AN ENCHANTED
FOREST
I
Chronicles 16:29-34
Colossians
1:15-19
Then
shall the trees of the forest sing for joy.
Less than an hour's drive from Volmoed,
hidden behind the hills above Stanford and Gansbaai, lies a beautiful
valley. And in that valley is an
enchanted forest of indigenous trees named Platbos. It should not really be there. The rainfall is too sparse to support a
forest which numbers amongst its trees a milkwood reputed to be a thousand years old. On the surrounding hills fynbos flourishes,
and invasive aliens struggle for control.
But in this enchanted forest above a sand dune with neither a river or
spring to sustain it, indigenous trees grow and flourish. Botanists say it is all an unfathomable
mystery. But there it is! And Isobel and I have only just discovered it
through the kindness of Mike and Moi who took us there the week before last.
I will not dazzle you with the botanical
names of the trees in the forest, but let me mention their popular ones and how they are described by those who lovingly manage
Platbos and extract their essences. The
milkwood is the tree of wholeness; the white pear, the tree of joy; the rock
alder, the tree of bliss; the bladder
nut, the tree of self-knowledge; the wild peach, the tree of courage; the hard
pear, the tree of forgiveness; the spike thorn, the tree of loving kindness;
the saffron wood, the tree of tears; the sea guarrie, the tree of inspiration;
the wild olive, the tree of faith; the pock ironwood, the tree of intuition;
the cherry wood, the tree of serenity; and the white stinkwood, the tree of light.
Their names let alone their smells conjure up a world of mystery and
enchantment.
Forests are the stuff of fairy tales and
legends. In olden times, they were the
boundaries between villages, and most villagers seldom ventured alone into
their foreboding darkness. They were
places where danger lurks, strange
things happen, monsters hide, aliens dwell and big bad wolves eat straying boys
and girls. It was not impossible, as
C.S. Lewis once said, that an ogre might live less than an hour away! But Platbos, less than an hour from Volmoed,
is not a place to fear, it is a place to be renewed, to regain a sense of
proportion, a place to discover oneself and share with others your deepest
thoughts. You can walk through its
shaded paths, sit under its trees, marvel at its shapes and forms, and
sometimes on a moonlit night you might even see a shy leopard seeking its prey
or a striped genet clinging to the branches of a stinkwood tree. But it is also a metaphor for another
dimension to life, the world of soul and spirit that is threatened by the often
barren environment created by science and technology, and controlled by
machines.
I am not decrying science or its passion to
find an answer to every question, solve every problem, uncover everything long
hidden, or explore new territory. After
all, to be human is too seek answers to questions that baffle, and find
solutions to that which threatens life. Nor am I decrying machines, after all, I love
my Isuzu bakkie, the Festool mitre saw in my workshop, the computer on my desk,
and we all applaud advances in medical technology. We are the grateful beneficiaries of the
achievements of science and technology. We could not have easily got to Platbos
without Mike's 4x4! So it is necessary
to find a creative balance. Machines,
forests, animals and humans can live in harmony to our mutual benefit. But science can be destructive as well as life
enhancing, and machines that improve the quality of life and facilitate work also
pollute the air we breathe, greedily devour ancient forests, and build soulless
cities of concrete and steel where cars rule.
It is true that the Old Testament prophets sometimes
identified enchanted forests or sacred groves with idolatry, superstition and
sorcery, yet they and the psalmists also
used nature and forests as metaphors for the renewal of life, anticipating the
day when the trees of the forest would once again clap their hands in joy and sing
praises to God. Think about our OT
reading today. After
placing the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle or tent of meeting, King
David sang a hymn of thanksgiving. When
we truly worship God in his holy splendour, he declared, the heavens are glad and the earth rejoices,
the sea roars, the fields exult, and " the trees of the forest sing for
joy." That is why, as St. Paul puts
it, the whole creation groans in expectation of a humanity that has come to its
senses and begun to care for it with renewed love and energy.
We are fortunate to be living in an age
today when people across the globe are seeking to reclaim the enchanted forests
that are so necessary for life in its fullness, protesting against the greed
that destroys the trees that renew the very
air we breathe. For we have come to see
that if you rid the world of its enchanted forests and all that they symbolize
as well, you rid it of the essences of life. So it is not surprising that there has been
something of a hankering for places of enchantment to which we can retreat, a
desire to escape into the forests in search of solitude and the renewing of
soul. Or, as the young couple I married
last Saturday decided, the desire to marry in the vineyards beneath the towering
Klein Swartberge outside Ladismith in the Klein Karoo. Is
this not why Tolkien's Lord of the Rings,
C.S. Lewis' fantasies and J.K. Rawlings
tales have captured the imagination of so many?
And is this not why there are encouraging projects in our often barren
townships to plant trees and make gardens?
And is not the reason for this a thirst for life in its fullness, a
rediscovery of soul and spiritual well-being, even if only vaguely acknowledged?
The desire for and attraction of enchanted
forests is not just naive romanticism; it is the recognition that we need places and spaces like Platbos and Volmoed
because we are more than meat, and desperately need to recover and renew our
souls. For the enchanted forest is about
more than forests and trees; it is a
metaphor for the spiritual
dimension of life, the realm of soul, the mystery of being human, and being encountered by the ultimate
mystery we name God. So it is not
surprising that a walk in an enchanted forest or garden, a wedding beneath towering
mountains, a stroll along the coastal path or to the waterfall on Volmoed can lead us deeper into the mystery of God
revealed in Christ. For "in him all
things in heaven and earth were created," through him "all things
have been created," and "in him all things hold together."
There is an intriguing
verse in the Gospel of Thomas, the most important of the apocryphal gospels
from the first centuries of Christianity.
It is a saying of Jesus: "Raise the stone, and there
you will find me; cleave the wood, and there I am." (77) It was probably excluded from the New
Testament because it seemed to support the idea that everything is God, what we
call pantheism. But another reading
could be that while everything cannot be identified with God, the Spirit of God
is the energy that pervades and gives life to the whole of creation. So if you are looking for Jesus the Christ
you might well find him not only in the church or in Scripture but also in nature. In celebrating this Eucharist we give thanks for and with the whole of
creation for the Christ in and through whom everything holds together. For us the whole earth is the Lord's and
everything in it is a sacrament of his beauty and love. No wonder the trees of the forest clap their
hands and sing for joy.
John de Gruchy
Volmoed
20th February 2014
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