Pastoral Ponderings—Roots

On our recent travels seeking spiritual renewal, one of our stops was at White Sands National Park, New Mexico. It was a place full of insight, despite it’s being a rather eerie place in a surprising way. I grew up in FL where vast stretches of white sand means beaches, crashing waves, seagulls, a salt sea breeze, and sounds of the revelry of countless sun-seeking tourists were all a package deal. But at White Sands, the very familiar looking sand was all by itself, and in the desert silence, seemed so alien instead.

With no water either within sight or hearing, and hardly a soul in sight, sparse vegetation lived in desert-like conditions. The occasional lonely trees were few and far between; more often than not, what had been trees were only skeletons of dried roots. But in our little hike across the white sand, I also saw a rather large tree that was still standing, that was silently telling the story of her fallen sisters. Isolated from surrounding vegetation to help protect the soil from constant winds, she was barely clinging to the ground with taproot and other main supporting systems exposed by ten feet, looking like a catastrophic collapse was imminent.

Seeing this haunting sight, I couldn’t help but think of the importance both of our own rootedness, and of the support of the community of rooted ones around us. Immersed in this silent struggle, scriptural language of “a dry and weary land where there is no water” sprung unbidden to mind. As sad as this lonely tree seemed, the not uncommon sight of dunes and plants sharing the mutual support and protection of widespread root systems, holding together and hanging on where they were clustered in community, was a deeply encouraging, immersive parable.

Have you ever noticed the challenges of loneliness, or worse, those who fall to scandal of any sort tend to follow isolation from rooted support systems? The isolation need not be physical—big cities are often said to be the loneliest of places—but comes from either purposefully or accidentally cutting social ties. Yet the erosion of support is just as real, and can collapse even the strongest of souls.

Retirement is often a part of this social isolation. The natural relationships and routines that are a part of a working life fade away, and when people fail to put new patterns and relationships in place, social isolation naturally follows. Is it any wonder that we’re stuck in an epidemic of loneliness?

Even if you have managed to build and keep in place a community of support, many of your neighbors and friends have not. God has not called us to be a lonely skeleton of dead and dried up roots, but to “build one another up in Christian love”—and not just those IN the church, but those who have not found a place in a church yet. It’s not just a good thing to do—it is our high calling from God! Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings— Just dead trees?

I was out in our wooded acres checking on our maple tappings, and collecting firewood for cooking down the sap into syrup, and was reminded out there how lifeless and depressing people sometimes find this time of year. Sure, they just look like dead trees, but if you look beyond appearances, God has put a lot of life and potential in those “dead” trees.

Tapping for maple syrup production can only happen this time of year from what looks like leafless and lifeless trees. When tapping, you’re actually tapping into the early flow of the sap up the tree to the budding leaves—collecting what is literally the life-blood of the tree, bringing back new life for the Spring. Other signs of new life are already showing (though unfortunately, the wild roses with all their thorns are among the first of the year to come back).

But even when trees are truly dead—or more dying than living—they are still sources of life. Woodpeckers and other creatures feast on the bugs that love dead and dying trees, and the rotted out holes from broken branches make cozy homes for countless creatures as well. They as the trees fall to the ground to return to their Maker, they end up creating a dynamic ecosystem that becomes the food source for plants, bugs and animals that become the foundation of the whole forest system food chain.

A powerful parable demonstrating that death not only provides the conditions for new life, but in many ways, is the actual source of new life. So is it really the depressing scene of lifelessness that it at first appears to be, when all we seem to see is just dead trees, or is that death really the playground where New Life is playing hide and seek in so many ways and places?

In our lives, too, we often find ourselves in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where things can seem hopeless, helpless and depressing. Yet in God’s ecology, as Jesus said in His elegant simplicity, “unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24)

I so love Jesus’ phrase, “s/he who has eyes (or ears), let them see (or hear).” I pray we all gain the eyes to see the often hidden gems of new life God is sowing all around us, especially in this season that seems to only offer dreariness.

– Pastor Jim