"Like the willow...dancing in the wind"

You know me,
I like to see
just how far I can bend
I'm like the willow
out on the open field
dancing 'round in the wind
- Chad Elliott

When I was a girl we lived in a house with a big willow tree in the front yard.  Its branches hung to the ground,  often pooling in the grass or trailing like hundreds of delicate fingers across the lawn.  Sitting close to the trunk underneath her cascading tendrils of soft spring green, I was in my favorite place on earth.  With a book and a box of "red hots" (those little cinnamon candies), a pillow and a blanket (when it was cool) I could spend hours and hours.  For me it was like sitting near the ocean or by a babbling brook.  In a soft breeze her branches would gently brush the grass and the sound was as soothing as a mother's "hush, hush" leaving me feeling sleepy and safe.  But my favorite times were when the winds were strong and I could feel her trunk bend and stretch behind my back.  The sound of her branches dancing through the air was a symphony of woodwinds and strings with ballerinas whose slender and flexible bodies flew across my grassy stage choreographed by a brilliant, but  unseen Director.

We also had Dutch elms whose sturdy straight trunks and scratchy bark were strong and straight and great for scratching an itchy shoulder blade, but I never identitfied with them.  Oaks seemed very unapproachable, almost professor-like and maples were too pretty to actually snuggle up with. 

I was a willow lover as a child…but then I yet to meet an aspen…. an event that would pull at my tree heartstrings and leave me with divided affections.  But I digress….

Willows have given me a mental model for responding to the winds of circumstance that seem to swirl through my human experience with every changing velocity.  I have learned to bend and sway knowing that what holds me secure is not a windless environment, or the strength of my own "hold" on things (willows have pretty shallow root systems), but it is God's hold on me that makes me feel safe in the dance.  God has designed me to be a root-based feeder, I am always reaching deeper and deeper towards the source of my life's sustenance…the water and minerals found in the soil.  And as a photosynthesizing organism,  I am always reaching towards the light source that allows me to translate those same minerals and water into trunk fiber, branches, sap and leaves.  The pull of the sun and the pull of the water holds me erect, while allowing me to be flexible.

These are laws of nature and as  Mary Baker Eddy avers in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "All nature teaches God's love to man."

The laws of tropism, "the involuntary response of an organism or one of its parts toward a stimulus, such as light, heat or water" have taught me so so much about my relationship to God and His love for me…its constancy, its security, and its reliability.  I rely on it as an imperative...I am secure in knowing that I can trust my involuntary response to the pull of God's presence in my life, giving me spiritual focus. 

Phototropism...the leaf's involuntary turning towards the light…reminds me that my desire for truth, for good, is not a choice, but is the very nature of my being.  As a mother, understanding this law allows me to rest in the certainty not only of God's pull on my own childrens' hearts, but on the hearts and desires of their friends, teachers, and those "strangers" they may meet on their life's journey.   Everyone one of us has an involuntary impulsion working in us, compelling us to turn towards the light…towards goodness, honesty, and affection.

Geotropism, "the involuntary plant growth or movement in response to gravity" reminds me each day that no matter what my spiritual path may look like, there is a divine imperative operating in me.  It is an irresistable demand always urging me to dig deeper, grow stronger as I stand ready and willing to flex and bend with the winds of change.

Hydrotropism, "the involuntary growth of a plant's roots towards a water source" assures me that my thirst for the truth that refreshes my withering hopes, the love that comforts me in times of trial, and the desire to live which keeps me going forward even when the world seems dark and cold...will never wane.  I am not making a choice.  I am not deciding to hope, or to dream, or to love or to live…it is God's law of spiritual tropism operating unspent in me, and mine, and all.

It is only because I know and trust these divine laws, laws that are painted out for me on the canvas of nature's classroom, that I can yield, and bend, and sway with the wind.  I dance for Him, I dance with Him, I dance because He is calling my roots deeper and deeper while causing my arms to reach for His light. 

This divine imperative is impartial and universal.  It is working without preference or consent in my children and your children, in mothers in Darfur and workers receiving pink slips in Detroit  It is the very life force in our loved ones who are receiving chemotherapy in Boston, husbands on each side of the firing lines in Beirut, boy soldiers in Sudan, religious extremists around the world, presidential candidates and college students on Spring Break in Antigua or skiers on slopes in Colorado.  We are all governed and held by laws of divinity so reliable that we can bend and sway with the winds of human change and uncertainty…dancing to the music of Her "hush, hush" or His "Celebrate good times"...without fear.
Kate