Among the Trees

 In the first garden stood two trees.
One shimmered with the promise of unending life.
The other burned with the fire of knowledge, dazzling and dangerous.
In their shadow we reached, and in our reaching, we fell.
Yet the dream of Eden was not lost.
The tree of life was never cut down.
Its roots still stretch through time, its branches leaning toward us in Christ.
At the holy table its fruit is given once more.
Bread becomes the food of immortality.
Wine becomes the drink of joy.
We taste, and eternity blooms within our fragile bodies.
And the other tree, the tree of our undoing—
even this God has taken into his heart.
On a lonely hill another tree was lifted high.
Once a scaffold of shame, now a throne of mercy.
From its wounded wood flows healing for the nations.

From its dark branches shines a light no darkness can overcome.

So the garden is not behind us, lost to memory.

The garden is before us, breaking through in every Eucharist.
Every chalice is a branch extended, every loaf a fruit of paradise.
To eat and drink here is to step again into Eden,
to stand among the trees,
to know that the wound has been bound,
to trust that the dream of God has never withered.