Under the Tree

Writing, writing, writing…

It’s the thing that

keeps me sane.

 

The thoughts in my head get so jumbled and then my emotions hitch a ride until together we are all too tired to settle anything and logic becomes our long lost friend.  I wonder some days if I will find a way to navigate the labyrinth of my mind.   If I will find solace beneath a shade tree and learn to enjoy the soft breeze and the songs the birds sing just for me?  How long will it take me to learn this?  To love this?  To see that it is not complicated or a burden to get to a place where I can rest in peace?  My self-made drama and my extra long processing time often gets the better of me.  I find myself stumbling over words and thoughts and emotions as if they were pebbles in my path and not the stepping-stones they are.  As if they were merely rocks instead of precious jewels I must learn to enjoy the beauty of. 

            I must learn to find a center; a place of refuge.  I must learn to love myself.  I want to learn to be positive and embrace the here and now.  I want to learn how to move on and not give control to the past or future or circumstance, but to know that in this moment there is calm and I am protected from these winds.

            I must learn how to see Jesus again.  I must re-know God.  Learn how to be joined with them in our spirits.  It is with them and their songs that I have always found calm.  They are my birds and my tree and my song.

            So I picture myself resting in a field.  There is lake and a small stream.  I’m under the umbrella of a tree, back to its sturdy trunk.  I have with me a sandwich that I will eat later because right now I am following the outline of its shadow on the ground, noticing how the shades of green vary in the sun and on each individual blade.  Every once in a while I spot a small flower living at peace in its own beauty.  She doesn’t think much about her size or her strength or how others view her.  She just exists in her beauty and I would like her to teach me.  And there is a frog and a small bee.

Above me someone is singing a song.  There is chorus actually, of strong voices.  It’s a song that I seem to know as if it has always been there, always being sung over me except that every second feels brand new and beckons me to close my eyes and just explore its melody.  The birds fly and hop back forth from branch to branch between the fluttering leaves which dance, uncaring of how and who sees.  They dance because they must, because this is what they do when the wind catches them.  When they dance on this wind, to this song they are beautiful and fluid.  They are at one with all the parts of life they are connected to.  The millions of tiny leaves flutter against the blue sky, giving glimpses of the clouds slowing passing overhead. 

I imagine myself wrapped in one on a cool summer evening with the windows open allowing in the evening breeze with the scent of coming rain.  There is a peace in these clouds that surround me.  Peace to be lived and breathed and to be lost in. I believe my God created these things.  I believe he lives inside them.  I believe they are parts of Him and parts of me.  To ignore them is to cheat myself and to cheat others.  To ignore them is to ignore God.  I believe He waits patiently for me to notice and will wait forever loving and blowing and singing and dancing until I notice and join Him.