Trees and Cups
The walk to the nearest cafe is still long enough to make me seriously question my life decisions. If only I could be happy with homemade, lukewarm, plunger coffee. It costs like $1.50, but instead, I’m walking down towards Starbucks, where I will likely pay half a kidney for that comfortingly familiar brew housed in those thick white mugs.
The walk itself is not bad, but it’s the slither of time that it gives my mind to unearth the things that have been squashed down under busyness. On this walk, my particular malady is the mess of it all. Why do things have to be so confusing and foggy? Why can’t the things that matter be simplistic and the benign things be complicated? I’m sure I could spend ample amounts of time worrying about the complexities of scrambled eggs and not feel the need to drink my worries away. Eggs don’t matter so much.
Intentions, friendships, and truth however…
The hardest part is that these things do truly matter, and I like to understand things. As someone wise once said, “It is the glory of kings to search out a matter.” So I try to be a king and search things out, but I’m missing certain body parts, and eventually the bog of it all gets to me. Also, I don’t know how much you know about me but I’m no wallflower, I don’t usually stand and watch a thing from the bleachers. I’m usually in the middle of the arena - sometimes unnecessarily - and it’s near impossible to have the full perspective from the field.
Last week I was talking to a friend, and we were talking through some difficult situations, inspecting the roots, and discussing differences in our understandings. Things got a little heated, as they tend to do when we see the world in different ways, and she said something profound, “Maybe, what’s actually needed is to let all this mess lie, go find God, and figure out what he wants from us and how he wants us to go forward.”
At the time that seemed a little bit of a cop-out, maybe even a little benign, but over the next few hours that really started to settle in.
You know in the movies when someone gets lost in the forest, a tiger mauls their foot, a spider bites them in the eye, they eat something gross but necessary for survival, and then they lose their bearings while barely maintaining consciousness? The usual next step is that they will search out the tallest nearby tree and climb, usually at the expense of the unmauled foot. And for what? Because they need to get above everything to gain some perspective. They need a clear view. They need to know where they’re going so they will have a new infusion of energy to go back down into the mess, stop wandering around in circles, and start setting out for that faraway but hopeful spot in the distance that promises salvation.
My city doesn’t have many climbing trees though. And if you did start to do it, some strange person walking past with a small crowd of friends might call you down and invite themselves over for lunch after saving your soul. So I try to stay away from climbing trees in public places.
But the walk down to Starbucks has become my tree-climbing endeavour. Even just for a moment I can clear my head, look for God, and ask him what he wants me to do in the day.
It’s surprising how well it seems to be working, even if it costs me a kidney!
