Reflection: ‘Imbedded: designed for permanence’

The liquidambar’s underground reputation is that she’s shallow, strong and aggressive. She clogs, dislodges and damages as her feeder roots prowl thirstily for easy, surface-deep drink. We passers-by will take no notice of aggressive under-foot tentacles. We’re blithely unaware of her footing till, before we know it, she’s an exasperating adolescent with big feet. At 15 or 20 years old, a liquidambar might have roots a foot thick. They’re thirsty for anything–water pipes, swimming pools, sewage, or just the mischief of vandalising pavements and carparks. (And that’s why our 40-year-old beauty of St James Close fell from grace and met her brutal removal from time and place.)

Intricate. Imbedded. Inglorious. Indispensable.

That’s the upside-down and under-grounded-ness of a tree.

It befriends dark and loamy soil.

It thanklessly burrows deep, dank tunnels on permanent night shifts, in search of moisture and minerals.

That’s how it’s tenaciously connected to God’s good earth.

And that be ‘blessed’.

But better-blessed is the tree replanted—the new creation—whose roots feed on fountains of living water.

Steadfast through cicada-hot summers and frost-bite storms.

‘Blessed’, those buried in Christ, ever new-born and thirst-quenched by streams of living water.

Prayer:

Prosper me and prosper your church, Holy Spirit. Establish us, dependent: hungry for your word and thirsty for your worship; naïve to evil but discerning of the Evil One and his world and ways. Bless and prosper us today.