Rev. Bran Lennox

Trees have been on earth for about 67 times as long as the oldest hominids, and 1300 times as long as homo sapiens. What I’m getting at, is that trees have always been a part of the human consciousness. They’re in our spiritual DNA. Of course children know that trees can talk.

We are asking ourselves to take the actions of hope without any guarantee that our circumstances will get better. This is an irrational request. We need to have faith in something to get through it.

The slight mismatch between intended meaning and interpreted meaning is present in every single conversation that takes place between human beings. As galling as it is to think about, you can never say anything and know that your meaning was clear, and you can never hear anything and know for sure what was meant.

It’s kind of like if your car was out of gas, and you didn’t have any gas available. After a while, you might look around and notice that you did have a dozen gallons of leftover apple cider. So you fill up the gas tank with cider just to make the darn dashboard light go off.

That’s the beauty of a living, interdependent faith - more means more. Giving more love, more energy, more acceptance in one area doesn’t mean giving less somewhere else. More means more, for all of us.

And as the sidewalk rises ahead of me in the chill night air, spirit nudges me and says, “You can’t write about death if you won’t accept you’re alive. At some point you have to participate.”

I have to wonder if this is part of why we are so culturally drawn to the idea of euphoria - because we can’t be culpable for things we don’t have control over. Euphoria is something that happens to us. Joy, on the other hand, requires our participation.

The classic association between Holy Week and leaving our comfort zones would be to say we should follow in Jesus’ selfless example and be willing to lay down our lives for what we know is good. I am stating that position in clear terms because I do not agree with it.

When our lives change, we ourselves change on a deep level. The person we are can be so shaped by these moments. We don’t have a choice about whether changes like this happen, or when, or how. We are a duckling one day, a rabbit the next.

Perhaps I am reaching for that connection to ask for help, set an intention, express wonder and thanks, or even just be in its presence. And when I started engaging with this practice intentionally, I felt embarrassed at first. It’s not particularly hip for somebody in my social location to pray. But openness is important to me, and eventually I couldn’t deny my beautiful relationship to prayer.