal symbol that can be found in many of the world’s religious traditions. The ancient Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Baylonians and Samarians all had a tree of life symbol. There is Ygdrassil, the Norse Tree of Life, The Etz Ha Hayim of the Kaballistic Jews. The Bahai's speak of it and Christians of all kinds speak of the tree of life, with healing leaves, found in the Book of Revelations. The book of Genesis tells of two trees: a Tree of Knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil, and the Tree of Life, the tree of immortality. I wonder why Adam and Eve chose “The Tree of Knowledge over “The Tree of Life”. The tree of life is a symbol of re-birth and renewal; it is a sign post to the path of enlightenment; it reveals a timeless and eternal wisdom. The Buddha gained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree. The tree blessed him as it did so showering him with blossom. Wisdom also comes to mind when I think of the “Tree of Life”, an eternal wisdom that comes with age. A deeper wisdom than knowledge alone.

There is a wisdom in the trees, they have so much to teach us. The story I had heard in the grief group kept on nagging at me. I wanted to discover more. Sue did some research for me and found some fascinating articles online, but not exactly what I heard about and was seeking. One was a piece on “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they feel and how they communicate – Discoveries from a secret world” by Peter Wohlleben. He is a German forrester who has revolutionized his field. Through years of dedicated work he has highlighted an unprecedented level of cooperation among trees in a forest, noting that “mother” trees suckle the young saplings, feeding them enough sugars produced by their own photosynthesis to keep them from dying. The trees are connected by their roots, which grow together like a network. Their root tips have highly sensitive brain-like structures that can distinguish whether the root that it encounters in the soil is its own root, the root of another species, or the roots of its own species. He also explains how trees communicate through electrical signals that can be measured through the bark and roots. They send chemical signals through the air when they are attacked by insects. Nearby trees receive these messages and have time to prepare their defenses. Something that has been named as the Wood Wide Web.

Another article described the giant redwood trees of California, the largest trees in the world that have survived for thousands of years throughout turbulent times. It seems that these trees are unique amongst tall trees as their roots are not deep, they grow outwards instead and when they come in contact with roots of other Redwoods they wrap around each other multiple times and form a strong connection. Each tree shares a bond with another tree through its roots, until eventually, every single tree is interconnected. The roots hold on to one another through the harshest of weather, and keep the family of trees standing tall and strong, together. The roots of older and wiser trees hold on to the roots of trees just beginning to grow. They are held and protected by and underground system of interconnection, their strength is shared and they grow together.

I thought that this article must have been describing the trees I had heard about, but it was not. I kept on searching and then I found the film, from a channel entitled “Think Like a Tree”. It was a story about Hurricane Katrina and the 700 trees on Oak Street in New Orleans. The houses were completely destroyed their but only 4 out of 700 oaks had the same fate, the rest survived intact. There was a good reason for this, one being their spiral trunks and branches which allowed them to flex in the wind. Also their leaves curled into a Fibonacci sequence which allowed the wind to flow through with minimal friction. All of these characteristics helped but the real secret lay in their roots, which like the redwoods were intertwined with its neighbour. So when the hurricanes hit a tree it wasn’t hitting one tree, it was hitting a whole community of trees. It was thus the intertwining of the roots of the trees that allowed them to survive the elements.

Click here to watch the video from "Think Like a Tree

As I reflected on these fascinating ways that trees seemingly survive and thrive in challenging conditions through a kind of mutuality, I thought how much we humans could learn. We are not merely individual life forms we belong to web of mutuality, all life is connected and interconnected. To truly thrive we need to take care of our roots and our connections to one another. I wonder if as a society this is something that we lose sight of. What we do to the least of us we do to all of us.

This brings to mind that wonderful hymn “Spirit of Life” by Carolyn McDade particularly the line “Roots hold me close, wings set me free”. The roots come before the wings, we need to be held close, in mutual love, in order to truly thrive and therefore to fly free, to be all that we can possibly be. To focus only on the wings does not create the community and stability that we all need. When I think of those roots that hold the essence of those trees and enables them to thrive it reminds me of communal love. It seems to me that this love is that unseen force that connects all life and that enables us to form deep and meaningful relationships with ourselves, with each other and with all life. I name this God, others may use different words.

It is love that allows us to connect with all that exists, all that has been in the time before now and all that will be in the future. It is love that enables those roots to stretch out and connect to each other, to communicate and feed one another in a web of mutuality, just like the forest trees and the oaks of New Orleans. It is love that hold us close and it is love that allows us to stretch out the wings that will set us free and allow us to glide in the wind. To know love is to know that you belong and it is this that is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

It is the roots of belonging that give us the freedom to stretch out the wings and fly in the wind, free...This is love...We all belong somewhere, no one exists completely in a vacuum.

This to me is the essence of a free religious community. such as the Unitarian tradition that am a part of. A place where you feel that you can belong. A space where visitors and those already present can feel loving roots that hold them close so that they can spread their wings and begin to fly free. A community where the spiritual traveller can rest a while and find sustenance for their journey. A place with deep roots that can hold us during the vicissitudes of life, but not constrain us, so that we can fly free.

A place where you may find a sense of belonging; a space where you may find the love that connects and accepts you and allow you to live and thrive and encourage one another to fly free.

The Wisdom of Trees

“In A Tree Full of Angels” Macrina Wiederkehr wrote...

I must share with you a story about a particularly barren time in my life when I used a tree for a spiritual director. I learned so much that year because I listened in silence…

Because it was small I couldn’t lean on it but could only sit beside it. That taught me a lot about what the role of spiritual guide should be.

Even though it was small, it had the ability to give me a certain amount of shade. You don’t have to have a lot of leaves to give shade. Because it was silent I listened deeply. You don’t need a lot of words to connect with God.

When it got thirsty I watered it. The miracle of water is a little like the miracle of God’s love. That little sycamore taught me a lot about foot-washing. Watering it was a great joy. A soul-friend relationship never works only one way. There is a mutual giving and receiving.

I learned from my tree that being transplanted is possible. I can always put down roots again, connect with the Great Root, and grow on…

I wouldn’t recommend using a tree for a spiritual guide all the days of one’s life, but that sycamore got me through a long stretch of barrenness. It was only a little tree, and I didn’t know it was holy until I spent time with it. Truly, holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary."

A lovely piece I thught...It got me thinking of the wisdom of trees...

One of the many gifts of ministry is that it compels me to pay attention to the turning wheel of the year. It is a gift for which I am eternally grateful, for it brings so many delights.

Part of my annual cycle are twice yearly visits to Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, with the ministry group I am a part of. I will be there again this week. During the two days away I often go for a walk with my friend and colleague John Harley. Now the last time we were there we passed another colleague who was out walking alone. We asked how she was and she replied that she was well but had just seen a deeply upsetting sight. It was interesting that both mine and John’s initial thought was that she must have seen a dead sheep. She simply told us to pay attention and we would see what she meant. So we carried on walking and saw no dead sheep. What we did see was an ancient and once great tree that had finally succumbed to the elements and had broken apart and died. It lay there lifeless on the ground. A tree that had no doubt seen so much over the centuries.

Trees are humbling things. Their presence keep our all our too human hubris in check. They outlive most of us, they live for centuries standing still and silent throughout the changing seasons and years. Yes eventually their lifespans do come to an end, they do not live forever like no element of life does. They come from the Great Mystery and return to it too. They experience the changing seasons, but offer no commentary on it.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but the trees have remained barren a little longer this year, Spring has flowered a little slower. Why this is I do not know, but I have noticed so. Thelma Gott (a member of one of the congregations I serve)made reference to this as I visited her and her husband Malcolm last Monday, May Day. She said to me that the trees appeared barer this year and then all of a sudden they just seemed full of green and life. She said it was as if it had happened overnight, suggesting that this was probably due to the few days of sunshine we had a couple of weeks back.

I agreed with her suggesting that the spring seemed a little later blooming this year. I mentioned that the cherry blossom tree in the garden at the chapel had only just begun to flower and how it had done so several weeks earlier the year before.

Now the reason I know this is thanks to Social Media, specifically Facebook. Each day Facebook reminds me of posts I have made on that day the previous years. Well this Tuesday the day after my conversation with Thelma it reminded me of a “blogspot” I had created and posted that day the year before. In it I talked about my love for Cherry Blossom, beginning with a conversation about the very same tree in the garden at the chapel. This again proved to me that blossom was later blooming this year, as by this time last year it had been in full bloom for a couple of weeks. I smiled to myself as I re-read and posted the piece as I began to write the service that this "blogspot" has come from. Thank you!

Please click here to access Cherry Blossom Blogspot

So yes the spring has been later blooming this year…why I am not entirely sure, but I offer thanks and praise that the cherry blossom has finally arrived.

I have grown to love the way that trees celebrate the changing seasons, in silence and security. Just standing there as symbols of the changing nature of life. Yes they bend and reshape and change in colour. They look different throughout the year and yet stand there safe and secure expressing the eternal nature of life.

The trees have much to teach us. My name sake and American colleague Rev Greta W. Crosby has recognised this. In “Tree and Jubilee” she describes a silent none judgemental presence that the trees offer her, something we humans cannot give no matter how well we may think we are at listening. The trees simply stand there erect and open, never shrinking away or rejecting, offering unconditional love and acceptance. She wrote:

“I have long had a sense of fellowship with trees. Since I was a child, I have sought their company from time to time because I like the way I feel in their presence. I enjoy their beauty, but it is more than that. I used the word “presence” in a very strong sense. I felt their presence as living things. And in that presence, I often feel relaxed and centered, peaceful, restored to inner equilibrium.

For many of us, life is the meaning of the tree. But for me, perhaps the greatest thing about the tree is its silence. Whatever the tree says to us, whatever it answers to our questing, the tree gives its message without words. And the tree bears with us well. It does not judge. It does not react to our anxieties. It does not run after us. It just stands there with open arms.”

The great religious traditions have recognised the wisdom of trees. In many of them you will find "The Tree of Life". a beautiful and universal symbol, standing for so much. The ancient Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Baylonians and Samarians all had a tree of life symbol. There is Ygdrassil, the Norse Tree of Life, The Etz Ha Hayim of the Kaballistic Jews. The Bahai's speak of it and Christians of all kinds speak of the tree of life, with healing leaves, found in the Book of Revelations. The book of Genesis tells of two trees: a Tree of Knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil, and the Tree of Life, the tree of immortality. I wonder why Adam and Eve chose knowledge over life...I’m not going there today that’s a discussion for another time and place.

The May Pole is symbolic of the barren tree, stripped of life preparing to awaken again and bare fruit once more. On May Day, - which was celebrated last Monday as I was enjoying my conversation with Thelma about the ever changing cycle of life - the May Pole dance is enacted as a symbol of rebirth and everlasting life. The bare tree is re-clothed with decorative bands and flowers, giving us the opportunity to celebrate life’s re-creation. Isn’t this another symbol of the eternal tree of life; it is a symbol of re-birth and renewal; it is a sign post to the path of enlightenment; it is revealing a timeless and eternal wisdom.

Again Thelma and myself talked of the May Day festivals that were once so popular in north of England. She and her husband Malcolm recounted dancing the May Pole up in Colne in the Pennine hills of Lancashire. I recounted the same tradition taking place in Gawthorpe where on May Day they dance the Pole and also they enjoy the coal race where the men of the village race with sacks of coal through the town. Up and down this green and pleasant land all kinds of ancient May Day traditions are re-enacted, traditions that are slowly dying off. They have not yet gone the way of the “Whit Walks" and May Queens that have virtually died off, but they are doing so. I suspect that these are further signs of the secularisation of this land. There is a deep part of me that is saddened by the fact that increasingly we fail to recognise the sacredness of life. I have a feeling that this is none too wise.

There is an eternal wisdom in the trees. The Buddha gained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree. The tree blessed him and as it did it showered him with blossom. Wisdom also comes to mind when I think of the Tree of Life, an eternal wisdom that comes with age. In “Eternal Echoes” John O’Donohue recognises the wisdom of trees. He wrote:

“A tree is a perfect presence. It is somehow able to engage and integrate its own dissolution. The tree is wise in knowing how to foster its own loss. It does not become haunted by the loss nor addicted to it. The tree shelters and minds the loss. Out of this comes the quiet dignity and poise of a tree's presence. Trees stand beautifully on the clay. They stand with dignity. A life that wishes to honour its own possibility has to learn too how to integrate the suffering of dark and bleak times into a dignity of presence. Letting go of old forms of life, a tree practises hospitality towards new forms of life. It balances the perennial energies of winter and spring within its own living bark. The tree is wise in the art of belonging. The tree teaches us how to journey. Too frequently our inner journeys have no depth. We move forward feverishly into new situations and experiences which neither nourish nor challenge us, because we have left our deeper selves behind. It is no wonder that the addiction to superficial novelty leaves us invariably empty and weary. Much of our experience is literally superficial; it slips deftly from surface to surface. It lacks rootage. The tree can reach towards the light, endure wind, rain, and storm, precisely because it is rooted. Each of its branches is ultimately anchored in a reliable depth of clay. The wisdom of the tree balances the path inwards with the pathway outwards.”

...Oh the wisdom of the tree...

Trees can teach us so much of how to live more deeper rooted and open lives. If we follow their example we can become the loving presence we would love to be in the world. We just need to observe their presence and stand as they stand, arms out stretched. I was thinking this last Tuesday morning as I stood in the garden at Dunham Road, reflecting on the conversation I had shared with Malcom and Thelma and the many others I have with the people I serve. I also reflected on the short time that I will be able to enjoy the cherry blossom, in the certain knowledge that it will flower again next year and will continue to do so when I am long gone. It keeps me humble, it keeps me respectful and it helps me to revere life, to worship the earth, the clay from which all life is formed and to acknowledge the universal spirit that gives birth to it all

We are all formed from the tree of life, the tree of renewal, the tree of re-birth. May we know this wisdom and may we bring it to life through our very being.

Trees: Symbols and sign posts of life

Over the last few weeks I have spent a great deal of time watching the world through the lens of my car window. I seem to have constantly been on the road travelling from one place to another, spending time with my nearest and dearest. I have been quite emotional as I have driven and yet strangely I have felt calm and deeply connected to myself, to the world around me and to the source of all life and love that I name God. I have been a keen observer of life these last few weeks; I have seen many things as I have looked at the world from my window.

The other day I was heading to meet with some people in Warrington. I looked to my left out of the passenger side window and was greeted by the most amazing sight. There on a grassy verge in front of what looked like council properties was a tree stump, probably about four feet high. Dangling from this tree stump were a collection of shoes and trainers and attached to the stump was a sign that read “tree of lost soles” That’s soles “S”, “O”, “L”, “E”, “S” not souls “S”, “O”, “U”, “L”, “S”. I drove on smiling thinking about this amazing sight and wondering what on earth it could be about. It lifted my spirits, it filled my soul as I went and shared time with friends before heading to Yorkshire and family and the making of arrangements for my grandad’s funeral.

These last few days I’ve been telling everyone I meet about this road side sighting. Several have heard of it before and one or two have driven past it and wondered what on earth it is about. I have looked a little deeper into it and found out one or two things. It first appeared on Manchester Road Woolston in Warrington during late spring early summer back in 2012. The creator , who has remained anonymous, wrote the Warrington Guardian explaining that this abstract piece of public art is based on a similar tree found on Princess Highway in Woodburn New South Wales Australia. He says he found the shoes while out dog walking in the area and decided to copy what he had seen in Australia. Over the last eighteen months the sculpture has been added to by others and I have since been told that other similar pieces of public art have appeared in other parts of Cheshire. There was even one in Altrincham a few months back. Other examples can be found all over the world. The largest of its type, that I have uncovered, can be found in Holburg, British Columbia, Canada. This was started by loggers 25 years ago who nailed their boots to a tree trunk.

Now I don’t know if there is anything deeply symbolic in all of this. I know it made me smile and it drew me out of myself as I connected with others in telling the tale. Perhaps “the tree of lost soles” means nothing more than a tree with sole less shoes attached to it. Then again maybe it is a commentary on our modern times and our disposable and soulless lives...maybe, maybe not...It did get me thinking though...first of all about symbols and then about trees.

There are many signs that I see as I watch the world from my car window, mostly warning signs about the road and world that is built around the roads. There are also sign posts to all kinds of different things and places. Most are meaningless beyond the information they offer, but some hold deep significance. Some even touch me deep down in my soul, when I pass them I never feel like a lost soul. Whenever I am on the M62 travelling up towards Stott Hall Farm I often feel emotional as it’s a sign I’m heading for home, with all its blessings and curses. I know the road very well by now and as I pass a certain point I always make sure I move to the inside lane so as to be as close to the Yorkshire sign as I can be as I pass it. I always blow a kiss to the “White Rose” then drive on home. Ok it’s only a sign in the road, but it means something to my soul and to the roots from which I have grown. Signs and symbols mean something; it’s no use pretending otherwise.

Symbols can reveal deep and meaningful truth, they have the capacity to reach beyond the limits of the written and or spoken word. Joesph Campbell taught that certain images and pictures invite the eye not to merely rush along but to rest a while and dwell within the revelation that can be found by looking deeply into them. This certainly happened as I passed the “Tree of Lost Soles” I can only have caught a quick glimpse of it and yet I took in every detail. Signs and symbols allow us to get caught up in them and as a result they enable us to see the things in life we would normally miss in our day to day rushing and pushing and pulling. Signs and symbols have the capacity to pull us beyond ourselves to our better selves, they help us engage religiously with the world, as they re-bind us back to life.

The “tree of lost soles” reminds me of another work of art. This though is not found on an ordinary road in the north of England. Instead it is housed in the British Museum. It is titled “The Tree of Life” and is the creation of four Mozambican artists Cristovao Canhavato (Kester), Hilario Nhatuueja, Fiel dos Santos and Adelino Seraphim Mate. Is it the product of “Transforming Arms in Tools” project, inspired by words from Isaiah 2 v 4b “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

The "Transforming Arms into Tools" project was set up by Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane in 1995 and is supported by Christian Aid. During Mzmabique’s civil war, which lasted from 1976 until 1992, millions of weapons poured into the country and many still remain there to this day. The project is an attempt to create something out the devastation of the civil war as well as deal with the present danger of the weapons hidden all over the land. It encourages Mozambicans to hand over these weapons for decommissioning. As an incentive they are exchanged for ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines etc. “The tree of life” sculpture and other works of art are created from the decommissioned weapons; the "Tree of Life" is something beautiful that has been created from tools of violence and destruction; it is a powerful symbol.

The “Tree of Life” is a beautiful and universal symbol it can be found in many of the worlds religious traditions. The ancient Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians and Samarians all had a tree of life symbol. There is Ygdrassil, the Norse Tree of Life, The Etz Ha Hayim of the Kaballistic Jews. The Bahai's speak of it and Christians of all kinds talk of the tree of life, with healing leaves, found in the Book of Revelations. The book of Genesis tells of two trees: a Tree of Knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil, and the Tree of Life, the tree of immortality. I wonder why Adam and Eve chose knowledge over life? I’m not going explore that here that's another discussion on symbolism that I will explore at a later date.

The trees at this time of year always fascinate me. There is something very beautiful about the trees in winter. These lifeless stick like sculptures stretching out from the hard frozen ground are stripped right down to the bone. They look vulnerable and exposed, but they are not. By next spring they will once again be bursting into life. They look like lost souls, but this is an illusion for they will soon find life once again.

The May Pole is symbolic of such trees, stripped of their leaves to characterize their winter state. On May Day in an act of rebirth and everlasting life, they are re-clothed with decorative bands and flowers, giving us the opportunity to celebrate life’s re-creation. Again this seemingly symbolises the tree of life; it is a symbol of re-birth and renewal; it is a sign post to the path of enlightenment; it is a place where lost souls and even lost soles can come together and once again be found.

The Mozambique “Tree of Life” is a symbol of hope, of what can grow from the devastation of civil war; civil war which puts neighbour against neighbour brother against brother. All war is devastating and horrific but there is something even more destructive about civil war and yet they continue. Not just in foreign lands either, but also in our personal lives, in our families with our friends and neighbours and in our communities. We all fail to see from time that we are are all finite leaves on the infinite tree of life; we all seemingly fall out over the most trivial of things. We never seem to learn.

I live in hope though, not necessarily optimism but definitely hope. I see signs and symbols of hope all around me. I see them on the sides of the road in Warrington and other places too. I see them in the spring that will soon come to clear away winter when the tree of life will once again be in bloom. I see it in the eyes of people as they come to life, in many and varied ways, from seeming devastation.

We can all return to the tree of life, the tree of renewal, the tree of re-birth and follow the path of enlightenment. For all soles and souls are welcome, even those that have been discarded.

I pay homage to “Trees of Lost Soles” the world over and “The Trees of Life” universal.

May they lead us home, may they lead us to life.