June 01, 2003 12:26 P.M.

A Place of Peace

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of �snapshots�. (Does this generation still know that word?) Snapshots are what you used to �take� with an old Kodak �Brownie� camera. Or whatever.

But the mind has its own method of taking snapshots. It encapsulates moments of time in frames, which can be recalled, producing a corresponding emotional effect.

I have this inward place I go to when I am under stress. It is a place where there is calm, and it brings a sense of peacefulness. It isn�t always the same place, but �there are always trees. It�s shady, cool, and verdant. Sometimes it�s the memory of a location in a park, or a wooded glen. Sometimes it is a vantage point under the tress in the front yard of my childhood home.

At times, it is being surrounded by the summer trees on my aunt and uncle�s farm in Illinois, where I vacationed as a small child.

I really do think that next to humans, God�s greatest creations on earth, are trees. All trees. Just imagine something with me for a moment. Imagine a world without mountains. It would be strange, and lacking something very wonderful, but there are people who have never seen mountains.

Imagine a world without seas, lakes or even rivers. That would be tragic, and desolate, and a great portion of history would have been drastically rewritten. But I know a lot of folk who have never seen an ocean. I know some who have not seen a river of much size. Especially those who have lived their entire lives in the desert southwest.

Now, picture a world without a single tree. I just get this hot and panicky feeling, contemplating it. Sort of like a Martian landscape. I don�t think it would be bearable for most of us.

The �Tree of Life� is one of the first plants mentioned in the Bible (Gen. 2), and it is one of the last (Rev. 22). All trees give life - of some sort. They provide for living, and they shelter life. Some have lived longer than many generations of the human race. There are trees standing today which, if they could speak, would recall much of the history of humanity. I certainly do NOT worship trees, but I reverence them for the gift they are from the Person I do worship.

And they bring me a sense of peace. I have my own inward collection of vignettes�snapshots of shady stands of stillness and calm to which I often resort. I can take these with me anywhere, anytime.

�Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.� Proverbs 13:12

This is a photo from a COF message board. When I saw it, the following poem came rushing to my thoughts. It is simply entitled, �Willow�.

Like an angel, arms outstretched across the sky

Casting shadows of protection over the dwelling below,

In silence, holds its secrets of the years

Sunshine joy, windswept skies and rains of tears.

Passersby have paused and gazed with hushed sighs

Of admiration and remembered years gone bye.

Strength and peace - renewal, all are found

In this mighty guardian rooted deeply in the ground.

Summers, springs and autumns, winters� frost

Imbedded in its circles, nothing lost

And silently it holds the history

Of wilderness becoming home to all of us.

Just for fun, if you have a �place of peace and calm" that you go to, what would it be? If you want, drop me an email and tell me about it.

Text � copyright 2003 - 2008 The Homespun Philosopher

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