[This passage about trees growing above the timberline is from Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart that I found in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," January 25, 2020. To me, it describes a falling-down drunk coming into an anonymous life of spirituality and her glorious day-by-day resurrected life thereafter.]
For, hugging the ground, following the shape of the terrain, were trees that could not grow upright, following the pattern of their kind. Instead, they were growing as vines grow along the ground, and what seemed to be patches of stunted shrubs were rows of branches of growing, developing trees. What must have been the torturous frustration and the stubborn battle that had finally resulted in this strange phenomenon! It is as if the tree had said, “I am destined to reach for the skies and embrace in my arms the wind, the rain, the snow and the sun, singing my song of joy to all the heavens. But this I cannot do. I have taken root beyond the timber line, and yet I do not want to die; I must not die. I shall make a careful survey of my situation and work out a method, a way of life, that will yield growth and development for me despite the contradictions under which I must eke out my days.
Thank you.
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