Currents

September 2011

I'm a big believer in trees. Trees quite literally sheltered me when I was a child, as well as providing countless hours of games, forts, hideouts, and sheer beauty. Growing up in Colorado there were many places to look out over long sweeps of prairie and see a lone tree on a hill - and it always seemed there must be a mystery there, and a treasure.

And then there were the aspen trees. Here in Maine there are more greens in the summer than I've ever seen before in my life, and a true riot of colors in the autumn months. But in the landscape of my childhood there was prairie and evergreen and flatiron mountains, and nothing to interrupt that majesty, except the aspens. The aspens were different. They were beautiful, lithe, a little mischievous. Their leaves turned silvery green - quite flirtatious and audacious compared to their imposing neighbors. And in the fall they blazed up bright yellow, unashamed, screaming for attention, loving every whispery, windy moment of their glory.

What fascinated me most about them is their relationship to one another - in a stand of aspen it is highly likely that you're really looking at one tree, though it appears to be many. Underground, at the heart of things, deep in healthy soil, one single extensive root system is sending out multiple shoots that become those lithe, laughing branches. I've gone through the world, marking my inner and outer journeys through and around forests and woods, meadows, hidden gardens, new paths and wide vistas wondering if it isn't true that, at the heart of things, all trees are one family - perhaps when I touch the bark of a new birch in Bar Harbor those old friends near Boulder know where I am, and that I'm still laughing, and still a believer in trees.

We are like this - apart, and connected - separate entities that are yet part of the same extensive family. We search for the right balance of family, self, rewarding work, down-time, family involvement. There's no one who is not engaged in this search, and when we reach moments of balance and contentment we find home, and we create safety and possibility around us. We're going to be talking about home, and freedom as we come together at Ingathering - as we come home to our church and our friends and our faith community, but always remember that freedom of the body, and freedom in the law and in human relationships is rooted, deep in the healthy soil at the heart of things, in personal freedom brought on by a balanced and integrated life. No matter what else swirls around you, or who your neighbors are, you can be healthy and upright in heart and spirit, and live out loud in your own glory moments. May it be so.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you, and rejoicing in our church home for a fifth year together. Safe travels of body, mind and spirit as you make your way through the first weeks of autumn, and, hopefully, find yourself at the doors of First U again. There's so much to share.

Warmly,

Rev Jennifer