Tree Lessons

Outside my window are the layers of the inner city. Layers of sky, iron, brick, wood, and nature. A red oak tree stands more than three stories tall not even three feet from our balcony. The leaves reach and dance. On sunny days, they stretch out and soak up the sun.

Today, though, a great deal of its leaves are curling in on themselves. There are only two reasons that it would do this... either the tree's going to die, or the sky's going to rain.

It's leaves were curled up like this last night, as well. I watched the weather radar-- watched all of the storms split up and go around our little corner of the city-- but the tree still curled its leaves. It still hoped for rain.

And today, I look at the radar, and I look at the tree. It's the same picture, only more promise of rain. I'm learning a couple of lessons from this old tree.I'm learning that sometimes, when we're all curled up into ourselves, we can remember-- either we're going to die, or it's going to rain. The dead of night is always where my faith falters, when it is so dark that I cannot see a thing, and I begin to doubt that the sun is going to rise again. But, that tree's been around for a really long time. It's grown almost four stories worth of season after season, opening and closing its leaves in hopes of rain. It is considerably more likely that rain, rather than death will come. I'm also learning that hope is not wasted. Hope can't be wasted. Hope is what we were made to do. And, even when our hopes split up and go around us, or someone else gets what we're hoping for, we can still hope.

[P.S.- It's raining now.]