Trees

These past few weeks I’ve been getting back to looking at nature and particularly trees. Their structure, detail, shade and line. There is so much that goes into each tree. Like a specific poem. It has that casing we are familiar with but what will it say? What kind of writing will it have? What words will it use to punch the point home…

After my show in the Spring I found myself very tired and sad. I was still
grieving the loss of my Dad and I think the work had been emotional and hard. I decided after the show to take some time off and be with my kids, my husband. It was a good summer. Filled with family, friends and traveling to see some far off places like the Philippines and the East coast of the US. It was good to get away and equally good to get home.

I came back and realized that I didn’t know what to start on. There were
many paintings I never could get to because of time constraint but I felt
the need to wait and listen.

There is a little sign I have in my studio. It simply reads, “What stirs your affections for God?” I love it because it helps me ask myself:

Am I feeling distant?
Alone?
Is the Lord silent?

How long has it been since I delighted in something that reminds me of His goodness?

So I went to the trees. And everything about them seems to be saying, “Look! I’m unique. I have a personality. I am beautiful.”

I can honestly say, “Lord, your creation is beautiful down to the very tip of a leaf! It stirs my affections for you!” I see His personality, His joy, His fire and wit in the elegance of a limb. I worship, not the tree, but the very One who thought of a tree and gave it to the earth, to me, to you in delicate and leafy ways.

Robert MacFarlane writes in Underland, “Living wood, left long enough, behaves as slow-moving liquid.” That’s so true isn’t it? Look at the bottom of a Live Oak. You’ll see it. Now, I go looking for it and when I see it I get a little giddy. There are so many layers to seeing, so much more than what we see at first.

Is the Lord quiet with you right now? That’s ok. Just look with Him. I think He wants to show you something deep.

© 2019 Dawn Waters Baker