Revealed Roots

Roots are very fascinating.  Just recently I was with my beautician and she was reminding me that my roots were showing.  My roots were revealing not only my natural hair color but also that the highlights were not my own.  The warm golds that glitter in the sun were added as well as the subtle reds that brought rich dimensions to the tonal quality of my hair color.  This left me to ponder about what it means to have our roots revealed.

One of the days that Abby and I were walking at Plank Chapel I was noticing these revealed roots.  There are some roots I have to remember to notice else I might stumble and fall over them.  But these roots caught my attention as no other.  The tree which grew from them
was on the edge of the property.  The roots reaching inward from the boundary of lands towards the center of the parking yard suffered the blades of a lawn mower or split from the heat of the piercing sun.  My eyes traveled along their gnarled path and saw wounds now scars that displayed the risks of their surfaced exposure.  I glimpsed places where these roots appeared to have been blocked by some unknown force and lifted up into the air as if to take a breath to try to break free the blockage. I marveled at how they spread out across the land keeping the tree strong and tall as it reached for the heavens. Their penetrating presence reminding me of how God's love is a risk taking love that encounters blades of hate and the piercing heat of anger.  Scarred by the world, God continues to love and through God's love we continue to grow strong and tall into the men and women God created.

Then my spirit moved once again with the pattern of those revealed roots.  I thought about my own willingness to love unconditionally and how that willingness to love exposes the roots of my being to the blades of hate and the piercing heat of anger.  I considered the places where my rootedness in God's love has scars from where the humanness of the world touched the divine.  I realized this week how much joy is part of the healing power of God.  What I experience in the night of anguish, in the dark of despair is the resounding joy of God's presence with me.  As I have touched one particular scar this past week I discovered that irregardless of the pain and suffering that the death of a child creates, I would not choose any other path than the path of love, I will not run from love to protect my heart.  For me to choose to hide or run from the risks that loving others creates means to choose to run or hide from God's love, that would truly uproot me and leave me dead.  I know there are times when I retreat because of the pain of the fresh hurt.  These times are like those bulges in the roots of the tree, a blockage and I have to lift my heart towards the healing warmth of God's love.

When I reveal my scars to others, I also reveal the roots of my groundedness in God's love allowing others to enter into God's joy that cradles my sorrow, allowing others to enter into God's love that heals my pain, that they might too allow God to bring healing into their lives.

Revealing my roots,
One of Many