The approach to our home, Greenacre, is lined with ancient oak trees. Some predate the two hundred year old house. There are depressions in the lawn that once were the companion trees now long lost. It is thought the two nearest the house may be closer to three hundred years old. When yesterday's weather front moved through with the sort of wind that makes one think tornado, the ancient trees seemed to almost turn inside out. However they did not and only dead branches and clusters of leaves fell. It will be a few hours before all is cleaned up. I notice the smaller plants of the perennial gardens are all but unscathed.
Jesus enters Jerusalem before the great drama of his dying and rising takes place. He sights the ancient holy city standing proud and more ancient than our oaks and laments over her life. The Temple within is perceived to be, hoped to be, a forever place.
'If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, ... because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.' Luke 19:42-44
Faith is an ancient enterprise. We build ourselves on it, cities on it, buildings on it. We build as if all is to last. We take ourselves and our corporate life to the place of faith to find peace, a solid quiet place where we can feel whole and connected to purpose. Sometimes we allow ourselves or our corporate life to be troubled by faith, by insight, by the need to purify or enlarge our heart and actions so they mirror some value in God.
And then often we take faith and our shaping for granted like the ancient oaks here at Greenacre. Some precepts of faith can become our comfort. We desire them to be at our best. It can be like the trees that make this place speak of home to all who drive by and bother to look. Then slowly we forget them or they become too much background and we move about our days barely aware. We are no longer troubled by things we do not much see as our rootedness, "the things that make for peace!" We hold a grudge. We nurse some hurt. We neglect patterns of daily charity, extension of self simply for another's good, no other reason. Slowly we forget that our daily motivation is to be rooted in mirroring God back to life. So much good simply becomes hidden from our eyes and we do not know we have missed it.
That is perhaps what Jesus sees as he looks over the city of Jerusalem, this ancient city with holy ground at its center. Even this ground with all its customs of worship, its buying and selling of items of worship, is more commerce than awareness. If only they could pause enough to notice that the peace of God is right here, right now, riding or walking in and toward them.
But they cannot because they have forgotten to look for God and peace in the ordinary movements of daily life. This gentle seeking has become less than secondary to all they do.
After 9/11, "the City" became a hub of doing good. There were not enough volunteer positions for those who streamed into Manhattan to do good. People filled churches and synagogues and I bet even mosques. Meaning, hope, healing, faith became front burner for a few days, weeks, months. We looked for peace in truth...though some went right to vengeance. Meaning overtook commerce for a while. After all, the temple of commerce had double collapsed and people died in it. Then slowly forgetfulness of God and kindness and ordinary good set in again for many. We soon thought of war.
And Jesus must have lamented.
'If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, ... because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.' Luke 19:42-44
It has not escaped my notice that the small limber plants of the perennial gardens which have a briefer season, lasted through the wind storm, closer to the earth and their birthing, dying and rising schedule. With proper care they will return each year...with proper awareness and care on my part.
The oaks too will last for their longer life, more damaged by the wind. More tending is now required for them.
I am reminded all things of God-given beauty last by care. Faith is not a background but a rooting. Storms can help us return to the care of core things. The most core thing is a peace that comes from each of us knowing our rooting, knowing God and acting as if 'I' know this. Dropping a grudge, forgiving a hurt, remembering to seek charity's enlargement of the heart of life, looking into the eyes of another's life, finding God looking back, these anchor us to our place...for now. Peace walks in. Such is the way of God in Jesus, our rooting into eternal ground.
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