tree

I sat in church while the little Lady nibbled away on her crackers. I only brought three, broke them in small pieces and by the time they were all gone, the sermon ended. A sermon longer than three crackers is too long.

While she nibbled I scribbled down words with a sparkle; when my spirit leaps, I listen.

“He knows your tree…”

The preacher spoke about a fig tree. And about fig leaves which the ashamed couple used to try and hide their ‘shame’, a shame they did not have before. My mind wandered off to the pretty lush, green fig trees we saw in the south of France – big leaves dangling over old stone walls and deliciously sweet purple figs playing hide-and-seek among the leaves. I remembered that they were sweet because we’ve leaned over and picked some, hoping the owners would not see causing us to feel ashamed. The house did look deserted on the rather overgrown piece of land. Beautiful figs turned dark from all day sun and probably no pesticides.

I always said I would love to have a fig tree in my garden to pick from the tree and make delicious fig jam with my mother’s recipe.

The preacher continued about a small little man, really small, and maybe small in people’s eyes (or his own?) because of his work and habits that many seem to know about. Zaccheus, he was called. He was collecting taxes for the government in the days of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Zac heard this famous man was in the district. Curiosity and smallness had him climb a fig tree, to see. Was it only to see or was it maybe shame having him disappear a bit behind those big green leaves?

Amazingly, this man Jesus chose Zac’s fig tree, stopped and looked up, called him down. No hiding there! How did he know his tree?

Shame has little me climb my beautiful lush green fig tree often, thinking no one would see, no one would notice, but I can still safely look out. Because if those around see me, they might not like what they see because I don’t like what I see and obviously, so does Jesus. (Or so I think.)

But as he knew Zac’s tree, he knows mine and calls me down. The little man had to climb down and his story ended up in the Good Book of Truth because he sat down at the table with Jesus and lived.

Little me must be courageous enough to risk climbing down every time, being seen big as he sees, not imagination-small as I see, eat at his table and live.