Out Walking

In the Company of Darkness

As strange as it may sound, we can all be thankful that Psalm 88 was included in the Psalter.  This psalm is unbroken distress from beginning to end with nary a word of affirmation of trust or hope in God.  The Psalmist says his "soul is full of troubles," that he is "like the slain that lie in the grave," that God's "wrath lies heavy upon me," and so on and so on, billowing clouds of blackness lingering above his words.  Finally, in the end, he accuses God of having "caused my beloved and my friend to shun me" and says that "darkness has become my only companion."  It is the voice of one who has faced lifelong trouble and suffering, without relief.

Although I cannot stand in the writer's shoes, I can identify with his sense of unrequited loss, as I suspect anyone who has lived a while can.  I was lamenting today the apparent loss of the ability to any longer sleep an unbroken eight hours without awaking, a small loss in the context of the universe of loss.  And yet even small losses are real and lamented at times.  And at times, like the writer of Psalm 88, I am not prepared to immediately make great affirmations of trust in God, of hope that this will change.  There is some wrestling to be done, some being in the moment of loss.  Psalm 88 says that's OK.  That's part of the reason that the psalm is likely there for us.

There is a difference between grief, our human reaction to loss, and self-pity.  True Christian grief says, "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. … Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men" (Lam. 3:19-33).  On the other hand, self pity turns our gaze inward.  It is a morbid self-introspection and, ultimately, if it persists, can turn to bitterness and even unbelief.  It's a "Lord, do you not care. . . ?" (Lk. 10:40) that grows exponentially if it's not nipped in the bud.  But note, though there are no affirmations of hope and trust, the writer of Psalm 88 is engaged in a dialog with God.  He is praying to the One who has answers for his grief.  Maybe he can't make the positive affirmations that other psalms of lament come around to, yet, nevertheless, he's still talking to God.  And that is hopeful.

Let's face it.  Sometimes loss is so acutely felt that you can't say the words you know are true, or hope are true.  You can only cry out to God, argue with God, even accuse God.  That He condescends to allow us that fearsome privilege, that He even gives us this psalm as a pattern for doing just that, only demonstrates how great a condescension He has made for us (Phil. 2:5-8).  Eventually, once we have said our piece and shut up, we'll hear something like "let not your hearts be troubled," "fear not," or "rejoice." And for me, the one who cannot sleep the sleep of a child, there is the promise that He will give me "rest" (Mt. 11:28), if not now, then soon.  Very soon.

Things of the World, Grow Strangely Bright

Whenever I walk in a place, I begin to take dominion over it, to make the place my own.  Habitual paths create a familiarity that is settling.  The maple tree at that bend in the path is the one with the squirrel's nest about 20 feet up, with the bent trunk testifying to some past storm; the boulder, just there, retaining the warmth of the Spring sun even at dusk; that robin could just be the same that walked across my path yesterday, just here; the cooler breeze in this dip in the trail a familiar change, one I've felt before.  You see, I know this path, this lake, these birds, trees and breezes, the rise and fall of topography, the winter sun and summer sun, the cacophonous sound of the geese, just in from other parts, the distant sound of traffic, of the world waking up, the smell of breakfast through an open window, that woman who never looks up as she passes, the gossiping women who can be heard clear across the lake.

In this place, in my neighborhood, I can put names to what I see.  Street names like Godfrey, Gainsbororugh, Winthrop, and Redmond, or family names like Vaughn, Mangum, and Parker, or a love-sloppy dog named Sandy or a matronly cat named Rachel.  Deer crossing the neighbors back yard.  A racoon climbing a pine tree.  A pink ribbon on a mailbox and a just married sign on my neighbors' front door.  The dappled light of early morning sun on my terrace.  A chipmunk hurriedly chewing and storing seeds before diving back into his den under my steps.  A male cardinal slinging birdseed to the dove below the feeder.  A barking dog.  A hoot owl? Green leaves against azure blue sky.  Trucks passing on.  The newspaper waiting on the driveway.   The long sigh of my still sleeping child.  All familiar, all deeply settling.

In Psalm 1 we are told that the blessed life is one "like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season. . . ."  The simile is one of settling in, of being rooted, of drawing sustenance from being in one place, of being in the right place.  The blessed man is described as one who finds "his delight in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."  Reading the Psalms this side of Christ's coming, of God's revelation of Himself in the perfect man, we understand that the psalm commends settling into the full revelation of God, the perfect expression of which is found in Christ.  Matthew Henry says that "[t]o meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, until we are suitably affected with those things and experience the savour and power of them in our hearts."  In other words, we settle into God's revelation.  We roll around in it, if you will. 

Conversely, when the psalm speaks of the wicked, it plainly portrays them us unsettled, unfixed, as "chaff that the wind drives away," lacking roots.  In fact, Henry says that the word wicked "means such as are unsettled, aim at no certain end and walk by no certain rule, but are at the command of every lust and at the beck and call of every temptation."  The wicked, the unblessed, the unsettled and uprooted, pass through life like wind, blown about, never really knowing God nor His world.

If being blessed is being settled in the full revelation of God, then it means first being settled in God's Word, in His special revelation about Himself.  And yet as paramount as knowing God's Word is, there is more to it than this.  Part of God's revelation, part of what I am settling into, is His world.  Psalm 19 aptly links the law of God, his special revelation, with Creation, His general revelation.  The sense you have in reading this psalm is of a person who not only meditated on God's law but on God's world.  This writer can move easily from "[t]he heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. . . ." to "[t]he law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. . . ."  The Psalmist meditates on Word and World.  Love for Word is inseparable from love of World.

What does the psalm say about Creation?  It says "[d]ay to day [it] pours out speech, and night to night [it] reveals knowledge."  If I listen, I can hear two melodies ---- one in a major key that tells me what is right, good, and true; one in a minor key that tells me what is bent, gone wrong, and untrue.  Part of the deep settledness of the Christian life is learning to love the things of the World, to see in their luminous particularity God's revelation of all that is true, good, and beautiful, to see the things of the world (to invert the words of the song) grow strangely bright, as we turn our eyes upon Jesus, as we settle into, sink roots into, the fullness of His revelation to us.

Think about that, next time you're out walking.  Settle in.

What's Happening to Us

"God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say --- Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset?  He allows these things for His own purpose.  The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way.  The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to God."

Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest (May 22nd)

"You don't look 49," he said.

"And you don't look 70," I said.  I added "we must be living right," a quip that I know isn't entirely or even mostly true.

" I don't think living right has anything to do with it.  My wife lived right all her life, did good to everyone, helped everyone, and we just found out she has cervical cancer.  That's not much of a reward for living right, is it?"

Of course not, and of course such aphorisms, while having a semblance of truth, aren't really very useful, aren't even very true.  There is utility in living right.  Perhaps we're less likely to contract lung cancer if we don't smoke or have a heart attack if we eat well and exercise or  escape divorce and its repercussions if we avoid infidelity --- and yet the most fit sometimes have heart attacks, children die young, and generous and kind old ladies get cervical cancer.  We all know that.

I don't want trial and suffering to come to me or mine or even friends.  Who would?  And yet the older I get the less I pray against such things as I pray about what happens to me and mine while enduring such things.  For after all, didn't James say to "[c]ount it all joy, brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness," (Ja. 1:2)?  Am I becoming "sweeter, better, nobler" as a man?  I hope so.

Visit the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and you can see the result of lives lived unto God or without Him.  One person has suffered much, and yet is sweet in spirit, full of grace, living in gratitude, counting it all joy.  Another has suffered much less, perhaps, yet is embittered and angry, arguing about petty grievances, fixated on some regret or some perceived wrong.  The difference is the relationship to God.  When we have that right, then what's happening is an inward transformation even despite (or because of) an outside trial.  Otherwise, I waste away, eaten up by the sins of resentment and anger that trial produces apart from God.

Today I heard that CCM musician Steven Curtis Chapman's five-year old child was killed in their driveway in a tragic accident, run over by his teenage child.  Can you imagine the weight of this suffering?  And yet I don't doubt that this family will not become embittered but will be strengthened in faith, in the end.  Lots of bad things happen.  God uses them in our lives for good, ultimately.  That's what's happening to us.  I hope I can remember that and live from that truth when (and not if) I face my next trial.

[As an odd addendum to this, I should add that my cat has chosen Oswald Chamber's classic devotional for me to read the last two days.  She has pulled it off the bookshelf twice, leaving it there for me to find.  Perhaps, despite the nature of her race, she is a pious cat.  Or is it just a fascination with the tasseled page-marker that playfully dangles from the book?]

[The image reproduced above is of a painting by my friend, Carol Bomer, entitled "Weep for the Wiping of Grace."  You can read more about the painting and Carol's other work here.]

The Gift of Wakefulness

I'm not sleeping very well.  I haven't always been this way.  I think, perhaps, that before I was 40, I did in fact sleep through the night, rarely waking, but I haven't been that way for a long time.  I wake up once, and then I go back to sleep.  Lately, however, I wake three to four times a night, and I do not always return to sleep.  I am not worried about anything.  I am not sick.  I do not have sleep apnea, or a host of other things that may keep you awake.  I'm just . . . awake.

My children and my wife do not know the sound of the house around us at 2:00, or 3:30, or 4:45.  I do.  The air conditioner fan turns on, and off, then back on.  The refrigerator hums.  Someone snores, or turns over, and the bed creaks.  And there are other strange creaking sounds that are mysterious, perhaps the house settling back into the earth, forecasting its demise one distant day.  That's the newspaper deliveryman, the paper landing with a plastic-wrapped thud on concrete, headlights playing off the walls.  Around 6:00 the birds awake, and my cat begins to move about, with an odd chirping meow, letting me know she's up.  And then there's the sound of remembrance, and you think of a childhood trip with your family to the mountains where you stopped by a mountain stream for a picnic, or a long-forgotten smell of a home you grew up in, or the beckoning of a voice you have not heard in a while calling you to dinner.  The world is at rest and you can really listen to it and remember and consider things that get pressed out of your mind during the day when our thinking is more economic.  At night we can afford to waste time, to be expansive. . . that is, if you cannot sleep.

I've been lamenting this lack of sleep, silently (mostly) complaining about it, as well as engaging in a bit of uneducated self-diagnosis.  But the bottom line is that I haven't a clue as to why I am not sleeping that much.  Today, however, I suddenly realized how rich I am, what a gift I've been given in what I considered lack.  Someone said this last week, in another context, that we should not live in our lack but in our wealth.  I think that was meant for me.

It's one thing to be wakeful because you are suffering pain, anxiety, or some other trial.  It would be difficult to call that a gift.  It would also be difficult to call wakefulness a gift if it caused you to have difficulty functioning during the day.  But none of that is generally true of me.  A few years ago my good friend Jerry told me that he was only sleeping two hours a night.  He was delighted.  The rest of the night he wrote songs, read his Bible, and walked all over the mountain on which he lived and through his neighborhood praying for people.  I felt sorry for him then.  I figured he would crash and burn at some point.  I thought he was crazy, even manic, and yet he considered it the spiritual high point of his life.  Nothing bad happened to him.  After several months, he began to sleep again.  Now I think God gave him a gift, a crazy irrepressible wakefulness, delighted that Jerry could spend time alone with Him.  I never heard him complain about it.

This kind of wakefulness is not what I would call ideal, but I have no choice.  It's given.  You can't seek it, or you will crash and burn.  I wonder some days how I function on all but four-five interrupted hours of sleep. And yet God promises rest to those who come to Him, saying "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt: 11:28).  In fact, rest is the optimum state of the believer, "for we who believed enter that rest" (Heb. 4:3).  Sleep is a "sweet" gift to the laborer" (Eccl. 5:12), and yet that's not my gift right now.  It just may be that His "rest" does not include a lot of sleep but means he'll sustain me as I trust Him through the night watches.  He just may have things for me to do and think at night.  Besides, have you worked at sleeping?  It's counterproductive.  Kind of like trying to work at being saved.

Just this past week two other friends told me they were having trouble sleeping.  Maybe I'll call them up tonight.  No, maybe not.  It may not be a gift to them but a trial.  But  next time you see me, ask me what I been doing with my nights.  Whatever I do, I hope its Godward.  Pray I'm resting in Him.  I'll let you know how it goes.

A Rational Faith: A Review of Tim Keller's "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism"

Pastor Tim Keller has had a lot of experience talking to non-believers and skeptical seekers.  After all, Keller lives and pastors in the sophisticated urban world of New York City, where a plethora of belief systems are available (or not).  In The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Keller manages to do two things well.  First, he winsomely confronts the questions and arguments raised by doubters, including "There can't be one true religion," or "How could a good God allow suffering?" or "Science has disproved Christianity."  Second, he offers reasons for faith, challenging skeptics to examine the clues for God, the problem of sin, the reality of the cross, and the resurrection.  What I particularly enjoyed about the book is that Keller never overstates his case, always admits truth in skeptic's arguments, and is never shrill or combative in tone.  It's an excellent book for Christians who desire to understand the questions of those nonbelievers they may relate to on a day-to-day basis, as well as for seekers who desire to explore the arguments for faith.

Throughout the book, Keller acknowledges a great debt to the work of C.S. Lewis, and yet Keller is more accessible than Lewis, more American, and more conversational.  There are liberal quotations from Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce, among other works.  Keller also (yet more subtly) pays homage to Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards, his Reformed faith permeating the book and undergirding all that he says.  And yet his writing is informed by his own experience in talking with people, as evidenced by the many quotes from real conversations he has had with skeptics.

When taking on the new atheists --- Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others --- he contends that their arguments are based on what some call "strong rationalism," a belief that "no one should believe a proposition unless it can be proved rationally by logic or empirically by sense experience."  As Keller says, most philosophers reject "strong rationality" as an impossible standard to meet.  His approach is that of "critical rationality," which "assumes that some systems of belief are more reasonable than others, but that all arguments are rationally avoidable in the end."  We don't insist on  irrefutable proofs but look for the system of belief which has the most explanatory power, which best makes sense of reality.  This is a helpful distinction that avoids the pitfalls of strong rationality and relativism.

Keller writes pastorally --- with intelligence and warmth.  His arguments are cogent, his prose sufficiently personal and animated to hold interest, and his love of God evident.  I heartily recommend the book.

Live, Pray, Consume

In today's devotional from Ravi Zacharias Ministries, "Consuming Church," Margaret Manning laments the pervasive consumerism of society and its infiltration of the church.  She says:

But what has a consumer-driven mentality done to the way in which we participate in and view the church? Our casual language about “church shopping” belies one of the more subtle impacts. No longer do we see the church as the organic representation of Christ’s body, Christ’s mission in which we are joined as “members,” but we are instead “shoppers” examining who has the best product. How many programs does this church offer? What about the quality of the music program? And how about the preaching? Is it relevant and does it speak to my life, my circumstances? Do I leave Sunday worship feeling better and happier?

I know this is a danger, and perhaps it's an old story.  Church marketing techniques are well-known, and often success is measured by "sales," that is, people in the pews, but I am concerned more with what to do about this tidal wave in my own life and, beyond that, for culture at large.  When consuming is how I was reared, is what I know, is what is preached to me from every billboard, TV screen, movie, web page, and urinal (yes, ladies, they even put ads in there), how do I unlearn what has become a way of life?  And beyond that, how does an economy like ours return to an emphasis not primarily on consuming but on producing and saving?  I often sense that if I do not continue to spend, the economy will grind to a halt, if we don't keep borrowing money and spending then the GNP will sink, and we'll end up in another Great Depression.

But then I know I haven't a lick of economic sense.  I haven't the slightest idea what to do about the economy, how to get us out of this enslavement to consumption.  All I know is that it can't be right, can't be all there is to living in the world. 

Take stock. Look around.  There are a lot of things that bring joy and pleasure in life that you didn't pay for, that you can't buy.  Maybe I just need to look at those things more --- the moon above the pine trees, my family moving through our home, sunlight through a window, a cardinal on the feeder, the chatter of the neighbor's children playing, crisp air, and unmerited grace.  The things I tend to love so much pale in comparison. 

A Bright Week

For Orthodox churches, Easter Monday, the day after Easter, is known as Bright Monday. In fact, the whole week is treated as one continuous day, with every day being prefaced by the word “Bright.” As a member of the Reformed church, where worship is shorn of much in the way of imagery or symbol, it’s times like this that I feel somewhat short changed. There ought to be a name for the days after Easter. There ought to be an extended celebration of the Resurrection, remembrance of the new life that we have with Christ, not just a continuation of business as usual. In this regard, the Orthodox worship is rich with symbolism that reminds us what has happened as a result of Christ being raised from the dead.

There’s that word “bright,” for example. The word itself connotes a week characterized by gladness or happiness, a stark contrast to the sober tenor of Lent and Good Friday. And then Orthodox services during the week are distinctly different. Everything in the services is sung joyfully rather than read. Normal fasting rules are suspended. All week the doors on the iconostasis, a wall of icons and religious paintings separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church, are kept open, the only time that occurs during the year, a visible reminder of the open tomb.

I need such visible reminders of what has transpired. Christ died and rose again, in the flesh, with a body, and thus there is the promise that we will do so as well. I need a week of brightness to cement that miracle in my memory so that I will never forget the hope I have. Something universe-shattering has happened. Christ became flesh and blood so that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. . . and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14-15).That’s you and me. Then too there’s the “bright” promise of a recreated world where sin is banished and we live eternally with Christ in non-decaying bodies. That’s plenty to consider this bright week.

Perhaps a week of such brightness may be a partial antidote to my dalliance with the trivial, from my addiction to this world and dependence on earthly circumstances, from my failure to live existentially in the light of the cross and in the shadow of the Second Coming. The tomb is open. The body is not there. The Lord has risen. And so too shall we.

Enjoy the Early Easter: It's Your Last One

While I haven't verified this information, I consider the source trustworthy, so I'm passing it along:

As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.  
Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22), but that is rare.
This year is the earliest Easter that any of us will ever see in our life time.  And only the oldest among us have ever seen it this early (you have to be 95 years old or more).  And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now).  The last time it was this early was 1913. The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. 

Bottom line: No one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

I suppose some people sit around thinking about such trivia.  I simply wanted to know why this Easter did not match up with my children's Spring Break!

Why We Know It Was Winter

While the authenticity of Scripture is attested to in many ways, one of the more ubiquitous and remarkable qualities it has for me is its particularity, its deep rootedness in space and time and in its mediation through human agency. By the later I mean that God did not simply dictate the words of Scripture to a scribe who faithfully wrote them down, but used human authors --- with their own particular personalities and in their own social and historical context --- to write what God intended (actually, superintended) to reveal of Himself. I don’t know if mediated is quite the right word. Patrick Henry Reardon uses the word fermented, meaning that each author of Scripture is like a fermenting agent bringing a distinctive flavor and consistency to Scripture, binding it to a real person. It is so easy to forget this self-evident fact about the nature of Scripture, reducing it to abstractions, and yet when particular time- and space-bound phrases leap off the page at you, you’re brought up short: these are real people in a real place at a real time. I laugh. Of course that’s what I believe, but that nefarious Purveyor of Abstractions (Satan) majors in high-sounding religious maxims, knowing that divorced from the really real, abstractions are more malleable and dispensable. They are not tied down.

Let me give you an example. Yesterday I was reading the Gospel of John, the most abstract of the Gospel accounts. In John 10: 1-18 Jesus introduced two rich metaphors, referring to himself as both the “shepherd” and “door” (or “gate”) and to believers as “sheep.” But beyond these visual images, things that are real and help tie down the analogies Jesus is drawing, the whole passage is sandwiched between the healing of a man born blind (a real man, in a real place, a man who grew testy under examination by the Pharisees, saying “I told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?” And then, tongue in cheek, saying “Do you want to become his disciples?”) And then immediately after this discourse, verse 22 picks up with “At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter.” Not summer, but winter. As far as I can tell there is no reason for the existence of the phrase “It was winter” other than to tie us to space and time. This Book is so good about that.

If you think this so self-evident that there is no reason to speak of it, I appeal to Francis Schaeffer, missionary to Europe, founder of L’Abri. Picture him in a hayloft next to his home in the Alps in 1955, Chalet Bijou, pacing back and forth, the wood boards creaking under his feet, the hay swishing, cow bells clanging from the fields nearby, re-examining the very basis for his faith and concluding, ultimately, that the truth of Scripture was the only thing that made sense of reality. When he later preaches on what he learned, and then writes it down in True Spirituality, over and over and over he makes the point that Scripture is rooted in space and time. He did it, of course, to counter liberal theology, an emasculated view of God which used all the same words like incarnation and resurrection but had long sense ripped the words out of the reality of space and time --- planting, as Schaeffer said, “one foot firmly in the air.” And yet it’s not just an argument against liberalism. It’s personal. You have the sense that the knickered, bearded man is simply in wonder at a story that is really real, that really happened --- in a particular place, at a particular time. It was winter (in Jerusalem). A sassy former blind man now cast out of the synagogue has taken up with Jesus, the man who put mud (real mud) on his eyes and spit on him and now he sees.

Forgive me for waxing on about such self-evident matters. I feel like pastor Tim Keller who, when lying ill unto death in the hospital, reading a book on the evidence for the resurrection, realized that it was real. There was a body. It bled and died. It went missing. It popped up again. The dead come alive. Of course he always believed that Jesus died and rose again, but at that moment, he really believed, he was astonished that this thing had really happened in space and time.

Now this never gets old. This is an incarnated revelation, truth that is bound up with particulars, truth with body and texture. That’s the reason we know it was winter.

Gnarly Christians

Well I feel
like I have to feel
something good all the time.
With most of life I cannot deal
but a good feeling I can feel
even though it may not be real.
And if a person, place or thing
can deliver
I will quiver with delight.
But will it last me all my life
or just be one more lonely night?

The lust, the flesh
the eyes
and the pride of life
drain the life
right out of me

("The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes & the Pride of Life," Mike Roe & The 77s)

In my backyard there is a red maple tree that is probably about the same age as me.  It is not aged, yet anyway, but it has stature.  It has been here long enough to garner respect.  In other words, it is mature.  It looks much diminished now, gray and leafless, nothing like the brilliant fiery scarlet of its leaf display in the Fall, and yet at its crown there is promise --- reddish flower clusters appear among the still-leafless twigs.

From a distance, the tree has a dignified look --- upright, well-apportioned, and crowned with that red burgeoning promise.  Lay down underneath it, though, and look up through its branches, and you understand that life has not been all easy for the maple.  The trunk that appeared so straight from a distance is gnarled and bent, as if it had been assaulted by something periodically before righting itself.  Some branches, twigless, are broken off; others, bend downward as if sad.  However, many branches thrive, dividing into more and more branches and twigs, thrusting upwards.  The best is at the very top, the crown, with its red flowered display basking in the sun.  That fruitful display rests on the foundation of many years of growth through drought, ice storms, and hurricanes.

The maple is a good metaphor for my sanctification --- the huge lifelong project that I am for God.  The broken or downturned branches represent poor decisions, wasted ventures, and misplaced priorities ---- all fruitless, all dead ends for me.  Paul tells us not to love the world, that "the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world" (1 Jn. 2:16).  I suspect all these non-starters are the product of such unrequited lust, of loving the world. 

The gnarly trunk represents the various circumstances that have assaulted me in life, difficult things unexpected or self-inflicted, and yet the upright trunk persuades me of the benefits of being well-rooted, of persevering, or reaching for God.  I'm thankful we're both still standing.  Paul says "[w]e are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies" (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

It's so easy to be distracted, so easy to love the world.  TV commercials, magazines, catalogs, and internet ads all tell me that there is something else I need, something that will make me "quiver with delight." Popular culture is is riven with things calculated to induce lust --- for people, places, or things.

The red maple in my yard reminds me to keep a Godward focus, to live in the world but draw my life from God, to be singleminded.  It's a symbol of what it is to abide in Him.  I may be gnarly on close inspection, but I'm still standing.