willow branches dragged from the waters,
blackened, leafless, lifeless...
...groaning...
rotting contortions clawing vainly at the soft sands,
desperately fighting to hold onto the comfort
of the muddy, mirky shallows.
their twisted stems stripped bare,
mere remnants of glory faded --
now beauty lost,
and death the heir!
Author notes
Last summer at camp, we staff members were given the job of clearing off the lake beach so the kids could swim once camps started. Two willow trees stood on the beach, and over the course of the winter, had dropped all their vine-like branches onto the beach and in the water so the place was littered with them. After we had cleared off the beach, we moved to the lake shallows, struggling to pull these now decayed vines out of the muddy lake bottom, and an image has stuck with me over a year later now: looking over my shoulder as I dragged a handful of these black, rotten vines behind me and seeing them claw at the ground like tentacles.
It was almost as if they were consciously struggling to return to their comfortable shallows in the muddy lake water. ...not remember what it was like to be full of life -- to sway in the breeze on a summer day and feel the sun and drink the nutrients from the earth.... it was as if they were content to live in that state of perpetual lifelessness at the bottom of the lake. Because "life" was easy there -- no changes, no storms, no growth, no risks -- but as a result, they had slowly become a rotten, twisted mess....
.....because no matter how easy life might be there, willow branches were never meant to live at the bottom of a lake.
What did you think
Comments
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Pegged it right on the head. :-D It was a time in my life where I was growing frustrated with people's desire to stay in their comfort zone -- and don't get me wrong, I struggle with this too, but when I thought back on this experience, it was just such a great picture about what happens to us when we do life the "easy" and the "safe" way. That wasn't how Jesus lived, and that's no where NEAR how he told US to live -- he told his disciples to go out into the land of the Gentiles without any food or money or extra clothes and preach the gospel and heal the sick and expel demons. Not quite like living life in middle-class suburban America, ya know?? ;-)
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deep..
hmm..let me try to figure this one out. Your authors comment was pretty deep and I'm pretty sure it's agreat paralell to life, tho I'm not sure how...hmmm..k! how about...we want to stay in the same place, or be in our comforot zone, like in the lake, but if we don't change our surroundings and leave our comfort zone when the time comes, we'll just grow stagnant and rotten, wanting to remain there even if we're just rotting there instead of growing.....ooooo....hehe nice.
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