The tree is gone now, with not even a stump remaining where it stood, to bear witness to its existence.

For years, the Lovely Lady and I walked, rode, and drove past the old oak tree.  It was just one oak in a grove of twenty or more bordering our local cemetery, with nothing to make it stand out.

You know by now (if you read my articles often) that I love trees.  Their beauty is not only in the aesthetic qualities they have—the sturdy trunk, the spreading canopy, the soaring height—but is also in the functional part of them, the part that shades the earth from the sun and helps to fill the atmosphere with the oxygen that is necessary for life.

One day, a few weeks ago, we noticed that several limbs on the beautiful oak were dead.  Completely dead.  I can’t be sure, but they may have been dead for some time before that.

Still, it wasn’t long before a crew was there to trim off those dead limbs.  The tree was near a very busy street and the city couldn’t risk having a limb fall into traffic and potentially injure someone.  So, the lifeless limbs with their brown leaves were removed and hauled off.

All was well again.  We thought.

Then last week, the crew came back.  They downed the entire tree, much to our dismay.  Sure, it was one of many, hardly to be missed.  But, I hate it when trees are chopped down, especially trees that are alive and healthy.

However, even looking at the stump from across the street (before they brought the machine to grind it out), we could tell something was amiss.  Perhaps, it hadn’t been a healthy tree after all.  We walked over, exclaiming about what we found there.

The oak had been completely hollow.  Rotten to the core.  There was even evidence that, through a void near the ground, a wild animal of some sort had crept in and made a den inside the huge shell of a tree.

What a shock!  Living, but filled with death.

The words of a prayer in The Book of Common Prayer come to mind.  They were first written in Latin, way back in the 1300s.

“Media vita in morte sumus“

“In the midst of life, we are in death.”

The common usage today is for funeral services.  It was not so when the words were written.  They were written as a reminder to man that we ourselves are sinners, full of decay and degeneration.  Alive on the outside, but inside full of nasty things.

I sat in my local coffee shop this morning, a lovely establishment, owned by a believer.  As I sat sipping the delicious brew and enjoying my yogurt parfait, I listened to the quiet worship music playing.  A delightful and reassuring start to my morning.

Then, I noticed writing on the edge of my yogurt cup.

Why is there always something to disturb the satisfaction of life as we’ve made it?  I want to sit and enjoy the knowledge that all is well, that I’m doing just fine, yet thoughts and words intrude.

The writing on the cup was a scripture reference from Colossians 3.  It included a specific verse, but I looked up the entire chapter on my laptop.  It wasn’t all stuff I wanted to read.

I read it anyway.

“So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you.“ (Colossians 3: 5a, NLT)

Then there is a list of the things that live inside us, but shouldn’t.  Impure thoughts—immorality—lust—even greed.

And now, I can’t get the picture of that tree out of my head.  And the words of the Teacher, as He castigated the religious leaders of His time for their double-mindedness.  White-washed tombs, He called them.

Our thoughts matter.  What’s inside of us will eventually come out.  In actions.  In words.

I don’t want to rot from the inside.

I’d rather stand tall, like those trees in the first Psalm.  Planted on the banks of a river flowing with pure, life-giving water.

Shade for the weary traveler.  Fruit for the hungry.

Alive.

Completely alive.

Put away that chainsaw, would you?

 

 ^“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”  (Colossians 3:16-17, NLT)

“I wish not only to be called Christian, but also to be Christian.” (Saint Ignatius)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.