As I remember it....it was Arbor Day....and our town was offering dogwoods at a discount....and they would even plant them. So we took them up on the offer. I'm in no way a gardner as I'm only experimenting now with flowers....so I have no idea....maybe they planted the tree too deep.....whatever the reason....it never took....and has only four or five branches that bloom....on one side.....and the rest are dead.
If it was healthy....it would right now have pretty pink blooms all over it....and I would probably glance at it every other day or so.....admiring it in passing. The way it is....it only has flowers on those four or five branches on the front of the tree. So every other day or so....just as this morning....I don't just glance at in in passing....but I stop and just look at it for four or five minutes....focusing on the dozen or so flowers....and oddly.....I can't explain this....taking more joy in those few blooms.....than I would giving a passing glance at a fully-bloomed healthy tree?
I think that most anyone else would have cut this tree down by now....but instead I think about going to a local retail sign store....and having a small sign made up....maybe 6" or 8" square....on a stake only a few inches above the ground...."My Charlie Brown Tree."
Now the branches are strong....and for the last few winters I string white Christmas lights around the tree....and it looks beautiful......no one passing by having any idea that most of the branches are dead.
We have in our culture....lost the concept of beauty. A gated community with perfectly manicured lawns seems to be our ideal. It doesn't matter at all what the heart is of the people within the gated community....or the suburb. In fact in our last election for president....our candidate....the evangelical candidate....promised at his rallies that he would keep low-income projects away from our communities.....and we would cheer....evangelicals would....cheer!
We also seem to put too much attention on....for example....the student.with a 4.0 GPA....heading off to Penn State or Princeton....which may indeed be wonderful....but you know what is even more wonderful....the small black girl....with her hair braided perfectly....and a heavy backpack slung over her shoulders....walking past rowhouses on her way to a school that is not a smaller mirror-image of a college.
Drudge has up as I type....a business article on the wealthiest cities in the world. New York City leads with 340,000 millionaires....and 724 with wealth exceeding $100 million. Most of our cities are in deep trouble in many ways....and here the gated community is replaced by the secure high-rise. All of us....in the suburbs or the city....gather at the sports stadiums and arenas....if we can afford the cost....or the playhouse....or the rural pavilion or amphitheater.
The mega-church says a lot about our society....but what it says most is that....just as with the sports arena or the playhouse or the concert pavilion....the only beauty is in the size....or the amount of flowers....or the celebrity....or the escape from a life that no longer has meaning beyond entertainment and/or retirement.
Our financial community....the entirety of it....the trillions of dollars won or lost in a single day....and the shaping of our our lives around it....telling us the only way to be happy....whether it starts with a Michael Jordan shoe or a Lexus....is either Babylon....or a main part of Babylon....and according to God's Word given to us....it will be coming down.
The beauty of God's creation may be evident in the mountains or the seashore or the....'starry starry night'....but it is also evident in a child's smile....or a farmer....his hands callused and his skin sunburned....those callused hands folded in prayer before his meal....or a rowhouse with a single potted plant on the doorstep....as a family....as dressed up as they can be....head to church....or that small church....filled with people who consider that worship service to be the highlight of their week.
The beauty of Christ transcends the beauty of the entire creation. In fact there is no beauty apart from the creator. The precious Ming vase or diamond necklace pales compared to the preciousness of Christ.
I have hanging on the wall only feet from where I type....an original sheet of paper....its blue and purple ink having faded somewhat since Charles Spurgeon put ink to paper on March 30, 1890....on it a sermon draft of sorts....where he wrote and spoke the following of Christ....
"He is the essence, the substance, the sum of all preciousness....Many things are more or less precious, but the Lord Jesus is preciousness itself, outsoaring all degrees of comparison. How do Believers show that Christ is thus precious to them? They do so by trusting everything to Him. Every Believer places his hope solely upon the work of Jesus....The Lord Jesus is the case into which we have put all our treasures and we prize Him accordingly...All our affection flows toward Him as all our hope flows from Him..."
The title verse is 1 Peter 2:7
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