Deep Roots, Low Walls

It was an easy trip to KC yesterday, and a beautiful evening to sit outside, jacketless, at a sidewalk cafe'


in a funky part of town just a short walk away,




chill to some favorites on my iPod Shuffle, and read Avery Cardinal Dulles' Models of the Church.  :)  Idyllic.

 

Tonight... it's a huge downpour, with high winds and a lightning storm. :(  So I'm staying indoors and working on the Dulles paper.  I'm glad I had last night out - it was so nice.

 

Still on my mind is a comment the prof made Tuesday night.  We were talking about the way the church sometimes creates barriers to protect itself against assault by the culture, instead of feeling confident to "mix it up" with the culture, and actually be the "salt and light" that Jesus told His followers to be.

 

So he used this phrase: "Deep Roots, Low Walls."  The idea behind it is that the more confident you are of your beliefs, the less you should have to protect them from the beliefs of others.  :) 

 

The example he used is of a tree.  When it's a new sapling, you stake it and tie it, wrap the trunk, put up a fence around it, all to let it get started properly.  Sort of what you do with children.  You know, chain them to the furnace until they're 21.  ;)

 

But then, as the tree (or the child!) matures, you can remove the fence, let it grow right through the wrapping, and eventually... untie it and remove the stake.  Like I did last Fall with two trees in my backyard.  They were big enough and straight enough that they didn't need that support anymore.  I want to do the same with J2.. as soon as I can.  Maybe he's ready and I just can't see it yet.  :)

 

Back to the analogy.  The deeper the root system, the thicker the trunk, the tougher the bark...  the more the tree can stand against the elements, the critters gnawing on it, the lovers carving their initials in it.  :)  It can stand on its own.

 

I have felt like this lately.  On one hand I've felt like the storms of life have uprooted the old dead tree that I used to be - the one that was pest-infested, full of dry rot, and hollow inside.

 

It's as if that old tree dropped some seeds a few years ago, while in the process of dying, and one of them took root and began to grow. 

 

Now I feel like a new sapling growing in the shadows of an old downed tree, genetically related to it, feeding somewhat from it as it decomposes, but still - a whole new tree.  Not the same old one..

 

I'm growing, definitely, but I still need care, still need some protection from the elements.  After all, it's Spring, and there are early April storms that come blowing through unexpectedly.  :( 

 

I'm not ready to stand on my own just yet - for a little while I still need a stake to be tied to, an anchor, a bond to hold me fast. 

 

But every day, every week...

 

my roots are deepening.  :)  I can feel it.  I am getting stronger.  Soon the tie can be loosed, the stake pulled up. 

 

God willing, before tornado season comes in June, and then later when it gets so dry and parched in August from lack of rain... maybe until then the wind will stay calm for a while, and God will send me enough thorough, gently soaking rain and sunny warmth in May to help this particular sapling be ready for that looong hard summer ahead. :)