O if we but knew what we do / When we delve and hew

Below is a dream and interpretation I had January 2011

I was at Gardner-Webb University where I recently graduated and, at the time of this dream, worked and lived, but the scenery was my elementary school in Friendship, Maine. I walked to the back of the small-town school and saw machines at work cutting down trees.

I was aghast. I went to the other side of the playground where I saw a lady preparing a chainsaw to cut down a tree whose width spoke of its age, but whose height invited a good climb or friendly shade on a hot summer's day. I screamed at the lady, "You have no heart!"

Two other ladies were standing near me, guarding the area. The elder was Lois Lash, my third-grade teacher and my church's choir director from when I was kid until the past year or so. The younger was her daughter, Carol Ehle, the church's pianist for as long as I can remember. She is also mother to a neighborhood boy my age with whom I went to school and participated in band and academic events. They looked at me with such surprise, wondering how such terrible words could come from the mouth of a man who was once a young angel of the church, a young man with whom they worked many hours for the church's music.

They were disgusted with me and so I explained to them how wonderful the trees are, for aesthetics, for shade, for the homes of animals, and for the very air we breathe. Despite my reasoning, they stood as still in their ways as the sentries of the Queen's Guard in England. Their foundation was firm and they faltered and wavered not.

So I watched the austere, heartless woman cut down the tree with her chainsaw. In the heaviness of the moment, a crowd gathered. I became anxious, claustrophobic. I was being pressed against a pole of a swing-set. I started to push myself from the pole when two men grabbed me and carried me away.

Scared out of my mind, the men dropped me off at the basketball court, one of the boundaries of our recesses when in elementary school. They wanted me to leave, to stop causing trouble. Before I could interact with them anymore, I woke up to my phone vibrating on the windowsill above my head.

Trees are sacred symbols. They aid us in worship. They provide us shelter and furniture. I look to them and I see us in their seasonal phases of life and death, their ubiquity, their diversity. It is hard for me to see them cut down, although I understand why we cut them. Still, the thought of cutting down a tree before its time gives me pause. In the words of G. M. Hopkins, "O if we but knew what we do / When we delve or hew -- / Hack and rack the growing green!" ("Binsey Poplars")

Considering my dream, I first thought of them as symbols of justice, diverse, strong, and good for life. I was watching a woman destroy something for which I stood, a long-standing tree of my faith. Not only was the tree wide with age, but also at a place marking bookends of my life. The scenery was my elementary school, a place I first began to learn about ecojustice, although I understood the area as my current home, a place where my love for the earth was re-inspired.

In one of my less tactful moments, I told her she had no heart for injustices hurt people. I could not believe she would cut down such an obviously wonderful truth. At least, the truth is so obvious to me. Two pillars of the faith community from which I grew stood as still as trees not seeing what I thought was obvious.

With the injustice committed, with the tree of my affection gone, I felt alone in the masses. People from my past, present, and future are all around me, yet I do not feel safe because I think differently, appreciate different things. I am growing and changing like the trees. Will I be cut down, too? Will my life be cut short, because the acorn has fallen a little too far from the tree?

Anxious, claustrophobic, I felt I would die if I did not push against the grain of the crowd coming in on me. In my dream, my life was cut off, in a sense. I was cut off, exiled from the people by two strong men. The anima and the animus have ousted me, one ignoring me and the other removing me. I am rejected and I awake, thrust away from the subconscious mingling of past, present, and future, and forced once again into the conscious present, left on the margins of recess.

The tree was not simply a justice for which I stand. The tree stood for still more than just the people I know who are hurt and oppressed by the injustices of felling such trees, left not to be themselves, but a haunting visage of who they could be in a just society. The tree was also me, falling when he cannot stand to see others fall, falling with them and going with them to the fire. The tree was me, dealing with the potential end of my formal education, watching others and wondering if I can join in. The tree was me dealing with the rejection of women and men as I apply for jobs.

The tree is me and the tree is you, co-inheritors of the sins of others. Whether we wield the chainsaw, yell slurs, stand guard, or watch, we reap what we sew and what others sew, be it a cut tree, the evil deeds of capitalism, or the hodgepodge donations of surplus. Like a forest, we are all in this life and on this earth together. We might fall when we sin and we might fall when others sin, but one day we will fall.

I am a Tree, Rooted in the Sea: Tattoo #3

"I am a tree, rooted in the sea."

Some day, I would like that line to be in a larger poem. For now, that line is the poem.

The line came to me and captured my attention a while ago. It started as "a tree rooted in the sea," until I realized I liked the imagery so much because I am such a tree.

Trees are holy. In Genesis 2, the trees represent gifts of God like life and knowledge. They represent memory and covenant when Abraham plants a tree at Beersheba (Gen 21:33). They are altars. In the ancient and modern worlds, they provide so many gifts, essential and luxurious--heat, shelter, food, paper, furniture, beauty, healing.

In Revelation, a river flows from God's throne when heaven and earth become one. On either side of this river grows trees whose leaves provide healing for the nations (22:2). God gives trees at the beginning in the garden and at the end in the city.

Many trees live cyclical lives, going through seasons of virility and seasons of death, but they keep reaching for the impossible, reaching skyward. They never make it and they always make it, for the sky is always just a little bit higher. Even in death, a tree either becomes a tree again by returning to that which made it grow or it reaches skyward once again through fire, turning into air and ash, entering into more trees and eventually becoming the sky. I have a tree tattooed on my arm, reminding me to reach for the impossible, grasp it, and continue reaching.

Roots are not a biblical metaphor to my knowledge, but they are an apt image for faith, family, and life in general. I have family roots, geographical roots, and spiritual roots. My roots keep me connected, but they do not keep me in one place. Jay McDaniel calls this having roots and wings--having a permanent connection to things of the past, but not being stuck in the past. I call it being rooted in the sublime, ubiquitous, interconnected, permeating sea.

That which gives me life, which moves in and out of me also moves in and out of you. Our roots may never touch, but we are one and the same. The ocean is but a liquid ruach, a fluid pneuma.

I can stand firm against the tempestuous torrents and waves, because of my roots, and I can move with currents, because my roots are not set in something solid. Rogue waves, tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards--none of these are meant to be weathered alone. Trees standing together withstand more, each in a different spot, but all in proximity.

The deeper my roots become, the farther I can travel and I can go nearly anywhere, since waters cover most of the earth. The stronger my faith is, the more I can do with it, the more I can look back and move forward, to new places on a journey, not on a path. Paths are not worn on the sea. You can only blaze your own trail and no one can follow it exactly. The ways are infinite, the destinations endless.

The tree tattooed on my arm is fashioned after the Tree of Gondor logo featured in the movie The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This tree grows and flowers only when its king is in the land. At the beginning of the movie, it is barren in a state of winter, because the city is ruled by a steward. The tree cannot reach its full potential until it is saved along with its people by its king.

The steward is a man who lost his way. The king has been go so long, he usurps the king's role. He is supposed to act in the stead of the king, not as the king, a fine distinction. Whereas he is supposed to care for what is the king's, he acts as if everything is his own and he cares for it like a lost man. His sons are treated like possessions, not people belonging to the king. His kingdom is nearly lost for selfishness and pride. Hope is lost and he kills himself, assuming his king can save neither him nor the kingdom. He sees no future and would destroy all that is the king's, if not for the king's return, foreshadowed in the movie by the tree reaching skyward and blossoming, tapping into its potential.

I had to get the tree tattoo this summer in West Virginia, because my internship title is "eco-steward." I was also fortunate to work with a great tattoo artist who is the stepson of another eco-steward's supervisor. Certainly I was a steward before and I will be a steward after, but this summer and this place rekindled my passion for being a steward of God's world, rooted, but not contained in the Bible. I have gone through virile and dormant states in my relation to God's world and now I am growing, connecting myself to this world in order to connect myself to God.

I am switching again to a vegetarian diet (except for local, responsibly fed and treated animals and locally hunted/fished meats), I am purchasing fairly traded products, I am supporting more local foods, and buying products that produce less waste (for example, cereal in a bag, not a box and a bag, or oatmeal in a recyclable, cardboard cylinder). I have already grown past the beauty of my previous relationship with God and the earth. And the love triangle is already benefitting me, too, as I am losing fat, gaining muscle, saving money, and having a great time doing it.

One side of the tree on my arm has leaves, although it is not clear whether the leaves are falling or growing. The other side is under the stars, perhaps reaching for those stars, tapping into its potential in early spring, or in a dormant state of winter. The tree resists classification of which side is spring, which is fall, which is taken care of by a good steward, which is blessed by God, a conflation aided by a lack of color. The image is cyclical, a fortuitous deconstructive that I did not plan, but rather discovered.

The tattoo is a black outline with dark waves, ominously sublime and representative of the greater sea. Under the waves are visible roots, reaching down as much as the branches reach up. My new tattoo is but a portrait of myself, for I am a tree, rooted in the sea.

Deconstructing an Everest of Faith

On the BBC news website, I recently read an article about Mt. Everest. Apparently China and Nepal had been disputing the height of the mountain for a sometime now. China argued the height should be recorded by its “rock height,” while Nepal wanted to measure it by its “snow height,” which was 4 meters higher than the rock height. In early April of this year, China conceded to Nepal and Nepal officially recognized the rock height in addition to the snow height.

For the BBC News, the issue is not exactly resolved, even if China and Nepal agree. Eleven years ago, the US National Geographic Society records yet another height (8,850m), even though it does not have the claim to Mt. Everest that China and Nepal have. Apparently shifting continental plates is pushing India under Nepal and China, pushing Everest evermore towards the skies.

Paul describes Christ as a rock from which water flows. Wise people build their houses upon rocks. “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ.” Upon a rock Jesus built his church. If you have faith, you can move mountains.

Rocks are not as sure as the writers of the Bible might have thought. Mountains are moved today and, arguably, faith has little to do with their movement. In West Virginia, the tops of mountains are removed for more cost efficient mining and energy. Continental plates move mountains, making them taller. Even when measuring rocks and mountains, do we measure them by the rock or the snow that somehow becomes part of the identity we give them?

Even if wise people build their houses on rocks, they better not build them like the houses built in Haiti. Rocks and mountains are simply not as sure as we once thought. When it comes to building, the rocky foundation is not the most important issue, for the building must be sturdy and well-built. What if, like the hymn, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness? The structure of my hope matters, too. Is my hope supported by faith? By education? By tradition? By experience?

Enter deconstruction. Perhaps hope is not something that should be built. In my life, the “built” metaphor, the mythic metaphor of structure has worn out its welcome. I offer no metaphor to take its place, no new myth awaiting immanent destruction or deconstruction.

Instead, I just hope, sometimes standing or reclining on slowly or swiftly moving rocks, sometimes on the sand, and other times completely at sea, be they calm, turbulent, or between Scylla and Charybdis. A hope against hope, or against some hopes (Romans 4:18, NASB). An impossible hope. A hope for the impossible. A hope that I can reach the unreachable star, love the unlovable, forgive the unforgivable, and in turn be forgiven, loved, and reached by the wholly, holy other who is my beloved, my God.

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Cf. Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (Trans. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes; Thinking in Action; New York: Routledge, 2001), 32-33; John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodernism;. Ed. James K. A. Smith; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 45-46; Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, “The Impossible Dream (The Quest),” (Man of La Mancha; 1965 Original Broadway Cast Recording; Universal Classics Group, 2001).

A Pleasant Dream of Learning French

I dreamt last night I was learning French.

In my dream, learning French consisted of singing "Alouette," the kid's song about plucking a bird. I remember singing it and interacting with a friend of mine from Friendship, ME. We were outside of HAPY and Suttle Hall on the Gardner-Webb quad. She was being mean to people and I didn't understand why. I don't remember if I asked her not to be mean, but I moved on to someone else. I can't place the next person in my dream as anyone specific in my life. We walked from the quad towards Royster. We saw guys laying out working on tans. Either they wanted us to join or my new friend wanted us to join. He did, I didn't. He started play fighting with another guy and tried to get me to hang out while I was wandering around. I don't think I wanted to be involved in play fighting, but I saw they were having fun and was glad to be wanted. I still had "Alouette" in my head, because I was learning French.

When I woke up, I was disturbed by the meanness of my childhood friend. I was disturbed by the fighting, even if it was playful. I was disturbed that I was alone. The dream itself didn't conjure any negative feelings, but I was bummed about it. I stayed in bed, thinking about it while waiting for my alarm to go off in 10 minutes. When it did, I hit the snooze button.

Another rough dream? This is getting old.

I never hit snooze.

Later, I thought about the dream again (because "Alouette" was still in my head). I didn't focus on the part of me that I left on the quad or the new part of me I shyly smiled at from a distance, unsure of how I feel about him. Instead, I focused on the consistent part of me in the dream, the me learning French.

I took that shy smile from my dream for myself. I did have a pleasant dream. I was learning something new, something to better myself. It may be hard to determine externally and internally how to learn, what to learn, and in which direction to go (I wandered a bit aimlessly after the dream friend started play fighting), but I can still make progress.

I'm journeying. I see an ultimate destination in the kingdom, in God through Christ. I don't know where the little destinations are, but I keep evaluating in light of God and that kingdom, as much as possible, since I'm not always sure where those things are.

But we continue in faith, not knowledge. Not confirmation and assurance per se, faith. Embracing new things when faith dictates, even if I don't understand why, even if I never thought faith would lead me here, even if I don't know where to go next.

Faith.
Learning French.

Voilà.

Floundering on the Firm Foundation: Exploring the Relations of Faith, Certainty, and Doubt

On the radio the other day, I heard a commercial for a church. It was talking about bringing Christianity into the 21st century. It asked the listener to take a "leap of doubt" and come to their church, a church that prizes questions over answers.

In church the other day, someone said something to the following effect: "Doubt isn't the opposite of faith, certainty is." I don't remember them saying it, but a friend did and he asked me what I thought about it. I told him I couldn't agree right away, but neither I could disagree immediately. I told him a few of us should all write about the idea, since it is intriguing enough. Here are my thoughts on that writing prompt.

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I think neither certainty nor doubt are the opposite of faith, but still recognize the faith/certainty and faith/doubt binaries. Binaries do not mean opposite, but rather difference and privilege.

Faith, certainty, and doubt are all similar, otherwise the binary would be foolish, along the lines of faith/cat. And as I often maintain, most binaries deconstruct. As of now, I believe deconstruction says the members of a binary have hazy distinctions at best. To better explain this relationship, think of the mountains, the foothills, and a flatland (I'm borrowing this example from someone else). Where do the mountains end and the piedmont begin? Mountainous areas are different than the piedmont, and the flat areas, but you can't draw a boundary because the distinctions are amorphous and overlapping. There are areas that could be the mountains and/or the piedmont, the piedmont and/or the flatlands.

The same occurs with faith/certainty and faith/doubt. Faith is not certainty and not doubt, most of the time. Sometimes the boundaries are amorphous and overlapping. Consider the biblical texts.

Peter walked on water, but "when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and beg[an] to sink" (Matt. 14:30). After Jesus saves him from sinking, he asks Peter: "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Matt. 14:31). In this instance we can see some nuance between faith and doubt in regards to confidence, certainty, and belief. Peter lacked certainty concerning his ability to walk on the water or God's ability to keep him on the water. Or, perhaps he was more confident in the power of the wind than the power of his faith or the faith of Jesus. He doubted. Peter did not lack faith, though. I think it takes a large amount of faith and certainty to try to walk on water, let alone during a wind storm on the Sea of Galilee. Amidst his faith and certainty, a sinking doubt existed.

Another time Jesus scoffs at a man in Mark who asked Jesus to do something if he was able to. "If you are able?" responded Jesus, "All things can be done for the one who believes" (Mk. 9:22-23). The man, "immediately ... called out, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mk. 9:24). This passage is probably the poster child for doubt as a virtue. However, Jesus leaves the man's statement without judgment. We might assume Jesus approved, since he completed the requested exorcism. But how do we know the belief or unbelief of that man had anything to do with the exorcism? Was Jesus talking about his belief or the belief of the man? Sometimes Jesus' miracles seemed to be based on the faith of the receiver, whereas other times it was solely Jesus' faith. The end of this story helps little. The disciples wonder why they couldn't exorcise the demon and Jesus tells them some can only come out by prayer, which we didn't see Jesus do for the exorcism. Jesus starts out preferring the certainty side of faith, but in the end, this story again speaks to faith as different from certainty and doubt.

A number of stories in the gospels speak of faith without doubt, a faith that can wither a fig tree or move a mountain. These verses--not to mention the infamous opening lines of James--seem to evoke an affinity between faith and certainty as much as they explicitly condemn doubt and the doubter, "who is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind" (Jas. 1:6). But why should we assume faith should always be without doubt? Many traditions have latched onto these passages as the dominant understanding of faith, painting pictures of faith as certainty, or, at least, nothing like doubt, which misses the beauty of the nuances between these ideas.

Then why did Jesus struggle in prayer in the garden? Why did Jesus ask for the cup to pass? It certainly seems like Jesus had a great faith that his death and resurrection were God's plan before he prayed in the garden. If faith is certainty, then Jesus was foolish to pray the prayers of Matthew 26:39 and 42. If Jesus had a faith of certainty that the best thing was crucifixion, then his prayer was not heartfelt or meaningful, and "words without thoughts, never to heaven go" (Hamlet). Perhaps in his humanity Jesus doubted his understanding of the divine plan, but I doubt you can separate Jesus' humanity and divinity in such a way. Did Jesus doubt God had planned on the best possible situation? Our text does not say, "Jesus' doubted," but it reflects the doubt of our savior.

Outside of Jesus, Abraham is the quintessential knight of faith. If you're going to bind your son and sacrifice him on an altar, you better be certain. Yet like Jesus, Abraham had some doubts about some of God's plan. "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked" asked Abraham, "suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you indeeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked ... far be it from you! Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?" (Gen. 18:23-25). Here, Abraham either doubted God or Abraham's understanding of God. Both kinds of doubts are the ones we think of in regards to the faith/doubt binary, either we doubt something about God or we doubt a personal revelation from God. We doubt whether we can discern it right. We doubt if it was really what God said. Like Abraham. Like Moses.

The other day in class, one of my colleagues expressed his fear of being one of the goats of Matthew 25. Dr. Berry started to talk about the anxiety of this sort of doubt and he said, "I'd rather be nervous than have no nerves at all." The reality of sin in our lives should always conjure up a healthy dose of doubt in our faith. As long as I am a saint that sins--as long as "I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate" (Rom. 7:15)--then I will realize I am flawed and leave room for doubting my ability to interpret the Spirit's influence in my life.

Faith is neither certainty, nor doubt. Rather, it is better characterized as sometimes having the likeness of either certainty or doubt, as well as assurance, hope, and conviction. ["Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1).]

I'm not about to tell people to take a leap of doubt. Doubt is no more a virtue than certainty. Some situations call for a faith including more certainty and others for a faith sort of resembles doubt. A faith-like-certainty can be hard to acquire, whereas a faith-like-doubt is hard to be comfortable with.

A trouble lies in getting the right faith in the right spot. There are areas of my life where I want to be more certain than I am. Some of these areas should have more certainty, while some of them need the doubt that makes many of us--including me--uncomfortable. Lately, I've focused on the doubting side of faith, the faith that feels like floundering. It is never fun to feel like a fish out of water. I want confirmation of the things I do in faith, but I need to let faith be its own assurance, especially since circumstances do not determine the will of God. I'm not certain and perhaps a lot of my faith should look a lot more like certainty, but it doesn't change the fact that I am a man of faith. And of that, I am certain.