The Tree of Life

This Last Sunday, I started wearing the necklace and pendant in the picture above. It is something that I assembled myself.  I am wearing it all this week in solidarity with the victims of the shooting, and all victims of the violence that hatred breeds.

I told my congregants that I am wearing this necklace because the medallion that it holds is a Tree of Life medallion. The Tree of Life is found in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, where it is situated in the middle of the Garden. In the Christian Scriptures, it is also found at the end of the final book, the Book of Revelation. There, in the midst of the New Heaven and the New Earth that God brings about is the New Jerusalem, which is constructed not by political power and domination, but by Truth, Justice, Mercy, Grace, and Love. In the center of that New Jerusalem is a wondrous Tree, again the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the peoples - all peoples. So at the beginning, the Tree of Life stands, and at the end it continues to beckon with the promise, possibility, and hope of peace, of compassionate community, of justice, and of a full celebration of the incomparable beauty of God's diverse creativity. That vision is held out to us, but we have to take hold of the promise. We have to sign on in partnership with what God knows is possible, and desires deeply for us to choose.

I wear it in solidarity with the Or L'Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh, and continue to wear it in support of the lawsuit brought by Our Children's Trust, who are awaiting a lifting of the stay of their lawsuit against the Federal Government that aims to have the real science regarding climate change become part of U.S. policies. . The Tree symbolizes to me the reality that we all come from One Common Source, and that Common Life flows through all our veins, cambiums, rivers and streams. All creatures, all beings branch out from that Common Core. We are all interrelated. We weep together at acts of hatred. We rejoice together as young people march into courtrooms on behalf of the earth and the future of all its creatures. We are One Tree with an infinite variety of branches.

Powerful forces seek to tear that Tree apart and use it to fuel the fires of hatred, political domination, greed, and human lust for power. But I believe that many, many more people realize that they are inextricably bound together with all creatures - human and more-than-human - all around the globe. 

In Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermon, "A Knock at Midnight," he says this:

We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured. 

John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." And he goes on toward the end to say, "Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." We must see this, believe this, and live by it if we are to remain awake through a great revolution.

 Like it or not, believe it or not, accept it or not, we are part of One Tree of Life.

Images from top to bottom: Tree of Life pendant by Craig Pesti-Strobel; Or L'Simcha logo from their website: https://www.tolols.org/about-us; "Atmosphere Is a Public trust" image from youthvgov.org website; Tree of Life from the palace interior of Shaki Khan, By Urek Meniashvili - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26760866.