Delighting in Trees

We are learning about trees at our house these days. Brianna is working on a big leaf project for school, and we’ve been on several leaf collecting expeditions. We’re learning that identifying trees can take some time, more time than you might expect. (Some of us in this process have also learned that acorns float, and that you can balance small pebbles on lily pads, but not too many on a single lily pad). We’re beginning to notice the different kinds of trees in our neighborhood as we walk the dog and drive the kids to school.

One of Bri’s assignments was to find a poem about trees, and this got me thinking of various poems, including this one, by Mary Oliver:

Except for the body

of someone you love,

including all its expressions

in privacy and in public,

trees, I think,

are the most beautiful forms on earth.

 

Though admittedly,

if this were a contest,

the trees would come in

an extremely distant second.

 

We’ve been learning about trees these days, and I feel like we have also been learning about Moses. In addition to the lectionary preaching, the readings in Seeking God’s Face the last few weeks have all been from Exodus, and the readings in Teach Us to Pray have been too. And recently, both of them have included readings from Exodus 33. It’s after the Golden Calf, and Moses is talking with God, wondering how to go on, how to keep going, and God promises to go with Moses and says, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me’ and later ‘I am pleased with you and I know you by name.’

 

I’m trying to dwell with these words these days, to let them soak in deep and nourish my soul. “I know you by name.” God knows our names, our characters, the events and choices in life that have shaped us. God knit us together and knows us intimately, knows the private and public expressions of our bodies. God looks on us with a loving gaze.

 

“You have found favor with me” (echoes of Gabriel’s greeting to Mary: ‘you’re beautiful with God’s beauty, inside and out’) and “I am pleased with you.” God is smitten with us. And God’s pleasure in us, God’s delight in us, isn’t conditional. We don’t have to do everything right or make all the right decisions or even love everyone perfectly. God loves us because that’s what God does, who God is. God loves and delights in what God has made – trees, and us too.