“I Am the True or Real Vine”
Rootedness could be
a prerequisite for righteousness,
or right relationships.
There is security in feeling grounded.
There is the receptiveness to being nourished,
the osmosis process
of acquiring nutrients, minerals, necessities for life.
The system of interconnection
is neural, animating, ventilating,
vitalizing, and conversational
like the way trees communicate
with one another
through their root fibres,
similar to how dolphins talk to each other
through sonic bleeps.
We can imagine their speech:
“Hey, what’s up beside your trunk and branches?”;
“Yo! Do you have any phosphorus or magnesium to spare?”;
“Say, what’s goin’ down in your neck of the woods?”
So, let us hear this:
“I am the vine. You are the branches.
Abide in me as I abide in you.”
In our system of faith and life,
Jesus is our God-connector,
and … our impetus for one-anothering,
and … our conduit with the rest of creation.
People of other faiths
have their ways of sustaining
the divinity-humanity-creation triangle,
otherwise known as the web of life.
People of no faith are also, nonetheless
included in the web,
(like it or not; believe it, or not; live it, or not).
Such is humanity’s place and part
in the eco-theology of the cosmos.
So, let us do all we can to abide.
Growth and development also matter.
They happen because there are roots.
They happen because
whatever the roots absorb
travels up and into
the rest of being, doing, living.
Most of what the roots take in is healthful;
but, sometimes, it’s toxic.
Toxicity stifles, shuts down growth.
Then, there is no blossoming, no fruitfulness, no positive impact.
Let us pay attention to what we are sucking up.
“I am the true (real) vine,
and God, my Parent, is the vinedresser …
every branch that does bear fruit gets pruned,
that it may bear more fruit.”
There comes a time
when grapes are picked off, crushed,
have the life squeezed out of them,
and then yeasted, fermented
into another life as wine,
or transformed into juice.
So the vine still generates life,
new life, fresh hope, restorative power.
Not even a cross and nails
that make that Vine bleed out
can stop the cup of liberating love that overfloweth.
Somehow, they only strengthen our remaining.