Healing, simpler tree

We are a people who are always somewhat dissatisfied and that is okay. Sidewalks, buildings, traffic, growing awareness of hidden abuses of all sorts, who would not complain? Unfortunately, all our solutions seem to fall short. Any optimism is crushed. How about resigning ourselves to it all and just fending for ourselves?

I suggest we are trying to heal the symptoms of a deep malaise that is unsettling most people. We have ignored our spiritual selves, and, for this, we are paying a price, not of money but of heart.

We are believing the cunning one who assures us that we know it all, and so why worry about the future which includes the leaving of this world. Why too much worry about violence, greed, hate, pleasures, arrogance, fears, love? We have reached the sky!

The unruly environment in which we live, like a mirror, reflects the environment within many hearts. Giving attention to it entails a lot of self-forgetting and forces us out of our personal “sacred” space. It is most uncomfortable!

This world, this little island, is the great garden in which we live and there are many trees in it: a very big one with large and long branches, enticing fruit, which happens to be mostly poisonous, and another one, a humble and somewhat unattractive, whose fruit is life-giving and medicinal. Choosing from the bigger tree has made us very sick in heart and in body. It has poisoned our decent relationships with self and others. All are generally to blame except… This enticing fruit has permeated our feelings, our imagination, our memory, our reasoning, our decision-making, our future. (Our “original sin”.)

The simpler tree is healing, life-giving, joy-giving. Its fruit fills and heals our feelings, imagination, memory, decision-making and our future. We can choose to live with hope rather than with defeat. If only the Good Shepherd persuades his beloved ones to trust Him.

VICTOR DEGABRIELE, SJ - Mosta