Deciduous

"Deciduous" by Diane L. Tucker

Alone I grow among the columns

bearing up sky's temple roof

Alone among the firs

In the shadow of their hovering limbs

Verdant in every season

I alone let loose a sweep of leaves

The wind shifts autumns continent

Whisks my empire clean away

Piece by crumbling piece

The firs bear amongst their bodies

My slow dispersing death

Winter comes. The firs stand unchanged

Sap still snakes through every shining needle

Wind, snow, icy rain

The towering firs swell green against them all

I alone, in my deciduous shadow

Know the stripped relief

The beauty of the bare brown branch

This poem, found on Winnipeg Centre Vineyard's wonderful "No Fixed Address" album (by the 'north end artist collective), has been coming up over & over again in my mind over the last little while and is fast becoming my 'theme' in this new year season.

Recently I was talking with a friend about the new year & looking back over the year that was & whether there were more ups than downs in the year that's passed (and past)...and I had to say that there were definitely more ups than downs....

Last year was a hard one. In 2002 i lost my job & began my 'fall', my autumn. I had a year sabbatical from work (i.e. was unemployed for a long time) & God started stripping away everything that I thought my identity rested in - a job, a title, ministry, giftings, money, car, so many things... even my sense of 'honour' - the sense that I was a good guy - everything that I thought made me stand out as a man, as an individual, everything I thought made me worthy of love, He stripped away so that I was left with just me... and yeah, I sort of thought that process was done within the year, but it sort of lasted well into 2004 & as well... The point of that exercise was to show me that I was loved for being just me, not for any of the other stuff....

this year had been especially hard because it was all about learning to live in the midst of desolation - I had been stripped of dreams, stripped of destiny & that was the hardest part for me because I could always sit there & hope I'd be a somebody someday....or do something great or save the world or find some aspect for why it mattered that I had been on planet. This year, my life became reduced to becoming middle class - to go to work, do a job you sometimes like, sometimes hate, come home, watch TV, pay bills, sleep, get up, repeat ad nausea... I found I had no heart for ministry, no desire to 'save the world' & I sort of 'cursed' (gently) myself for that, for not having any drive or desire, for becoming one of those 'old' people who had dreamt of changing the world & who had now lost them & only had dreams of paying off the mortgage early....

and yeah, honestly the living without dreams kind of sucks. The mundane becomes the only rule of life. There is nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, only this vague sense that things could be different down the road somewhere....maybe, hopefully... and all of it felt like winter... Sure there were definitely lots of fantastic moments in there, but some moments of heartbreak & really just a lot of moments of, well, of psuedo-nothing....

... But yeah, the time with my dad in the hospital has sort of helped me see the beauty of weakness. My dad is a powerful man, way stronger than me & than a lot of people I know - a strength both of body and soul & spirit. Seeing him in the hospital with his heart, his engine, weakened & him needing to sleep & rest as they cut him open or jab him with needles, seeing him weakened has not diminished in any way my respect or my love for him. It's done the opposite in that I recognize how that, even stripped of everything that could possibly make my dad a great man, with everything he could 'do' for me removed, my love for him is not diminished.... the thought of losing him is unthinkable & all of this makes me realize how much I love & cherish my dad (and the rest of my family) just because they are, well, them... there is no reason, there is only love.....

Jean Vanier, in the CBC interview I heard talks about 'growing down' about the way that he used to be the 'leader' at L'Arche - about how he used to look after everyone & now, he walks into the community of the mentally challenged & they look at him & say, "Jean, you look tired, you should lie down & have a nap" - those who were the 'children' now become the parents to 'mother' him - and what is perhaps more freeing is that he is now at the point where can freely say "Yes, I do feel tired, I think I will lay down for a nap" - no longer must he prove himself, must he 'be there' to make things happen, to 'look after' people. He is free to be himself without pretences, he is free to admit frailty, to admit vulnerability & find that he is embraced, cherished, loved in the totality of his being - that he is loved, accepted & respected simply as he is, not because of what he can do....

...and so this is the lesson of seasons, the lesson of the deciduous.... In my vanity, I long to be a conifer, to be an evergreen always verdant, able to stand resilient against any of life's changes, always able to maintain strength & positive outlook & such.... but I am realizing how deciduous I am, how I am linked to seasons beyond my control, to the changing winds & temperatures of a climate that is beyond me, some great cosmic cycle that I find myself a part of instead of master of.... and I find that I must bend to the seasons, to embrace the warmth of summer, the newness of spring, the decay of autumn & the death/dearth of winter.... I must learn to beauty of the stripped brown branch, the beauty of being nothing & yet being loved....