Planting Trees in the Sea Makes You Better

It doesn't happen very often, but from time to time I get to ask a question about childhood and I have rarely been disappointed by the answer.  Most of the time when people die, it is their spouse or their children who speak about them and for them. I have a loose set of questions to guide conversation. One is to ask, what would your mother want to say or have said, or if he said it once he said it a thousand times. These and other questions evoke the presence of the deceased. But every once in a great while, those who have gathered to remember and craft a service will include a sibling, a cousin, a lifelong friend. This is when I get to ask my favorite question: what sort of kid were they; what kind of boy, what kind of girl?

              I love this question because the answers it yields are so transparent, so innocent.  The transparency could be a hellion, a demure child, a tomboy, a child who had to grow up too fast, or take on responsibilities not their own.  Whatever it is, when the siblings and friends speak you get a glimpse of the soul, the child. 

Obituaries will often list hobbies and careers; there is often mention of wit or generosity.  Most are remembered for a sports team or a garden, some a beloved pet.  All this is good. 

I love when grandchildren speak at the time of losing a grandparent, for this is an instance of freedom gained.  When you have no job but to love, then you are likely to show your heart.  This is a great gift become memory when it happens. 

              Yet, so often what we know, remember of people, our family, is the chapter we shared with them, the span of a few decades or brief years of adolescence.  Those can be cherished memories, but so often those memories are shaped by roles and responsibilities or habits.  We know what they did for us, but so often, who they are, their soul, is not obvious. 

              Recently I stumbled across a person who reads obituaries on line.  I knew I would enjoy this when she said, a good obituary is true and authentic.  This makes not only a good obit; this also makes a good life.

              One obit she read was for Anne King who passed in the presence of her family of a rare form of cancer, her second fight with the “big C” she called it.  Anne wrote her own obit and began with a declaration.  Damn.  I am dead. Born in 1935 Anne lived her life in northern California.  Went to college, got married, had two kids, got divorced.  She spoke of adoring her children, losing a beloved brother, and a bit of the usual suspects of a remembrance.  But then her memories took a bit of a turn.

              What a carnival I lived. Art, theater, music, dance, world travel, an unrepentant foodie and a great addition to the list, enduring friendships.  A highlight of her life was singing Mozart’s requiem as part of a 150-voice choir behind a symphony orchestra.  In her forties she drove across the country alone all the while staying in youth hostels.  At age 59 she earned a degree in English literature, spent time in Guatemala helping to build a school in her sixties.

              This is a fun life, an exciting life, but then her obit becomes a very profound plea and confession.  She said the best adventures in her life were found when she dared her fears and ignorance and won, most of the time. She became a Unitarian so to draw outside the box and enjoyed 14 years of post-cancer-freedom until it returned. 

              Her conclusion is the most helpful when she describes her own soul.  She wrote throughout all of this my frequently harried and stunningly persistent little soul demanded to be known and I worked for years to free her.  I wished I paid more attention to her for she richly rewarded me when I did. I worked hard to find the clear stream beneath the tangled web but wasted far too much of my life doing what I thought someone expected me to do.

              I wished I paid more attention to her, my little soul, for she richly rewarded me when I did.  I worked for years trying to free her.  Wasted far too much of my life doing what I thought people expected of me.

              Writing your own obituary is tricky.  Not that it is difficult to write per se.  I have read numerous obits written by the deceased.  It is hard to write it well.  I can attest very few approach the honesty and authenticity of Anne King.  She has a list of life’s ups and downs, victories and failures; there is a sense of living life to the fullest, daring, adventurous, but then comes the last part, her confession, almost contrition for her soul.  It’s almost an apology: I should have done more for you but I was worried about things I need not have worried.  She apologized to her own soul.

              In some ways we can read our lesson from Luke today as a strange mash up of teachings about apologies and failures and the need to protect children, little ones; the common theme being a sense of foreboding, a warning as it were.  Once again Luke has taken various teachings of Jesus and smushed them together.  The result is a warning about temptation, warning about disdain, warning about causing children to stumble, and then a bizarre claim: mulberry trees can plant themselves in the sea at your discretion if you have the faith of mustard seed.  Mulberry trees plant themselves in the sea.

              Remember, when Jesus says fantastic things, or we could say crazy things, this is meant to make us pause.  Consider if I asked my wife where we should plant a tree in the yard and she said, let it plant itself in the sea, I would wonder what was going on, gardening is not usually a riddle. Mulberry trees planted in the sea.  This should let us pause. And let us do so with the help of Anne King and just a bit Kierkegaard.

              When Kierkegaard spoke of causing children to stumble, he spoke of the root of the wrong or the sin.  The root of the wrong was offence.  To cause someone offence, to cause them to stumble, in Greek the word is scandalon, where we get our word scandal or scandalous.  What Kierkegaard offered in his consideration of this was how we lose faith in people, we lose trust in people when they offend us.  He said the opposite of faith is not doubt, the opposite of faith is offence.  For when people scandalize us, we no longer trust them.

              If we take this definition of injury, the causing of little ones to stumble and thus lose faith, if we take this and combine it with Anne King’s obituary, something interesting happens.  She refers to her soul as “little” almost as if her soul was a young child; she also refers to her soul as in need of apology, a forgiveness to her soul from herself.  Perhaps most importantly, it is almost as if her neglect or lack of attention was not a single occurrence, but a persistent failure she can now see.  Perhaps we can now look at our smushed up passage from Luke and it will take on a whole different meaning.

              The difference of meaning comes when we wonder, how could someone cause us injury seven times in a day?  What sort of crazy world is this?  If someone wronged us these many times in any given day, then we are really slow, not really all that bright.  Right?  Yet, what if we were to consider how many times in a day we allowed fear or unnecessary worry or the weight of expectations, how many times in a day could these take away our happiness; could you imagine this happening seven times in a day? 

              And what if we were to consider the little one as Anne King did, her own soul?  What if the loss of faith caused by the offence is to lose the trust of the child, the little soul in each of us?  We cannot trust ourselves.  I have a voice in me, most likely you have one too, so very harsh, so demeaning, belittling even over the most simple mistake because I need to do better than that, need to be more focused, more consistent, more of a lot of things having nothing to do with being free.

              Before we look to mulberry trees and their fantastic ability to plant themselves in the sea, what if we take up one more question from Anne King and Kierkegaard.  We need to forgive people and by forgive people I mean we regain a sense of trust.  Offence is the loss of faith; mercy is the restoration of trust.  Real forgiveness is not to forget; real forgiveness is treating the offender as someone worthy of trust.  This is the great challenge of mercy, to offer charity with trust, a faith in the goodness of the offender.   

              What if true brokenness, the persistence of sin and offence, is not so much what we do or fail to do for others, but the persistent, daily, hourly injury is what we inflict on ourselves.  We are our harshest critic; we are the one bringing the most harm.  So common.  How much of this is simply false expectation, the delusion we offer ourselves of our role, our responsibility, our need to be what others may or may not want from us? Could we all not join in Anne’s contrition, I wasted too much time worried about what others expected?

              Okay.  To the mulberry tree.

              There is a thin line between vision and delusion.  The apostle Paul is often brought up here to aid the wild idea, the impossible dream, the audacious possibility, the delusion.  I can do all things through Christ who strengths me; and its twin, all things are possible with God.  This is true.  No argument.  For the most part I will entertain just about any idea, any notion, any possibility.  But sometimes the ridiculous is simply clothed in religious metaphor and pearls are cast to swine.

              Having just spent a month in the audacious creation of Gothic cathedrals, it would be easy for me to say, think big, think grand, consider all things possible.  Let’s plant some mulberry trees in the sea.  Yet, of all the miracles and fantastic sights I encountered in cathedral after cathedral, what I found most fantastic is their single purpose, to lift the soul unto God and thus freedom.  In small and grand ways every part of these sublime stacks of stone, every part finds this singular intent, how can you and I free the “little soul” in us to be reborn in beauty?

              It is so easy to fall to the temptation of fear and anxiety and worry and dread daily arising from unrealistic and false expectations we imagine others have of us.  We need do better; we have stop being a fool; wise up.  What have you done now?  And this voice can be heard once in a while; and this voice can be seven times a day.  Each time we stumble we lose faith in ourselves, in our own freedom.  We lay aside the child we were, the childlike wonder of faith and trust, so to what?

              To free the little soul in us, oh this is fantastic, wild, almost an unimaginable possibility if we are lost in fear, if we are tripping, stumbling over ourselves.  Freedom never comes from fear.  Yet, how often do we expect our fears to keep us free from harm?  If only we looked to free the little soul in us, how much greater the reward would be.  Amen.