On Father’s Day Tim and I took a walk down at the end of Duluth’s Park Point by the municipal airport. The dirt trail is lined with tall pine trees, wild roses and plenty of poison ivy. Toward the end of the trail we cut down to the beach of Lake Superior. We wanted to let Scout, our dog run. The beach was empty of people but alive with the waves crashing the shore. Turns out Scout is terrified of waves and barely got wet. As we walked along we saw a beautiful, weathered stump that washed up on the shore.
What do you do with a stump of a tree? Stumps are just stumps. Stumps, a place perhaps to sit and count the rings of the past. You couldn’t sit on this particular stump. But you could take the time to pause and see all it had been through. It seemed fitting on this day as we remembered our fathers long gone from our lives, but still part of us. Tim never met my Dad, but he would have loved my Dad’s easy way with people in spite of his struggles with addiction and cancer.
Stumps are a useful reminders that when it seems that all has been cut back, there can still be beauty and hope. The prophet Isaiah proclaims, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.” Do we dare to imagine new shoots growing as we sit on the stumps of our lives?
I am grateful for the ones in my life who give me hope for growth when so much has changed. I hope you also have seen a shoot sprout not from a rock or a tree, but a something more fragile still. New life in people seeming to have been cut down or cut off from hope.
On Monday afternoon during the bible study at the county jail, one young women fresh from court in Hibbing, declared that the weather in her soul was sunny. She had to sit 60 more days (actually 40) and then she would go to treatment. She had the support of her Dad who had raised her and her boyfriend who was now raising their baby daughter. Her boyfriend had said that if she stayed sober for a year, he would put a ring on it. She joked with the 14 of us in the room, “way to set a boundary boyfriend”. We all laughed as hope took root.
“A shoot shall grow forth from the stump of Jesse”. I’m trying to open my eyes not only to the stumps, but also to see the tender shoots growing. The weathering due to strong storms takes place in all our hearts. Life is so hard at times, but I trust it is never the final word.
We may still want to sit on our stumps for awhile. And as I told the women at the jail, God will sit with us. But God will also keep nudging us saying, Look! Look, see the stump. Isn’t it beautiful? Do you see the sprig of green? May it be so.
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