Leaves.
I felt the wind on my cheek comin’ down from the east/
And thought about how we are all as numerous as leaves on trees/
And maybe ours is the cause of all mankind…
So, I have this necklace.
It hangs real low, in a real fashionable way. Sort of too fashionable for me—I’m not sure I can legitimately pull it off. I bought it at a college art show opening—one of the last few on campus my senior year—at a comparably low price of $25 (not bad for hand-made art jewelry). It wasn’t my first choice, but it sort of presented itself to me vividly from the sales sheet, its image casually yet assertively positioned between the others in a series that already bore the “sold” mark of purchase. My first love, a quaint yet unique piece that was a mosaic of pattern, fabric, and lace, had betrayed me, flaunting its beauty and attraction to the first buyer who was conscious enough to hold a pen to write a $25 check, rather than waiting for me, it’s one and only.
What a floosie.
Anyway, when the sudden surge of angst and dire disappointment subsided, my necklace was there on the sales sheet. Faithful, virtuous, true. And waiting for me. I rushed from the sales table as the beloved sprints into the open arms of her lover to view the display of the original necklace—after all, I am not one to purchase an object based on its photographic image, treating it like some mail-order bride. No, I will at least hold out for love at first sight, which is exactly what I (or, as I should say, we) experienced.
It was perfect. Simple, yet bold—much like I am. It was a symbol of dichotomy: an individual, blue leaf against a background of red. Its color scheme was clearly unnatural; as was the solitude of the leaf, for a leaf is not a leaf alone, but is a product, or rather, reflection of a tree in its entirety. Leave are symbols of change and seasons, yes; but they are also symbols of multiplicity, of connectedness, of society. No leaf is an island, so to speak.
Staring at my leafed necklace for a few moments before literally sprinting back to the sales table, my tempest nearly knocking over the artist’s elderly grandmother who visited for the opening, I acknowledged that I was staring at a symbol of myself. Forcibly plucked from any sense of a connected society by my culture and upbringing, unnaturally colored as an “individual”—as well as all of the other adjectives and nouns that exist in the plethora of things and concepts that we are told we are to be. This blue leaf on its own didn’t make sense, just as on my own, I don’t make sense either. Not really. People don’t, really. (Ok, 99.9% don’t—forgive my hasty generalization). Perhaps the leaf would make more sense if it existed in the presence of a multiplicity of blue leaves: majestically and confidently stemming from a red or purple or orange or whatever color tree, their unnatural yet consistent uniqueness a testament to the tree’s validity in a forest of boring green and brown.
And this, this is the pretense of my analogy. I, as human, may not make as much sense alone, individualized. But I, as believer, follower, disciple, adherer to a path that demands complete and total devotion and promises pain and death, member of the Body, Christian, make absolutely no sense alone. Disconnected from the tree, my stance as a blue leaf in a sea, ocean, planet, really, of green is almost arbitrary. But imagine what a blue tree in an emerald forest can be: a contrast, for one thing. A point of reference, for another. Perhaps a place of refuge, a haven for those who refuse to believe that green is all there is to this life. Or, as our “trunk” might offer, this blue tree can be a city on a hill, a light in the darkness.
I really, firmly believe that one cannot be Christian and be alone. Or, rather, disconnected. Trees are symbols of life, and their leaves are extensions of that. They proclaim it and are dependent on it, which is why their beauty and life fades and dies when they are disconnected from the tree. A multitude of blue leaves may stand as individual, personal testimonies to the tree, but are really incapable of “living life” (or whatever it is that leaves do) differently than green leaves alone. Which, at the end of the day, is what Christ calls the church to do: live radically, entirely different. Live life fully, promote fullness in each human, and live fully without fear of the inevitable consequences of doing so. Live to die. Live like Him. Live as though the Resurrection took place, and as though that event has any ultimate and eternal significance. Live as though all things were made new (Rev 23:11).
We are to be Him, as the Body, as the Church—which Alexander Schmemann claims exists “for the life of the world”. So we live life, but we live it differently, joyfully demonstrating that everything is different now, now that He is risen. Green may have been the way to perceive and interpret life, but now, now we do it differently. Perhaps, now, we live as though blue means life—a life that is full and thriving.
But we can’t do it alone. We need to exist as a social body, interconnected in our contrast with world, constantly connected to the One whom we call Lord. Existing as blue leaves that resemble the color of their tree in a forest that protests that they should be otherwise.
That is why I wear my necklace, even though I can’t fashionably pull it off: like Christians who wear a cross around their necks, I wear my blue leaf to remind myself where I belong, and to whom I belong to. I live in the hope of resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and chose to belong to His Body, the Church. I wear it to remind myself that as the Church, we are to live differently, in contrast to the lives lived around us, as much as a tree of blue leaves differs from the green terrain in which it is rooted— it lives in this world, but is clearly not of it.
I felt the wind on my cheek comin’ down from the east/
And thought about how we are all as numerous as leaves on trees/
And maybe ours is the cause of all mankind…
So, I have this necklace.
It hangs real low, in a real fashionable way. Sort of too fashionable for me—I’m not sure I can legitimately pull it off. I bought it at a college art show opening—one of the last few on campus my senior year—at a comparably low price of $25 (not bad for hand-made art jewelry). It wasn’t my first choice, but it sort of presented itself to me vividly from the sales sheet, its image casually yet assertively positioned between the others in a series that already bore the “sold” mark of purchase. My first love, a quaint yet unique piece that was a mosaic of pattern, fabric, and lace, had betrayed me, flaunting its beauty and attraction to the first buyer who was conscious enough to hold a pen to write a $25 check, rather than waiting for me, it’s one and only.
What a floosie.
Anyway, when the sudden surge of angst and dire disappointment subsided, my necklace was there on the sales sheet. Faithful, virtuous, true. And waiting for me. I rushed from the sales table as the beloved sprints into the open arms of her lover to view the display of the original necklace—after all, I am not one to purchase an object based on its photographic image, treating it like some mail-order bride. No, I will at least hold out for love at first sight, which is exactly what I (or, as I should say, we) experienced.
It was perfect. Simple, yet bold—much like I am. It was a symbol of dichotomy: an individual, blue leaf against a background of red. Its color scheme was clearly unnatural; as was the solitude of the leaf, for a leaf is not a leaf alone, but is a product, or rather, reflection of a tree in its entirety. Leave are symbols of change and seasons, yes; but they are also symbols of multiplicity, of connectedness, of society. No leaf is an island, so to speak.
Staring at my leafed necklace for a few moments before literally sprinting back to the sales table, my tempest nearly knocking over the artist’s elderly grandmother who visited for the opening, I acknowledged that I was staring at a symbol of myself. Forcibly plucked from any sense of a connected society by my culture and upbringing, unnaturally colored as an “individual”—as well as all of the other adjectives and nouns that exist in the plethora of things and concepts that we are told we are to be. This blue leaf on its own didn’t make sense, just as on my own, I don’t make sense either. Not really. People don’t, really. (Ok, 99.9% don’t—forgive my hasty generalization). Perhaps the leaf would make more sense if it existed in the presence of a multiplicity of blue leaves: majestically and confidently stemming from a red or purple or orange or whatever color tree, their unnatural yet consistent uniqueness a testament to the tree’s validity in a forest of boring green and brown.
And this, this is the pretense of my analogy. I, as human, may not make as much sense alone, individualized. But I, as believer, follower, disciple, adherer to a path that demands complete and total devotion and promises pain and death, member of the Body, Christian, make absolutely no sense alone. Disconnected from the tree, my stance as a blue leaf in a sea, ocean, planet, really, of green is almost arbitrary. But imagine what a blue tree in an emerald forest can be: a contrast, for one thing. A point of reference, for another. Perhaps a place of refuge, a haven for those who refuse to believe that green is all there is to this life. Or, as our “trunk” might offer, this blue tree can be a city on a hill, a light in the darkness.
I really, firmly believe that one cannot be Christian and be alone. Or, rather, disconnected. Trees are symbols of life, and their leaves are extensions of that. They proclaim it and are dependent on it, which is why their beauty and life fades and dies when they are disconnected from the tree. A multitude of blue leaves may stand as individual, personal testimonies to the tree, but are really incapable of “living life” (or whatever it is that leaves do) differently than green leaves alone. Which, at the end of the day, is what Christ calls the church to do: live radically, entirely different. Live life fully, promote fullness in each human, and live fully without fear of the inevitable consequences of doing so. Live to die. Live like Him. Live as though the Resurrection took place, and as though that event has any ultimate and eternal significance. Live as though all things were made new (Rev 23:11).
We are to be Him, as the Body, as the Church—which Alexander Schmemann claims exists “for the life of the world”. So we live life, but we live it differently, joyfully demonstrating that everything is different now, now that He is risen. Green may have been the way to perceive and interpret life, but now, now we do it differently. Perhaps, now, we live as though blue means life—a life that is full and thriving.
But we can’t do it alone. We need to exist as a social body, interconnected in our contrast with world, constantly connected to the One whom we call Lord. Existing as blue leaves that resemble the color of their tree in a forest that protests that they should be otherwise.
That is why I wear my necklace, even though I can’t fashionably pull it off: like Christians who wear a cross around their necks, I wear my blue leaf to remind myself where I belong, and to whom I belong to. I live in the hope of resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and chose to belong to His Body, the Church. I wear it to remind myself that as the Church, we are to live differently, in contrast to the lives lived around us, as much as a tree of blue leaves differs from the green terrain in which it is rooted— it lives in this world, but is clearly not of it.
1 comment:
yes yes yes.
I wish I was a popular publisher who would like to talk to you about he content of this passage. But I'm not... I'm just a friend who would like to see you get published. =)
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