From Where I Sit                           Judith Lynch (Melbourne)                  Judith's previous articles        Judith's website                            

March 31, 2012                                    GUM TREE                            Palm Sunday - Year B

 

I don’t know if it is theological to image God as a gum tree but last Easter I did just that. Our home sat on the rim of the Maribyrnong valley. Steep sides ran down to a sandy walking track and then flattened out to edge through the undergrowth to the placidly flowing river.  The drought had not been kind to the valley and lots of dead trees stretched grey arms over ground littered with rocks, dead branches and occasional clusters of green that could have been mistaken for grass.  

A metre or two from the low chain link fence that kept the valley kangaroos out of the  garden was a gum tree – lanky, smooth barked  with sparse, leaf-tipped branches occasionally occupied by passing magpies or the odd kookaburra. The trunk was  lovely shades of rusty orange and brown, broken here and there by splits and breaks that blotched the bark like scar tissue or the stretch marks left after giving birth. It balanced precariously on an angle, a tribute to years of tenacity in a difficult location. Just one of the 700 species of eucalyptus trees, blending in with the all the other valley gums.  

God has written a sacred story across our land - Uluru’s red heart, crumpled brown earth, now and again rivers, green paddocks, ancient purple mountains, cities that hug the coastline and blink- and- you’re- through- them towns – and gum trees. When the landscape of the northern hemisphere is throwing off the winter snow and breaking out into fresh spring colours, our gum trees are shedding their bark in what is possibly a more subtle, but no less spectacular yearly event. This is what caught my eye as summer gave way to autumn. 

The old bark was peeling away, leaving behind smooth, creamy trunk. For a long time it had protected and nurtured the growth of the new skin, now its work was done. One particularly long bark peel hung, exposed and vulnerable, from an outstretched branch and I had a vivid awareness that God was writing a Holy Week story to me in Australian sign language.   

My religious and spiritual journey is set against a backdrop of Australian landscape. Every year, as Easter church liturgy unfolds, I struggle with imagery that originates and resonates with the other side of the world. Imagery has the power to transform our lives, to move us into a broader and deeper understanding of mystery. Holy Week bombards us with images. While the shopping centres are telling us that it’s about chocolate eggs, rabbits, chickens and hot cross buns, the Church offers us the story of Jesus’ last week as it is written in the Gospels, pieces of cyprus tree, feet to be washed, bread and wine, blessed oil, a wooden cross to touch.  

All that twirling, shredding, dropping bark was Aussie-speak for loss. It happened to Jesus and it scars every human life. I was reminded of loved ones who have died, of every injury or illness that was gradually limiting my physical possibilities, of relationships that have faded away with time. I watched the nightly news with its never-ending Holy Week story of physical pain, injustice, treachery, evil, grief, blackmail, indifference, misuse of power, humiliation, remorse, cowardice, mob rule, death, execution, suicide, violence and rejection. And as I looked at the lone bark strip hanging on that outstretched limb of the gum tree I recalled Jesus’ words: “Father, if it is your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.” He tasted the anguish. He bled with worry. 

The gum tree tells me that suffering and death are mysteries and they are not the end but just the beginning of new life, that the days of our lives are a constant movement between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It reminds me that Jesus’ death and resurrection brought to the world the unbelievable certainty of the newness of life and its possibilities.

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