2nd Week of Lent
There is a tree in my neighborhood where I walk (see picture). I have been watching this tree for several months now. I have watched it go from beautiful green to many shades of orange and brown in the fall. But this tree is different from the trees around it. The other trees went through the same process but one by one they began letting go of their leaves so that now they all stand completely barren. No sign of any former life on them. But this one tree has not yet let go of a single leaf. She stands completely full of dead, shriveled, brittle leaves and, as far as I can tell, not one has yet to fall to the ground. I call her "The Clinging Tree".
Every time I walk past this tree I feel a deep sense of understanding and empathy for her. She clings to what once was. She is hanging on to the beauty that her life used to be. She tenaciously holds on to that which used to define her as a healthy, living, vibrant part of God’s creation. I imagine her looking around at her neighbors, watching what was happening to them and thinking, “That’s not going to happen to me. I refuse to look like that, all barren and empty. Who wants to gaze upon or stand beneath a tree like that. No, I will hold on to my life and never let it go.”
She doesn’t realize that she is the one who looks odd now. The other trees, even in their barren state, look quite normal. That’s what happens in winter. That’s how you are supposed to look. That’s how a tree prepares itself for the new life of spring. But the other trees don’t seem to be willing to share what they know. Their silence seems as if they are holding back some secret, some inner knowledge of how things are supposed to work. Or maybe they know something that we don’t. Maybe having gone through a few winters themselves they have come to learn that letting go doesn’t come from someone telling you that it’s time. It comes from an inner awareness that refusing to let go never brings back the past, it only prevents us from receiving the present and walking into the future.
Spiritual writers for centuries have talked about having ‘attachments’ in our lives. These are not things that have attached themselves to us but are things that we have attached ourselves to. They may be obvious things like money or possessions or career, but they may also be more subtle things like attitudes, memories, or a previous golden era in our life. There really is an endless list of what could be an attachment for us because all of us are different. The common denominator for any attachment, though, is that it either does, or once did, or we hope that it will some day give us some sense of purpose, belonging, or fulfillment. We end up looking to it to give us something that God says only He can give.
When we let go of these attachments in appropriate ways and at appropriate times it may feel like we are closing ourselves off from life but actually we are instead opening ourselves up to the new life that waits for us when there is sufficient room to receive them. Attachments are to the soul what clutter is to one’s home. Just watch the T.V. show ‘Hoarders’ sometime to see what effect clutter has on people’s lives. Attachments are clutter in our soul. Letting go of the old is the only way of receiving the new, whatever that will be.
The process of metamorphosis (what caterpillars go through to become butterflies) has become a life metaphor for me lately. I read recently that not all caterpillars go through this process in the same way. When it comes time to begin spinning the cocoon that becomes the womb that eventually gives birth to something new, some caterpillars actually resist this initial process and thereby put off entering into what will turn them into a butterfly. They cling to their former state, refusing to let go of what once was. This state of clinging is called “diapause”. It results in either putting off new life until next season or, in some cases, simply means death. Isn’t it interesting that creation is full of things that have a hard time letting go. Whether it’s a stubborn tree refusing to shed its leaves, or a caterpillar clinging to its former self, or you and I fiercely gripping onto the attachments of our lives the outcome is always the same: new life gets delayed.
Lent is a kind of long winter that is intended to be a time of learning how to embrace our own emptiness and barrenness while at the same time holding onto the glorious hope of new life. But often we try and sit through winter clinging to things that offer a false hope of spring. The irony is that we do this, not because we are trying to avoid spring, but because we desperately long for it. The problem is in thinking that by clinging we will receive what our hearts most long for. But it is only in letting go that we can sit with our own emptiness in the patient awareness that spring is just around the corner.
Isaiah 43:18 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” When it comes right down to it there is only one appropriate kind of clinging; only one kind of attachment that is actually healthy for the human soul. It's summed up in three simple words spoken by Jesus at a time when His disciples were about to enter into the biggest “letting go” season of their lives: “Abide in me”. Tenaciously clinging to Jesus will help us to release our grip on those other attachments that we think can give us what we desire most.
I am waiting to see what happens with “The Clinging Tree”. But until then she reminds of my own clinging tendencies and how there is a kind of stark beauty in being empty and barren while waiting for the magnificence of spring.
[I have listed in the post below a copy of one of my favorite poems. It beautifully speaks of the process of letting go.]
Every time I walk past this tree I feel a deep sense of understanding and empathy for her. She clings to what once was. She is hanging on to the beauty that her life used to be. She tenaciously holds on to that which used to define her as a healthy, living, vibrant part of God’s creation. I imagine her looking around at her neighbors, watching what was happening to them and thinking, “That’s not going to happen to me. I refuse to look like that, all barren and empty. Who wants to gaze upon or stand beneath a tree like that. No, I will hold on to my life and never let it go.”
She doesn’t realize that she is the one who looks odd now. The other trees, even in their barren state, look quite normal. That’s what happens in winter. That’s how you are supposed to look. That’s how a tree prepares itself for the new life of spring. But the other trees don’t seem to be willing to share what they know. Their silence seems as if they are holding back some secret, some inner knowledge of how things are supposed to work. Or maybe they know something that we don’t. Maybe having gone through a few winters themselves they have come to learn that letting go doesn’t come from someone telling you that it’s time. It comes from an inner awareness that refusing to let go never brings back the past, it only prevents us from receiving the present and walking into the future.
Spiritual writers for centuries have talked about having ‘attachments’ in our lives. These are not things that have attached themselves to us but are things that we have attached ourselves to. They may be obvious things like money or possessions or career, but they may also be more subtle things like attitudes, memories, or a previous golden era in our life. There really is an endless list of what could be an attachment for us because all of us are different. The common denominator for any attachment, though, is that it either does, or once did, or we hope that it will some day give us some sense of purpose, belonging, or fulfillment. We end up looking to it to give us something that God says only He can give.
When we let go of these attachments in appropriate ways and at appropriate times it may feel like we are closing ourselves off from life but actually we are instead opening ourselves up to the new life that waits for us when there is sufficient room to receive them. Attachments are to the soul what clutter is to one’s home. Just watch the T.V. show ‘Hoarders’ sometime to see what effect clutter has on people’s lives. Attachments are clutter in our soul. Letting go of the old is the only way of receiving the new, whatever that will be.
The process of metamorphosis (what caterpillars go through to become butterflies) has become a life metaphor for me lately. I read recently that not all caterpillars go through this process in the same way. When it comes time to begin spinning the cocoon that becomes the womb that eventually gives birth to something new, some caterpillars actually resist this initial process and thereby put off entering into what will turn them into a butterfly. They cling to their former state, refusing to let go of what once was. This state of clinging is called “diapause”. It results in either putting off new life until next season or, in some cases, simply means death. Isn’t it interesting that creation is full of things that have a hard time letting go. Whether it’s a stubborn tree refusing to shed its leaves, or a caterpillar clinging to its former self, or you and I fiercely gripping onto the attachments of our lives the outcome is always the same: new life gets delayed.
Lent is a kind of long winter that is intended to be a time of learning how to embrace our own emptiness and barrenness while at the same time holding onto the glorious hope of new life. But often we try and sit through winter clinging to things that offer a false hope of spring. The irony is that we do this, not because we are trying to avoid spring, but because we desperately long for it. The problem is in thinking that by clinging we will receive what our hearts most long for. But it is only in letting go that we can sit with our own emptiness in the patient awareness that spring is just around the corner.
Isaiah 43:18 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” When it comes right down to it there is only one appropriate kind of clinging; only one kind of attachment that is actually healthy for the human soul. It's summed up in three simple words spoken by Jesus at a time when His disciples were about to enter into the biggest “letting go” season of their lives: “Abide in me”. Tenaciously clinging to Jesus will help us to release our grip on those other attachments that we think can give us what we desire most.
I am waiting to see what happens with “The Clinging Tree”. But until then she reminds of my own clinging tendencies and how there is a kind of stark beauty in being empty and barren while waiting for the magnificence of spring.
[I have listed in the post below a copy of one of my favorite poems. It beautifully speaks of the process of letting go.]
