The Yearnings of the Trees

As part of an online journaling group organized by Mepkin Abbey, I am rereading Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation.  Yesterday, I was struck by chapter 5, which begins with this sentence:  "A tree gives glory to God by being a tree" (p. 29 in my very old paperback edition that once belonged to my parents and originally cost $2.45).

Merton jumps off from that sentence to talk about humans and our false selves and our true self, about identity and how we figure out our identity.  This morning, Merton's italicized sentence jumped out at me:  "The seeds that are planted in my liberty at every moment, by God's will, are the seeds of my own identity, my own reality, my own happiness, my own sanctity" (italics Merton's, p. 33).

One of the benefits of this journaling group is that we all notice different elements of the text.  One of our group members talked about the image of God blowing the seeds of our identity; the gentleness of the image struck me.

Merton is an interesting writer in that he sometimes uses the charged language of sin, but in this case, he's talking about sin as never being in touch with our true selves, "to refuse the fullness of my existence" (p. 33).

But how do we do this?  Merton says, "Ultimately the only way I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence" (pp. 35-36).  For those hoping that Merton will give the easy 3 step plan, that's not going to happen.  Merton says that it's not an easy task, that it's likely going to be a lifelong project.

Furthemore, in chapter 5, Merton says we can't do it on our own, that the only one who can help us find God is God.  It's the kind of round and round rhetoric that makes me want to hurl the book across the room, and I know that I am not alone in this.

But I return to the idea of that tree giving glory to God by being a tree.  We don't think of trees as longing to be anything other than a tree.  But that sentence made me think about the tree that wishes it could be something else, a different variety of tree perhaps, the pine tree wishing it could be a willow.  

I also thought of the tree longing to be something completely different, which may be closer to what Merton is thinking about, the tree that yearns to be a cloud or the ocean.  Do many of us long to be something so different from our true nature that we might be a tree wishing to be the ocean?  

It's an interesting way of thinking about our endless self-improvement projects.