Tree

I love trees.
I love when they tower over me in shadows and green.
I love the denseness, the smooth moss that grows over the scarred bark.
I love the way the sun can glint and make a single leaf sparkle.
I love to hear the birds I cannot see, to listen to their song and chatter of joy.
I love being covered.
Hidden.
Cocooned.
Listening only to my footsteps on dirt, crunching through pebbles.
My breath.
Labored
but alive.



I have a picture of a tree hanging on the wall in my bathroom.
It is black and white.
There is not room for color in this photo.
Only stillness.
Only a message.
Only the stand.

You can see that the tree was traumatized when it was very small.
Something happened.
Something pushed it off its course, and instead of growing up ....
it leans to the side.
It leans to the side, barely keeping itself off the ground, barely keeping itself from giving up.

It leans.
I wonder what happened to you Tree?
Did someone cut you? Did someone come and try to rip you apart?

Maybe you were in the way, Tree.
Maybe you were in the way when another was cut and torn and as it rolled down, thumping and skidding on dead leaves and broken branches, maybe it hit you. Maybe it didn't mean to, Tree. You were just there.
And so small.
Barely seen.

Maybe it couldn't stop itself, Tree. Maybe it tried.
Maybe it cried, Tree, when it knocked you and hurt you, not knowing if you would survive.
Maybe it whispered, in the black and white forest, "I'm so sorry."
Maybe it said a prayer as it slid past you, farther to the bottom, "please be ok."
Maybe it knew in the center of its marrow, in the sap running out, that you would.

I see you, Tree.
I see you leaning.
I see you holding on.

And then, there you are, Tree, reaching up ...
reaching up to the sky,
reaching for the sun.

You are so beautiful, Tree.
Stretching up, in all your pain and all your sorrow.
Determined.
Strong.

Tree.
You grew!

You didn't stay low to the ground.
You grew.
Straight up to the sky
blooming
with leaves.
And, I know, with color.

This tree hangs in my bathroom.
A reminder.

I gave this tree to my mother.
It hangs in her room.
A reminder.

The courage to grow despite wounds.


XOXO

NOTE: I first saw this tree at a conference, a conference for survivors of abuse, a conference I did not want to go to but am so grateful I did. I sat in a room, full of women and a smattering of men, all of us crying, shaking our leaves for the damage done, and then straightening with the strength of what we knew.
We had survived.
We had grown.
Despite wounds.

Sallie Culbreth wrote a poem about this same tree, called The Courage Tree. It is beautiful. It is what she sees when she looks at this tree.

I am writing what I see.

Photogragh by Dave Dietrich Young.

proverbs 14:1

I love facebook.
It's almost embarrassing to admit, but there it is. I am not a teenager. I am a grown-up with a job, and bills, and kids.
But i still love facebook. No time for a phone call or coffee date? Power up. It's an icon away to see the dirty, gleeful faces of my friends' kids as they terrorize summer. It's just a five minute scroll to see who is eating lunch at the Loving Hut, who started their 2.6 mile run, who is "so over" their Monday at work, who is going to happy hour, and who is chugging their way to "Vegas Baby!!!"

We can stalk old boyfriends, their newest girlfriend, past friends, new friends, and even the ones that don't want to be friends, in the privacy of our homes, our cars, our closest Starbucks while sipping an iced latte. It's a window to our kids and the lives they are living away from home, on their own. I may not talk to my daughter every week but I can see pictures of her latest hike and I know what Disney movie she watched cozied on her couch. It connects us and shares us and sometimes takes the pressure away.

But there is the dark side. The side that we don't "like" or "share" but undoubtedly still read.
The side that can leave us a little breathless, a little "what the eff?"
Sometimes we see things that a few years ago, would have remained PRIVATE.
Closed. (KEEP OUT. NO TRESPASSING.)
Friends and Family Only.
It would have been one of those ... "oh but what happened to so and so?" And then, "Oh it was so heartbreaking... tragic ... a few years back..."

Not the entire world. Not people that you've only met once or twice, or is a friend of a friend that you ran into at church; a face that you'd recognize but if it wasn't for facebook, you wouldn't remember their name, much less where they recently vacationed (Hawaii!!), or if they are dieting (the last five pounds!), if their kids are taking swimming lessons, that their anniversary is in five days, or ...

if their marriage is falling apart.

if they are having an affair.

if they are getting a divorce.

if they hate each others guts.

But suddenly
here I am, here we are.
seeing every grim detail, exposed to each raw emotion, a gaping wound with leaking arteries, we watch a love story that once swelled and moved, passionate and full,
gasp
and die.

with their very own hands, in their very own words, their pulsating pain reaches out

a wrecking ball.

every insult - a brick. every barb - a shattered window.
Their house,
smashed into chunks and pieces.

it makes my heart hurt.
it causes me to pray.
alot.
and sometimes
i cry.

It isn't my business.
Yet it stares me in the face.

a mirror.

I tell myself, Turn it off. Shut it down. I don't want to see.

And like a reality show that exposes weaknesses and vulnerability and betrayal for fun and ratings,

I leave it on. Mortified. Heartsick. I can't take me eyes away from it.

why?

because i know.
i know what it feels like to be in that house, a bleeding mess that refuses
oxygen,
love,
forgiveness,
healing.

I know what it feels like to want shove it in their face, how happy you are now, how hot you are now, how wanted you are now, how appreciated you are now.

how carefree you are now.

except you aren't.
not really.
it's pretend.
and other people help you pretend.
telling you what you deserve
(them)
and how different they will be
(but they're not)

and every time you post, every time you pose, every time you say one more thing in offense ...

you rip part of your house down for all of us to see.

How easily we forget how hard it was to build it in the first place.

I tore my house down once too. We can get pretty comfortable, can't we? In our marriages? I know I did.
No boundaries, No safeguards. No tending.
We guard our cell phones, our car keys, our Starbucks Gold cards, with fiercer protection than our marriages.

I said what I wanted, to those I claimed to love.
In tones that cut.
With facial expressions that demean.

Instead of holding close, I flung away.
Instead of going towards, I turned my back.
Instead of choosing to love, we chose complacency.

It's no wonder we didn't make it. It's not that we didn't care.
It's more that we didn't know how.

My heart aches for you, crumbling marriage divided with pain.

I heard this by a preacher man one morning on the radio. He said, "Marriages don't just explode out of nowhere. It's not a giant burst.
Marriages are punctured."

Stabbed.
Wounded.
Holed.

and then they lay down and bleed to death.

I believe in miracles. I do. I believe marriages can be fixed. Healed.
and then more than healed. They thrive.
I have seen it.
Not in my own.
No. We tapped out.
I tapped out.
I didn't want a miracle.

That's the beauty and the agony of it, isn't it?

We get to choose how our life is going to be.

And then we all get to see that life.

On Facebook.


* I titled this proverbs 14:1. but just know, this post is equal opportunity. We all tear our houses down.