The Flowers and the Forest -- a guest post

This year for the first time, I'm experiencing Christmas in a two-fold manner. For one thing, I'm in a Serbian church, where the old-calendar Nativity day has yet to happen. Eagerly I await it, even while enjoying our traditional doings with dear family and friends.

For another thing, life continues bringing me something I can best describe, in the words of a new family friend, as "light-giving." In 2009 this friend, Alex Titus, wrote the story below. He has graciously agreed to let me share it with you.

The Flowers and the Forest

There was a man who lived in the city. For a long time he had heard stories of wonderful flowers which grew in the forest, flowers which would beautify anyone in their proximity and grant them happiness and contentment. One day, the man decided to enter the forest in search of these flowers. It was not long until he discovered several of them scattered about the forest, each lovely in its own way, with its own unique shape and scent. He adored all of them equally.

However, the forest was frightening to him. It required him to endure hardships such as cold and hunger, necessitating the building of shelters and the hunting for food. Life in the city had of course not accustomed him to these trials. Therefore, deep in his heart he grew to hate the forest, and soon decided to go about plucking each of the flowers so that he might return with them and enjoy their beauty within the comforts of the city. Yet as he was about to do this, he gradually noticed that there were actually people living in the forest, some of them in tents and cabins, in small villages as well as individually; none of them were ever very far away from a flower. He also noticed that at the base of each of the flowers a spring welled up, from which the people drank. It seemed to provide them with a kind of inner light, the likes of which he had never seen within the city.

As this was happening, a village elder approached him and said, "Hello, stranger. You are welcome to bask in our flower's scent, drink from our spring, and stay in our shelters for the duration of your visit. However, please do not remove the flowers or the spring water from their resting places." At this, the man became angry, and in spite of their hospitality was filled with hatred for these people, not at all unlike his hatred for the forest in general. "Simpletons!" he thought to himself, "How could they be so selfish as to keep all of this power and wonder to themselves? I will take these flowers back to the city and allow everyone to benefit from their gifts!" So, disobeying the elder's words and with his heart full of resentment, the man quickly went about the forest gathering up each of the light-giving flowers, remaining under the cover of nightfall so as to avoid detection.

Upon his return to the city, everyone marveled at the beauty of the flowers. Their perfume was so pleasing to the nostrils and their colors so charming to the eyes, they were unlike anything the city-folk had ever experienced, especially compared to the dull concrete and poisonous smog of their normal lives. The man then agreed to put the flowers in public places so that everyone could bask in their awesomeness, and the people became happy and content, their inner turmoil and pain washing way from them like snow melting from a rooftop. The city soon became more beautiful than anyone could remember.

After a short while, however, the flowers began to wilt and lose their colors. Their scent was no longer as strong, and the people were no longer happy from seeing and smelling them. Eventually, all of the flowers turned black and died, and the city once again returned to the way it was formerly. In their disappointment, the people asked the man to return to the forest and see if he could bring back replacements for the flowers which had until recently beautified their city. Agreeing, the man did return to the forest, although thinking that the flowers would no longer be there, not to mention fearing how the forest-dwellers would react to his presence after what he had done.

When he arrived back in the forest, he was amazed to see that each of the flowers he plucked had grown back to its original state, and the people went about their lives the same way they had before. Even more surprising though was that upon seeing him, the village elders did not try to harm him or drive him away. Suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of biting shame, the man fell to his knees and asked their forgiveness. At this point one of the elders took him by the hand and said, "Please tell me what happened." The man then divulged his story, that is, how he wanted to use the flowers to beautify the city, but how the flowers he plucked had eventually wilted and died.

Sighing, the elder said, "You see, the flower requires the forest to survive; when you cut a living thing off from its roots, it dies soon after. As you have seen, we need the flowers as much as the flowers need the forest. That is why, although it seems strange to you, we have chosen to live here. In fact, there was a time when the whole world was covered by forests. However, a portion of mankind eventually took what they thought to be the easier life, and cut down the forest to make room for these great walled cities, not unlike the one from which you yourself have come; as you can see, in forsaking the forest, they have also forsaken the flower, and the flower is the lifeblood of all humanity. Please, come and live with us for a while, for it is difficult for me to explain to you things which you have only experienced peripherally." Beginning to understand, the man accepted the elder's offer.

At first, life was difficult; the man learned quickly that having to chop wood, make clothes, and hunt for food were all part of forest life. At the same time, however, he was also permitted to smell the local village flower, drink from its spring, and otherwise bask in its radiance. After a while, he felt the spirit growing within him, and life in the forest no longer seemed so difficult; in fact, he came to rather enjoy it. After more and more time had passed, he grew fuller in light and wisdom than he had ever been before. Eventually, he himself went on to become a village elder and acted as a guide for his community. He never again returned to live in the city, but only visited there on occasion, simply to inform the people what they had lost, and where it could be found again.

Christmas stalking

A Christmas post has been on my mind, ever since we returned from a week-plus in Seattle, visiting family and friends, staying in my brother's cool house. Richard and Manny live beside the light rail station, from whence you can whoosh toward downtown, where interesting sights abound.



Since we came home, though, I haven't had time to goof off on the Internet in normal fashion. (I pop in and "stalk" folks on Facebook -- as my activity has been described, though I prefer to say I "lurk".) This can be seen as positive, especially when fullness of heart and soul are the cause. Lovely developments in our lives continue. Messy processes, too, as is normal fashion for reality. But mostly much to brighten the season.

One evening last week I sat down to clickety-click a few bloggy words, but then the doorbell rang. Through a dark living room I groped, finding the front door, while another insistent dingering sounded. My surprise knew no bounds at the sight on our step -- Uncle Timmy!

[caption id="attachment_5418" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="...and my hubby says I can't talk without gesturing..."][/caption]

He sent himself this year, from Ohio, as an in-person Christmas card. I love that he did. We went out to Sizzler. Salad bar, a few engineers "partying", and the two Tims catching up. What could be nicer?





Now's the time to send Greetings of the Season, and so I offer good wishes to each of you from my heart. I hold in thought a mama we saw up north, who is great with child and pondering Advent in ways I well remember, from 26 and 22 years ago.

I count it all joy to have the love and respect of the people who raised me, and of those whom I raised.

There are those who put up with me with great, forbearing love. This is the way of our Messiah, who is our King and our God, become Man for our sakes.

What could be nicer?

freebie

Because my days have been brimfull, I haven't posted a post in a while. Am hoping to amend that soon, but in the meantime there's a free Kindle download of Saying Goodbye available, here. A present from Dream of Things books (until the promotion ends at midnight).

What I'd like to do is share why I was Saying Hello in this living room in Seattle. Maybe before Christmas the time for words and more pictures will present itself.

Meanwhile, may your days shine, or if they're dullish, may there be reflections (which often hold more depth, longer, as the times of our goodbyes and griefs often do).

wrote by rote

One benefit of being asked to guest blog is the opportunity to look in new ways at what you've been up to. My post, "Meandering With Memoir," was fun to work on, and now it's up, hosted graciously by Arlee Bird, here. His project will be a good one to follow for more writerly inspiration.

These photos are from a recent winery excursion with my brother and sis-in-law. What a lovely day. May you be inspired by many lovely days, soon.

Icons and the space alien robot

My gloved fingers tapped the open commentary, my pen ready beside my Moleskine. I sipped hot water, hunched over the table. The coffee maker burbled on the counter and the books and icons kept quiet in their spaces.

This chilly morning I volunteered at Pilgrim’s Way, the bookstore in our church, as I have most Thursdays since sometime this summer. Soon after starting to attend St. John’s I asked if I might help there, seeing as reading is my favorite way to learn. Besides, there’s a bunch of icon faces to become acquainted with. I figured I could discover my own pace in greeting these folk, these new/old stories.

Icons, I’ve noticed, look sort of like cartoons. Maybe you could call them graphic pictorials, in the way we speak of graphic novels. But that would be a misleading term. And I’m an ignorant Protestant, still, even though I have joined the Church (which I also call the ancient church and Orthodoxy). What I’m coming to see, perhaps, is that through an icon I gaze intently at one aspect of reality — a significant aspect, in this case, because I was unaware of it before in my experience.

This unawareness applies as well to many aspects within and around the Church. Because I believe in this manner — that this organism is something real, but that I had no knowledge of it previously — I peruse my inner landscape and come up with analogies. Recently I thought about the body. It’s perhaps a good term, seeing as St. Paul used it, but I’m not exactly going where his analogy did. From my 21st century, abundant-information vantage point, I think about trying to describe a living human body to someone who had never encountered one. I would need to conscript a space alien life form, from a robot-ruled planet, so that she would only be familiar with what we call artificial intelligence, artificial movement, artificial life.

I suppose I’d need to be an alien robot, as well, for this to work, so say I was one. How would I give a clue to my fellow alien robot friend what I now see in reality, what I now believe? That creatures exist (okay, she already knows that); that they have arms, legs, facial features (in this analogy she and I do, too, so that’s not new); but that they have an inner design (perhaps I’d call it an inner orientation) that is like what we’re aware of but yet is so very different. My friend would rightly be skeptical.

They bleed, I would tell her. Huh? she would reply. Well, I would continue. They have this stuff they call blood that oozes from beneath their skin when it’s pierced. This blood comes from veins and arteries (don’t ask me to explain those, I’d tell her; I can’t). Inside these “more real” bodies, this blood circulates around organs that, if you were to cut the body open to examine it, would gush out into a globulous mess. But when they are inside the functioning person, the body is more than the sum of its members.

My alien robot friend’s face would contort into the expression I would well know means I’m crazy, and she would go back to her synthetic cocktail, and I would wish I could show her these beings, this organic thing that goes on with them.

Say that, in this alien robot culture, we believe in God. My friend certainly wouldn’t get why or how I think God made these other beings who are “more real” and who (somewhere in the lost annals of our past) actually “made” us and sent us off to planet Gizmo.

Icon of the Prodigal Son

Lest you think I’ve drifted from my intention with this blog post (I actually have), I will return now to icons, to the element in the Church I wasn’t aware of a year ago except as old pictures, old artwork. To me they were nothing, really, seeing as I don’t care (as much as I should, at least) for art. Today, nine months after I got the nudge to take Orthodoxy seriously, I believe that these pictures called icons are an organic element within the Body, if you will, and that they have their function within it that they were divinely designed for. Slicing the Church open (i.e., reading an Internet article or getting descriptions from just one Orthodox person) doesn’t help much in apprehending how the Body truly functions. How it might be an organic creation somehow “more real” than others we know.

At Pilgrim’s Way one warm Thursday this summer, I was dusting icons when I looked up, startled, to see a young guy staring. He looked past me at the wall of icons; his eyes held a glassy expression. I suppose he meant to look mystical. “This artwork’s wonderful,” he said. “So sacred.”

The other Orthodox people in the shop were polite to this young man (who, it turns out, was on his way with friends to the Country Fair, was a college student, was carrying plenty of money for trinkets in our store). They were courteous. But they also rolled their eyes after he left. I see these folks from the Church give sacrificially to people in the neighborhood all the time. They literally feed the hungry. But they’re not impressed by a monied person stopping in to get his sacred groove on so he can feel good about himself and go party.

If I get anything, what I’m seeing is Church people learning from the example of those whose faces gaze out from the icons on the walls. Far from being the Synthetic Way with which I’m familiar, this organic structure appears to bleed something more real.