Through The Improbable System

The first house that my husband and I owned was a century old farmhouse. Right in the city, it had to have been the first house built there, now surrounded by quaint little houses.

It had pocket doors, original hardwood floors, a cool attic, and one of a kind character. Huge one hundred year old trees surrounded the property. Several of them were sycamore trees which provided some great shade, but they were messy and GINORMOUS. They shed bark all year round which gave us plenty of chores to divvy out to the kids. I read once that the enormous size of a mature sycamore tree makes it impractical for the average home landscape, but they are great in open parks and along riverbanks.

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Clearly the house didn’t have air conditioning when it was new, and there were few other houses around, so it makes some sense as to why they planted these trees for the shade they provide. We used to call one of them “The Lord of the Rings Tree” because it had these huge arms and looked like it may just come alive and start walking around. Another tree in our front yard began creaking at the base of the trunk, so to avoid it completely cracking in half and landing on either our house or another house, we had it cut down.

Our farmhouse also had a typical unfinished rustic, and a little bit scary basement. My husband jokingly would call it the “Silence of the Lambs” basement. It could easily be turned into a torture chamber - so we exorcised it and anointed it with oil as we prayed out any danger. Kidding…no,not kidding. I did this.

I would unethusiastically mosey/tiptoe downstairs to do my laundry and that’s about it for the basement. Not a retreat or a cozy place to settle in for a movie, just a cold dark basement with cobwebs that at times triggered a flight response in me.

One afternoon I noticed a pooling of water in the drain in our concrete basement floor next to our washing machine . Over several days the water level increased and we decided to have a plumber come look at it. We found out that the monstrous trees surrounding our house had created an intricate and complex abundance of root systems that burrowed their way through the galvanized steel pipes that plumbed our house.

The plumber was able to dig down deep into the pipes and pull up a bundle of the roots to show us. I remember thinking how ambitious it was for those roots to burrow their way right in. Through the improbable system. Right into the darkest, hardest, unlikely space.

These big old trees needed a river.

The seeds where this all started were once dead and buried under the ground. In the hidden, dark, deep ground. They possessed no form of distinction or resembled what they would become. Yet something glorious is about to manifest. No river yet. Just simple singular promises of God in drops of rain. Water awakens and softens the hard exterior. A tiny root breaks out to grab hold of the soil. Then, a baby stem makes its way north. The root moving deeper to sustain the upward journey.

This great resurrection. Supernatural. The dead come to life.

Its form starts to take shape. Its identifiably a tree. It will quickly grow and begin providing shade and wood for construct. It can even provide a place to sit in waiting. A man may even “climb up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see”. This tree, a medley of divine destinations that was once just a thought in the mind of our creator, now brought into being, alive with purpose.

As it grows, so does the mandate to sustain its mission. It’s anchor must be cultivated. It’s root system must increase and find new layers and levels of grounding. New revelations in the soil and nutrients to bring new life to the growth that continues to pursue. Tilling up tough, pressed down, stubborn, cold and even scary places in order for life to invade them. Even finding their ways into unlikely places like galvanized pipes - and into basements.

Through kids leaving home, an aging body, changing relationships, career shifts, leaving homes and finding new ones, elections, pandemics, distance - these roots must fester and fight, and deep dive for the river.

Galvanized has a double meaning - it also means “to awaken”. Is it any wonder that as we grow deeper roots, through the challenges, our lives are increasingly and astonishingly vitalized.

Zaccheus, once just a thought in the mind of the creator - developed a hard exterior, lifeless and dead in heart. Yet, as the Savior passed his way and looked up at him, locked eyes and said “come down”, something cracked open, a tiny root growing all the way through his past transgressions, hurts, and regrets.

Jesus says to us, as he said to Zaccheus, “come down”, going further and further down into the hard stuff. Trusting that the hand of the arborist is deeper still than the darkest places of our soul…a river awaits and…

We grow.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

“But blessed is the one who trust in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit”