Not So Lovely Relatives

These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical,
but the glove of soul-fruit
we make,
each is elaborately
unique" Mathnawi, III, 3494-3516




Two varieties of trees here at the lake, do not lose their leaves in the fall. One is an oak, and the other I believe, is a beech. Instead, when their leaves turn a wonderful copper color they continue to cling to the tree branches through the winter, gradually fading to a pale milky shade of ochre. During the winter, a few will release because of the weather, but most hang on until the new season's leaf buds begin to open.

I find it interesting that with the trillions of leaves all around them participating in the massive drop that occurs in October of each year, these two varieties alone do not let go and sail along with all the rest. I am sure there is some scientific reason for it. Nature is not capricious although we like to think so. There is always an explanation for why things happen as they do. Everything is designed to serve the ultimate purpose of supporting the continuance of life. Now there's a pattern humans might learn from...

One of these oak trees is next to the deck and right in line with my view of the lake. As the winter wears on, it looks more and more bedraggled and forlorn. It reminds me of family reunions where you look around and smugly wonder how you could possibly be related to some of these people, while of course, at the same time, they are wondering that about you. I think the view would be better if the oak let go of its tattered leaves. If they were on the ground like all the rest, my view would be clear except for the dark green of the pines and cedars who look nicer.

For some reason, the beech trees don't bother me as much. Probably because their overall shape is more graceful. The beech limbs tend to branch and drop downwards and they don't grow as tall as the other trees around them. Their coppery color creates a transition element between the brown leaves on the forest floor and the bare branches and trunks of the other trees. It is the oak that I consider unlovely. Besides, in the spring when its new growth finally does arrive, it pushes off the old leaves causing one last clean up I had hoped to have raked long before. Bit of whining, right?

So here's the rub and within it, today's homily. I would like those oak leaves to be like all the other leaves, but they will not. I have judged them to be less attractive because they do not conform to my wants. The oak is simply being what it is and that means holding on to its leaves. It has its own purpose to serve in the landscape of the woods.

Years ago, I heard an interpretation of the story of Cain and Able that has stayed with me. It was told as a parable about difference. As the story goes, Cain kills his brother Able because God savors the offering Able made to him which was not like Cain's. Cain believed God enjoyed Abel's offering more. What he was really fearful about was that God would love and value Able more than him because he liked Abel's offering better. His fear turned to anger and his anger to murder. And so begins the long history of acting out our fear over those things and persons who are not like us.

Think about this from God's point of view. It must have been so nice to smell the aroma of a different burnt offering after all those years of the same old baby lamb or whatever it was. Perhaps God was trying in his enjoyment of Abel's gift to encourage trying something new? Perhaps what he was trying to demonstrate was that love has room for all sorts people. I wonder.

Do you suppose in the attempt to have everyone and everything be like us or what we like, we find an illusion of safety? If people and events act in expected ways, we feel more secure. But this kind of security comes with a high price for its shadow side is sameness and conformity which have little tolerance for difference. What ends up being sacrificed for fear disguised as safety is the fertile ground for creativity in which love and truth and beauty flourish.

In the natural world the only constant is change. I guess because we have separated ourselves from it so much, we forget that rule applies to us as well. It is ever evolving. Everything within it, including us, is always adapting. A field of grass may seem to be countless replicas of the one stalk but for those who will look, reveals no two are exactly alike. The same can be said of leaves and insects and birds and identical twins. Each one has something unique. In St. Exupery's novel, The Little Prince, the wise and crafty fox teaches the importance of understanding uniqueness. In befriending the fox the little prince discovers that only love allows us to truly see each other not as just another among many, but as one unique among all. "You are like my fox when I first knew him", he says. "He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

Perhaps this is what is meant by 'learning to love the unlovely'. That invitation rests at the core of all the great teachings. Throughout history spiritual leaders have been trying to get us to understand, what Cain did not as history demonstrates around us what happens when we forget this simple truth. There is a reason people are different, just as there is a reason some trees hold onto their leaves through the winter. There is a need for difference. The rub of cultures, the exchange of ideas, the awareness of seeing how others live and do things, while something we might not choose for ourselves, can also be worthy and valuable. Could it be when we let go of labeling and categorizing each other as undesirable relatives at the family reunion, we give ourselves a chance to cross over into understanding the real meaning in 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'? Could it be the eye there might just be God's?

I don't know about you, but there are relationships in my own life which remind me of the stubborn oak tree off my deck. No matter what every one else is thinking or enjoying, these persons are always going to complain, or be ornery and cranky. You know, they have a Cain gene. Or, the other type, who simple go off and do things attuned to their own lights, not considering there might be other viewpoints. Sounds like Able to me. Neither type can go along with everyone else. Yet, these same people I know, have the dearest hearts and the most wonderful gifts when they share them. They leaf out just as beautifully as does that oak in the spring, even though they tend to leave a mess of copper leaves when they do. When I am most put out with them, I have learned the most about myself. There is something in the frustration they awaken in me, that if I am reflective, invariable leads to personal awareness. Ahhh, the 'a' word.

Can we be in a personal relationship with everyone? Of course not. Is everyone supposed to always have it their own way not matter how different or destructive? I don't think so. That's why the word compromise borders on being an art form. But perhaps what we can do is think about the stubborn oak and the wise fox a bit more often and in doing so, acknowledge that there is a world of every ones.