Gum tree shedding[i]
Over the past few weeks, I have watched one of my favourite gum
trees in the nearby park shed its bark.
It is time for the bark that has protected it over the past
year to drop to the ground. It’s work
protecting the tree has finished.
The bark must leave for the tree to continue to grow, expand,
continue its work of home for birds, small animals and insects; for its roots
to hold the earth firm and its leaves to clean the air all creatures breathe. To say nothing of its majestic beauty in the
evening sunlight.
Now it stands white against the embankment (railway line
included) and the sky showing a new skin which bears the scars of its life –
fallen branches, claw marks and insect tracks.
In the sunlight it glows with the reflected light.
But the discarded bark is not wasted or lost. It lays around the base of the tree as protective
mulch cooling the earth and tree roots in the summer heat and warming them in
the winter. Small creatures of the earth
thrive in it finding shelter and food.
Over time it will become good earth to nourish the tree and the land.
Nothing is lost. A
community of life.
This gum tree has accompanied me during my years of living
here particularly during COVID. This
Advent and Christmas the tree has accompanied me through a time of personal
shedding which has enriched my sense of the Antipodean liturgical celebration
of something new afoot in the universe with the birth of this Child.
To be human is to allow ourselves to shed at each stage of
our lives in order to grow into the next moment of being human. Often it means shedding the good as well as the
not-so-good – from childhood to early adulthood then the time of inexorable
changes that come with age, and perhaps some maturity.
So often, I have found that the choice to allow someone or
something good and precious to leave my life is the hardest choice. Even enforced leavings have to be chosen,
embraced if wisdom and maturity are to come.
Today is the anniversary of my father’s death. He was a good man, an ordinary man,
unremarkable in so many ways but a man of duty, family love and care for others. I remember times when he took difficult
stands over needy or unjust situations.
These were costly but he, with the support of Mum, reached out with
honour to address the matter. He was no
loud crusader – just an ordinary man seeing a need. An ordinary man who bore the scars of living
justly and lovingly.
Over the years since his death, I have seen something of his
legacy in myself. His death was the shedding
I had to choose – a farewell in order to continue life. Yet in that choice, I see the shed shards of
his life and values around me and in me enriching me (compost?) and encouraging
growth in love, compassion, justice – until my own final summer shedding. His shedding is now finished in the mystery
of God-with-us. He is what he was meant
to be.
This is the life the One who is the Word and Wisdom of God
embraced. Flesh of our flesh. Our summer Advent and Christmas speaks of the
sun’s brilliance, the necessity to shed like the gum tree to let Christ be born
is us – day in and day out; to embrace the seasonal rhythms of our lives.
In the end, nothing is lost – all is Grace.
[i] https://youtu.be/75wKPrLhGu4
