Our neighborhood is very walkable — gridlike in its layout. Over the years we have burned up the pavement with our tennis shoes, wagons, scooters, and strollers. We walk to the library. We walk to the cemetery cattycorner to our backyard. We walk to church. We walk to restaurants. We walk to playgrounds. We walk to Wal-Mart.
Toward the end of the month I am moving our time away from the farm and over to my town so we can walk on asphalt instead of lush grass. We will first pick up a lot of trash, as it’s one of the things you notice right away when you pass by all the ditches and little creeks. I’m excited to see how much we collect as we discuss all the signs of spring!
I also hope that we come across something like this:
I don’t know the story behind this, but it brought me a great sense of joy as I passed by it in a neighbor’s yard last night. Getting an opportunity to witness someone’s childhood is no small thing.
In the Baptist church I grew up in, there weren’t too many songs we could make a ruckus with. An occasional holiday song like “Up From the Grave” on Easter or “Go Tell It on the Mountain” at Christmas raised our volume, but otherwise we sang solid hymns each week. Our minister of music was a man of robed choirs and tradition during the years when vapid praise songs were invading the churches in the early to mid 90’s. However, there was one song, based off of Isaiah 55, that I could always count on to get us moving — The Trees of the Fields by Bill and Gloria Gaither. We got to clap our hands because the lyrics implied that you were supposed to mimic the praise of the trees. Generally it was only pulled out on Sunday night church, further implying that it could never make the big time on Sunday morning. As a child, that always saddened me. That song’s odd status led me to believe that joyful, embodied worship in church was an anomaly.
When I sang that song as a child, I always pictured the trees like something out of a Disney cartoon. Lush and vibrant maples rustling their green leaves loudly together. I never thought about the trees being barren and cooperating with the wind like this:
As I walked through the winter woods in eastern North Carolina, I saw the naked trees clapping their hands and wondered if I was seeing Scripture. Could it be that these trees were worshiping the Lord with their creaks, squeaks, and groans, no leaves to muffle their noises’ ascent to heaven? Watching the black birches sway on the side of the mountain was nothing short of mesmerizing. Being a small person engulfed in the middle of a forest of dancing trees took me back to the song:
You shall go out with joy And be led forth with peace The mountains and the hills Will break forth before you There’ll be shouts of joy And all the trees of the field Will clap, will clap their hands
I believe there are shouts of joy even in winter, but it requires a different kind of listening and expectation. The acclamation is not showy, but rather raw with creaky echoes and no wilderness voices to add to the sound. As we await the New Jerusalem, our own creaks, squeaks, and groans are no less important than the smiling praises we might sing in a different season. Both are testifying that the Lord reigns.
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