Tu B’Shvat..15th of Shvat (festival of the different types of trees)
February 3
View from a Cessna 172 (5416E), climbing to 5500 ft.in the warm summer air, beginning a flight from San Antonio Texas to Waco to Dallas… The pilot followed a fast moving line of thunderstorms until he was forced to land at Rusten LA, then the next day the flight continued from Monroe LA back to Jackson, MS…picture taken August 1986
One in God…One in Christ…We are One family.
“And He (Jesus Christ) said, ‘The Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed upon the ground. And then continues sleeping and rising night and day while the seed sprouts and grows and increases—he knows not how. The earth produces [acting] by itself—first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But, when the grain is ripe and permits, immediately he sends forth [the reapers] and puts in the sickle, because the harvest stands ready.”
The Gospel of Mark, chapter 4. Amplified Bible
“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil; and at once they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil.
But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they dried up and withered away.
Other seeds fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them out. Other seeds fell on the good soil, and yielded grain—some a hundred times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some thirty. He who has ears [to hear] let him be listening and let him consider and perceive and comprehend by hearing.” The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, Amplified Bible
A Poem
For Tu B’Shvat
By Andrew W. Harrell
I am Two Human Trees
(that flourish amid
God’s Eternal Life)
One is a human evergreen, proud and lonely
(perhaps a 3266 year old Sequoia which only grows on the
west side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains)
Or a live oak, outreaching and friendly.
as it spreads it branches upward and outward
So it roots may lay deep below a watery, clayey,
mostly firm… but sometimes shaky, rocky earth.
The Sequoia has 33 inches of bark to protect it
from forest fires. They just cause its cones to pop
out seeds that help it propogate itself.
And, in its bark is tannin so it can resist insects and diseases*
He and I can live forever if water from the melting snows don’t
wash its roots away and I accept the faith God gives us**.
Throughout the winter these two trees stand unchanged
with leaves and needles
peaceful, functional, joyful, and human.
I am an ancient Walnut, that bears much food…
hard on the outside, soft and nutritious on the inside…
not every year the harvest falls…
but when it does there is plenty for all.
And then, perhaps we are a maple,
that quickly grows to fill its space…
in symmetry and health,
once it has been planted well,
by a mindful group of us.
Then…under the hot summer sun it will be there to give shade
and help… (like this poem)
offering an invitation for someone walking by, who quiet down their
lives beside it…a little time of pleasant, happy rest.
A warm breeze blows, from through their branches, across our blessed land
and through the sunny clouds
That breathe our heavenly father (Gods’) energy
into its(our) many green oak leaves, pine needles, brown cones, and acorns.
Small warbling, happy birds enjoy the possibilities to nest
That our branches offer.
* information learned on the Sunrise Earth HDTV cable TV series
** Here I mean the faith God the Holy Spirit gives us. Since Our Father in Heaven
and Jesus Christ his Son are both part of the Holy Spirit of God inside of us I don’t believe this conflicts with standard Christian theology. If you reflect on this you will see that taking this point of view of God’s Tree of Life in us means the root of our faith exists hidden inside us. For all this to be true there must be at least three levels of God’s soul and spirit inside and outside of our minds and bodies. What a deep and hidden mystery this is to think about and contemplate for those who want to understand how God’s name dwells in us!
Some Definitions Which Depend on Themselves
Angels—Individual, self-existing beings who do God’s will and are messengers for God to humankind of his goodness and faith in all of us.
Authoritative Sovereignty—Something which exists very infrequently in heaven.
Beauty—Controlled grace.
Being—What do we mean when we say an object of thought has being?
An object of thought may have being without having reality. And, this may or may not depend on the circumstances it finds itself in. The concept of reality (or true being)includes that, in some sense, of embodiment. Faith contains its own substance of the reality of what it hopes for but knowledge based on sense impressions does not. Being can be in the state of possibility (not having reality) or actuality (having reality). A concept has possible being…whether or not the experiences (sense perceptions or the realized truth of intuitive faithful knowledge) required to make it actual realized knowledge are accompanying the concept.
Belief—Faith.
Change—Something which exists very frequently on earth and very infrequently in heaven.
Compassion—Love that participates with us in our lives. It co-creates with us what is good.
Contingent—What does not exist by itself.
Earth—A fundamental realm of the realization of creation where things are as they are in heaven.
God has hidden wisdom and spiritual understanding inside of his heavenly earth in us. Both the beginning and the end of it he has placed as a basis of his truth in us. He placed it as the certain circumstances of a precious cornerstone of truth inside of the way his eternal (the past and the future) present moment dwells in us.
Eternal Life— Light, love, truth, and goodness which is independently existing, non-contingent and non-temporal.
Eternal Light—Wisdom, Spiritual Understanding.
Faith—The light of the one increasing. A mental sustaining power created by God and each of us for our mutual benefit. Faith comes from God, but the base of its location is not in the part of him that is in the World. For faith to exist inside of us, God must first place the seed of its truth deep inside of us. For it to grow we must mentally acknowledge and accept it and know it (or understand it) as something that is good and helpful in us.
Forgiveness—Compassion in the face of what is not good.
Freedom—The state of existing independently and non-contingently and for our mutual well-being.
God the Father—A part of oneself and ourselves which is non-contingent and good. He created the Universe by himself, with his Son, and also with our help. He sustains and nourishes the creation of all things in the Universe.
God the Son— A part of oneself and ourselves that reveals oneself and ourself to us. He is both contingent and non-contingent and he is himself good. He existed in the beginning with the Father and all things were created in him, with his help, and through him and God and us.
God the Holy Spirit—The Lord the giver of life. He (It) is a part of oneself and ourselves that is the expression of God the Father and God the Son in us. He enters the Spirits and Souls of those who call upon him.
God’s Name— That part of God’s being which defines that which God is. It tells us that the three parts of the Trinity are co-existent but different and different but co-existent.
Goodness—What is desirable for its own sake. Love exists for another, but goodness exists because of itself. When goodness in us is guided by the Love in us, then divine order is established in us. Reality both exists for its own sake and also for other’s sake (for it is always an objective truth). Therefore reality is something more than just goodness…it is consciousness, love, good will, action, knowledge existing subjectively as well as objectively.
Grace—Love that gives.
Happiness—Knowledge of goodness. The co-existence in us and among us of peace along with goodness.
Heaven—A primary realm of creation where God exists and lives.
Hope—to desire or seek.
Humankind—The collective living and intelligent image of God which exists in heaven and on earth.
Joy—Spiritual understanding of what its good.
Knowledge—Assured belief: wisdom, spiritual understanding, and truth.
Obedience— Submission of our individual and collective will and purposes to those of God.
Patience—Peaceful dependence on the Eternal Life in God for meaning and Truth in our lives.
Peace—Satisfied stillness along with joy and the expectation of future transcendent quietness and happiness in our lives.
Life—A continuous co-expression with God of one’s being.
Love—A Correspondence between God ourselves and an other that most of the time exists for the sake of another. But, thankfully to God, sometimes it exists for its own sake between two beings that exist for their own sake.
Meaning—Independently existing spiritual understanding
Nothing—How we explain or define what the nothing we are talking is depends on how we are trying to know things. If we are looking at things from a materialistic, scientific viewpoint… then something is experienced as a “nothing” if it has no sense impressions associated with it. But, for a religious person this is not necessarily the case. A practicing Buddhist, for instance, is able to talk meaninfully about experiencing “nothingness” from a standpoint of having real knowledge of it. Understanding and knowing how to experience this “nothingness” in the present moment can be a source of healing, peacefulness, and liberation.
Reality— Reality is not something which as the philosopher George Berkeley has said,does not exist when a tree falls in a distant forest where “no- body” is there to hear it. It is something which exists because there is a “no- body” (God and us) inside of us all. Wherever we are it “is”, and it has the potential to be us, wherever it “is.” When God created the reality in the World and the reality in you and I there was nothingness (spiritual emptiness) inside of nothingness (the wise knowing of this spiritual emptiness). For there was nothingness inside of him (his or her spirit) and nothingness (spirit) inside of you and I. For, then, at that time, in those days, in that place, two or three of us were gathered togethered in his name. And, he created it and us in him and out there and in us.God created the World out of nothingness, but he created you and I out of something (himself or herself).
Spiritual Understanding—Reflection of truth in one’s being.
Strength—A non-mental sustaining power created by God in us and him to help us in our human lives.
Truth—Correspondence between what is and what is. What is may be contingent or non-contingent. The correspondence may be meaningful or not. When a self exists for a real non-self (not an illusory non-self), then it can create its own existence. The self which exists for itself is true (being a true self) only when it can be and has been known by itself and by that which it is not. Thus, in order to speak the truth, we should be ready for and not surprised by being known as we know others.
Wisdom—A patience, obedience (or fear) of the importance of and understanding and respect for the well being of God’s name in us in order that one’s own well-being be benefited.
note: some of the wording and some of the ideas for the definitions of some of these terms came from the book “A Metaphysical Dictionary” by Charles Fillmore
published by our long time prayer friends in the Unity School of Christianity and Unity Press, Unity Village MO 64065