When I was a child, I recall having this wonderful and mysterious experience with trees.  For some odd reason, I suppose, I imagined that I could put my entire (at that time) quite small hand around the trunk of a very large tree.  The span between my thumb and my pinky could not have been more than 4 inches.  Of course this human hand touching the bark of this large live oak could never span the wide circumference of the tree’s body, but I remember that it felt good to try.  The rough bark seemed both impervious yet inviting.  The initial imagining of “capturing” the tree in its greatness within my tiny hand quickly subsided as I felt the bark of the tree on the inside of my hand. I was completely awestruck by this giant mysterious living thing that stood so still yet was so strong and alive, this majestic sturdiness that indeed was equally flexible.  In this experience that has remained with me through the years, I also remember this deep yearning within to “know” this mysterious living being that attracted me and yet also somewhat frightened me in its secrecy.  I was curiously drawn to this powerful yet oh so lovely tree, that seemingly called out to me in my heart, yet defied my small-handed touch.  I could not grasp it all – I could only yearn and touch slightly this creation that seemed to… yes…Love me!

In today’s readings from the book of Genesis (GN 1: 20-2:4A) we hear the second part of one of the creation stories.  After creating the sky and the earth with its plants and trees and animals…

“God saw how good it was.
Then God said:
‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’
…God created man in his image;
in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying:
‘Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth’…

God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good..

Throughout this wondrous story of creation, we have repeated over and over how God saw that everything created was indeed Good!  Everything!  No exceptions!  As part of God’s creation, we humans were enjoined to spread out our family and “have dominion” over the earth in all its living creatures.  Biblical scholars are not convinced that this “dominion” involved unlimited power.  The language is tied mainly to a royalty tradition; however, we have seen in our history how this “domineering” aspect can have disastrous effects upon our world and all of its creatures, including us!   Unfortunately, we have many times skipped over the “goodness” of all creation and focused on dominion!

We see a version of this dominion in today’s Gospel (MK 7: 1-13), wherein the Pharisees upon observing that Jesus and his disciples did not maintain the purification traditions of the elders when eating, i.e., they did not wash their hands, asked Jesus why this was so.  Jesus’ response to this was quite scathing:

““Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites,
as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.

You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say, ‘How well you have set aside the commandment of God
in order to uphold your tradition!
For Moses said,
Honor your father and your mother,
and Whoever curses father or mother shall die.
Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother,
“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”‘
(meaning, dedicated to God),
you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.
You nullify the word of God
in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.
And you do many such things.”

Jesus seems to be criticizing the attitudes that lie behind the legalism associated with human rituals surrounding eating and then quickly moves from the more “surface” issues of legalistic rituals to the ones that actually cut into human relationships.  In fact that seems to be one of the main points of his diatribe.  The “doctrines of human precepts” have supplanted the commandments of God, which are based in relationships.  These human precepts reveal that we have sacrificed the “goodness” of creation that God has given to us by forming it in our own “image,” which is an ego image that seeks domination and control.  As an example of how far “their hearts are from me,” He describes how the commandment to honor our parents has been “converted” by the ego’s need to dominate, control and be “self-sufficient into “taking” from our parents the support that they have given and casting them off without care!    This is a nullification of relationship – a nullification of God!

The goodness of God’s creation in Genesis, described within the beautiful mysterious connection that we all have in what I will call the Divine Tree of Life, has been cloaked with the human ego’s attempt to “stand alone” in “purity” and try to exact the manner in which Creation must be controlled by us.  This is the domination of creation by us that is a denial of relationship – the relationship that we have with all creation, the relationship that we have with each other, and ultimately by the same token, the relationship with our Creator God!    And because this is a denial of relationship, it is a denial of Goodness.

Remember, our ultimate relationship with God in creation is that we are created in God’s image!   We are created in relationship with God, as God’s likeness.  If there is ever an authentic relationship established, it would have to be this one – between God and Us!  As creatures made in God’s image, we are the image of Goodness itself and maintained in that by a Loving God that sustains the relationship.  Inasmuch as we exercise our egos to try to stand apart from this relationship by domineering actions over the world and others, although we may wreak much havoc, hurt and violence, we cannot break the relationship!

So, what will it take to accept this great mysterious God who LOVED creation into being and sustains us in that very same embrace?  What could break our “traditions” of ego-driven legalism that ostracizes and condemns creation?  What will ease our vain attempts to selfishly “grasp” this great Tree, in its infinite girth, and rest content with the Life that it feeds to us, in our gentle touching of its bark and drinking of its sap?  Can we learn to live in the mysterious heart  of Goodness that constantly calls us into a deeper relationship with creation and the Creator, so that we can, instead of reacting, respond in ways that could even challenge our mind-set traditions of categories of exclusion and condemnations?

My hand is still small.  Yet I still like to stretch it out across the bark and feel the Life inside and out.  I wonder how many hands it would take to really “grasp” it, i.e., to really “know?”  In any case it is both challenging and consoling to know that I am there under the bark, held within the boughs of a Great Lover…as we all are, in the Divine image of Goodness!

Peace

Thomas

The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth  woven and laced together in loving pattern  by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing  awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.