Under the Tree- 29th August 1991

PICTURE a tree that is bearing much fruit with no piece the same. Bulbous they are, some teardrops, some globular, of many, many colors and hues - the mythical tree - alike to a Christmas fruit tree. Beneath the tree you sit, sustained by the droppings that come to you. They are not yours to pluck; you must await their heavy drop. Thud! Another. Ouch! Another.

Now you have many baskets, each full to top. You have gathered each precious fruit, and are solemnly careful not to bruise any one. Piles and piles heaped all around you. Plenty. So many! Each unique and wonderful.

This is our heart’s desire to distribute those fruits from this tree. They are weird and wonderful and of such variety. They have such tension within, pushing out to the skin. They are very much ripe, they are ready to be had.

Some with prickle, some with silk-like bristle, some as crimson as the lychee: both with flesh and nut concealed. Some with the red of an apple, bespeckled, some with juice and pip-seed.

As we enter into the Garden of Eternal Wonderings, scores of such trees, in this our orchard of faith. Trees of sacrifice who bear, each without pattern or distinction. They are with knotty twine and twisted longings; they are very, very old indeed.

In good charity we gather, we collect what we can. We work fast for opportunities, that the ripe vitalities not be wasted. How so to distribute? None with a label or a name, but with a purpose.

And so the field workers make convoys to deliver in steady haste to those with want in need. For the weakened who await this fruit, have now no means to come into this orchard for themselves - at least, at first. They must partake of that which is especial to them, and become renewed by the offerings from those who have brought their inner nourishment. One cannot go to the wretched and say "Go look for yourselves! There is much, there is plenty, there is all you need and more!" For the wretched are so depleted and spent, and in need of nurture, with mouths once filled with grain and now with the dirt. They are heaped and fallen on roads here and there; they are frightened and tired, immobilized and cold.

What use are great imaginings or tales, given to such poor fellows in need? Just one fruit administered will make fast the necessary recovery. That they too might venture forth, with light heart and light step, once more, to the walls to the orchard. The delirium that they suffered will melt away. The soul will be gratefully pleased, that the bounties of Heaven were not just simple myth.

That the greedy who scurry for grain and trough, have spent all effort of endurance. They may hold the fruit, turning it this way and that, and come to know its properties: by their taste, by their life; infilled with great and all-consuming fiery essences. Revivified, renewed, the disheartened are softened by the kindness of their offerings given. Awakened to prospects, they leap up and recover in an instant!

For we have cultivated this tree of many varieties, watered by Truth herself, and warmed by the impassioned Host: Caretakers of the orchard, grafting throughout the ages, now this, now that, from the produce of great men.

That the red may return to the bloodless lips who have murmured, in struggle, to form words of prayerful calling. Each man, upright, with a dignity restored, with the strength of a resonant heartbeat which knows no inner discord. May those lips smile again, may the soul be infilled, may the words of the Word, be thus distributed throughout the world!