Tree of Life

Michelle Cromer was hiking in a forest in the Lake Arenal region of Costa Rica. She came upon a huge and ancient ceiba tree. The ceiba trees were considered holy in Maya-influenced pre-Columbian civilizations; they are called “The Tree of Life.” It was said that their roots lead to the underworld; their trunk is the world in which we live, and the tree’s spreading branches hold up the sky. She had an “ah-hah!” moment:

         “As I stood under her creaking boughs, swaying, crooked limbs, overhanging branches coated thickly in pale green moss, I could feel a distinct and familiar shift in me… Standing there, looking up, I did the most unexpected thing – I dropped to my knees and wept uncontrollably. The rush of emotions – joy, peace and most of all, love - was so unexpected. It felt like the tree – this tree – was welcoming me home.” [i]

 “Trees are invitations to think about time and to travel in it the way they do, by standing still and reaching out, and down,” wrote Rebecca Solnit[ii]. Most of us have had “ah-hah!”  experiences in life – seeing the Northern Lights for the first time, standing beneath a giant Redwood, or sitting with a dying friend, to name a few.

When I entered the sanctuary of Peace Church (UCC) in Duluth, MN for the first time, I was overcome with a similar feeling. I felt strangely “at home” here - as if I had been here all of my life. It was as if my evangelical past and my progressive present were coming together in new ways. I was immediately impressed by the congregation’s choice of two striking works of art to guide their meditations. Jesus of the People by my friend, Janet McKenzie, hangs prominently in its worship space. Janet had used a Black female model for this Jesus. For that audacity she won the National Catholic Reporter’s worldwide art competition in the year 2000. 

More surprisingly for this decidedly Protestant congregation was a copy of the iconic Our Lady of Guadalupe, said to have appeared miraculously on Juan Diego's original tilma. I doubt that one can find either in the sanctuary of any other UCC congregation in America.
As I walked toward three large crosses that dominate the front wall, and toward the Table and these pictures, I felt physically pulled toward the right side of the sanctuary. In that moment, I saw Leah Yellowbird’s painting, The Tree of Life. I would like to say it called to me, but that would be wrong. It screamed at me. “Come here!” it demanded. I did. And I wept.

I don’t know the journey that this exquisite painting took to find its way into this place, and into my consciousness. Yellowbird said that she created the entire piece in a busy public space. People came and went, and came back again - asking questions, making suggestions and generally encouraging her. It took four years.

Leah Yellowbird[iii] identifies strongly with her First Nations Algonquin-Metis and Anishinaabe heritage. At an early age she learned traditional beading patterns from her aunt whose influence you can see in her work today. After a difficult time in her life, she moved physically to Grand Rapids, and artistically into painting, but she retained the

precision and delicate beauty of the finest beadwork of her tradition. Today her work is displayed in museums throughout the Midwest. Her online website contains some of the most beautiful artwork you will ever want to see.

 The Tree of Life painting has its roots in a period of turmoil and deep trauma, she said, but when I look at her painting, I don’t see the suffering. “Nevertheless,” Yellowbird said to me, “if they are honest, most artists will tell you that their art begins in trauma.” 

 The Tree of Life appears in many traditions around the world. In our Christian tradition, it appears at the beginning of Time, and at its ending, and throughout human history.  

 Yellowbird stresses that this is not a Christian work of art, at least not explicitly or literally so. Notice, she points out, that this Tree stands on the back of a turtle, Turtle Island.

 Robin Wall Kimmerer, among others, tells the Haudenosaunee creation story this way:

 At one time humans lived in the Sky world. At its center stood the Tree of Life. One day a fierce wind blew through the heavens. It toppled this great tree. Where the tree once stood, there was a hole. 

 A young woman, Gizhgokwe (who also is called Skywoman), walked over to the hole and peered

down. She saw only a deep, dark blackness. She came closer to the hole. And closer. The soil beneath her feet began to crumble, and she started to fall into the darkness. Quickly, she grabbed a branch from the Tree of Life, but it broke off in her hand. Into the abyss she fell.[iv]

 But it was not an abyss. At the bottom, there was water. Nothing but water. For as far as anyone could see, water, and water dwelling creatures. 

A flock of geese saw her falling. Knowing she was not a water creature, they flew up and caught her in their wings. She found herself sheltered in the soft feathers of the geese.

 A great ridge back snapping turtle swam slowly beneath Gizhgokwe and offered its back. The geese brought her gently down upon the back of the turtle.

All the sea creatures understood that this was not enough. She would need earth. They remembered that there is mud at the bottom of the sea. One by one they tried to retrieve it, but all of them failed. Finally, a little muskrat descended into the depths where, unfortunately, it died. When its body rose to the surface, they found a small dollop of mud in its paw. 

 Gizhgokwe spread this mud over the back of the turtle. She sprinkled seeds from the branch she  had brought with her from the Tree of Life. She danced, and the world became green with every kind of wild plant.

Hail Mary, Pietà

 When Elizabeth greeted Mary, she practically shouted her own version of the Ave Maria: “Blessed are you among women!” This is how we want to see her: Blessed, exalted, favored, chosen.  We dress her images in the finest gold, silver, fabrics and lace. She is the epitome of strength, beauty, and serenity.

We forget the elder Simeon’s blessing and prediction that a sword would pierce her soul. We forget the terror she must have felt when Herod’s soldiers came looking for her child, slaughtering so many children as they did so. 

We forget the horrors of this young mother who gathered up her newborn child in the middle of the night, her desperate flight across borders into an alien country, her becoming a refugee, a stranger in a strange land. We forget that, for years, she wondered furtively over Egyptian roads and countryside, struggling with language and laws, all the while seeking shelter and food.

We forget the panic she must have felt when Jesus went missing for three days, missing in a large anonymous crowd, missing somewhere in the tense urban streets and back alleys of Jerusalem; no one knew where he might have gone.

Hail Mary? We forget the apparent rejection by Jesus himself when she and her other children came to talk with him. “Who is my mother?” he said. Then, pointing to the crowd, he said, “These are my mother and my siblings. Those who do the will of God, they are my family.” Did this sword pierce her soul?

We forget her agony as she helplessly witnessed her child's arrest by brutal Roman guards, his trial in a sham court, and his scourging in a public setting while the crowds jeered and mocked. We forget her despair as Jesus staggered under the weight of his cross on the road to Golgotha. We forget, finally, that she watched life ebb from his suffering body, the same body she brought forth from her own.

Hail Mary? We forget that, as the sun descended in the sky, she accompanied his broken body to a borrowed tomb. We forget the heavy rock that barred her from giving a farewell kiss to her beloved child.

Alas! An even greater pain may have penetrated her soul. 

Did she ever know this child? This child who lived in two realities simultaneously? Do we ever really know the “other,” even when the “other” is our own child? 

Judith Dupré writes,

“We cannot know the inner recesses of another person’s soul, those mysterious gulfs that mark the inevitable distance between individuals. As parents or caregivers, we plan, hope, and nurture, but the day comes when our children let go of our hands and venture forth into the world to taste it on their own terms, and that world—their world—is not ours to know…”

Clara Park tells of her relationship with her autistic daughter:

“She moved among us every day, among us, but not of us... She existed among us, (but) she had her own being elsewhere…”

So, too, was Mary called to trust the ways of a child who was hers, but not hers… who drew his being from her and from somewhere else beyond her understanding.

Finally, we forget the survivor’s pain. “The path of the dead is in the living,” wrote Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. Regardless of how we read scripture or what we believe, these memories would never go away. These sorrows persisted within her.

For all these reasons, we say to her most tenderly, “Hall Mary, Pietà, May God be with Thee.”

©Gilbert Friend-Jones