Living Trees and Branches

Over the weekend I had an occasion to take hike in a deeply wooded forest. It was wonderfully warm with bright sunshine. The trail was deeply carpeted with crunchy fallen oak leaves. There was a slight breeze and a cloudless sky. It was silent and peaceful.

As I hiked along, as I looked around, there was evidence of a summer storm. Trees uprooted, branches fallen and the general “litter” that comes after a storm.

It took me a while to move my focus from the dead fallen branches and trees to the trees that were still standing tall, to the branches that still reached out to the sky, to the limbs that still held onto a few colorful fall leaves.

It took me even a while longer to realize that the storms had been an agent of clearing, or cleaning. The dead trees and branches were easily conquered by the storm, by the winds of nature. Those trees and branches that had already let go of life were brought down to the ground. Those trees and branches that had no root of life caved to the pressures of the storm.

But, the trees and branches that had life, that were deeply rooted in the earth were able to survive, to hang on and to probably strengthen themselves to face future storms.

The images from my hike have spiritual applications as well. We encounter storms in our lives. There are challenges and hardships. There are rough spots. The storms of life will clean out that which is dead and worthless. It will topple that which is not firmly and deeply rooted. It will fell patterns of thought and behaviors which are no longer full of life or life giving.

And what remains is what is life giving and deeply rooted. What remains is that which enhances the beauty and interest of life. What remains is what makes me come alive.

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” As a branch I deepen my connections to the power and promise of the Holy Spirit, to the gifts of faith and to the grace of Jesus so that I might be fully alive for the glory of the Kingdom of God.