When i am among the trees

​I drove my friend Meg to meet her Appalachian Trail Adventure Project partner Celia last night as they began the 7th segment of their quest to run the entire trail from Georgia to Maine.

There was something in the timing as we drove up the final 6 miles or so of dirt road to their starting point. Meg and I were talking about God - who and what he is in our lives. Clearly, God means different things to me and Meg.

God means different things to all of us.

I told Meg, God is someone unexplainable, really, in my life. He is something unprovable. But there was timing in that conversation - because I think the closest God comes to proving himself to me, outside of my sons, is the trees.

I've said often, the trails, the trees lined up like dominoes (I love that Brett Eldredge imagery), they have saved me. I imagine the folks who read or hear me say that think I'm being dramatic.

I'm not. I'm being real.

There is something life-giving that happens the moment I enter the vastness of a forest. No matter how challenging the day is, or the week or the year - there are voices in that vastness - 'they give off such hints of gladness.'

I don't have to force myself to look at life differently among the trees, to feel differently about it, it just happens. Gladness comes over me like I couldn't stop it if I wanted to.

But it's not like I could stop someone walking alongside me and ask them, 'did you hear that?' Did you hear God? Do you feel his gladness?

Because maybe they didn't. Or maybe they did and they don't believe that is God. And I'm OK with that, because I'm the one who needs the saving, I'm the one who needs to know where to find God in my life.

Mary Oliver's poem 'When I Am Among The Trees' says this:

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

You see, the trees - God - they don't invite me in to simply receive. They invite me in as a reminder. A reminder that it is sometimes the mere presence of someone - the trees or God or you - that brings light to our lives. And mere presence really isn't that difficult.

It's a good reminder to carry from the trees. Carry into a world needing our light.

A reminder that we've come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine....

Because maybe that is God - shining. Whether it's a tree or whether it's me, maybe God is found IN the shining.

Maybe that's because God knew that's the one thing we would all need from time to time - if not always - some shining.

So maybe go shine today. If the trees can do it, so can we.