Don't want to be a tree

Trees are such overachievers!

If they don't get everything in constant supply, they chuck a wobbly and just give up and die!

They compete, they strive, they commandeer, they assert, they invade and conquer. They wuss out if they don't achieve any and all of the above and stay runts in the shadows or wither away and die from sheer deprivation of their goals.

I don't want to be a tree!

I don't want to have it all, only to find myself alone among trees and starved of the very things I competed for all my life.

I want to be....


THE RIVER!

I want to flow and meander and fill up and go down according to the whims of circumstance. I want to feed trees but not be gobbled up by them. I want to carve my path toward a certain future and melt into the vast anonymous company of other rivers at the end of that pathway; united and serene in life giving purpose for the benefit of everything and everyone.

I want to feed and not take.

I want to impart beauty and nurture it.

I want to go with the flow of wind and earth not suck at it and compete with the earth for its resources.

I want to GIVE the earth its resource.

I only have one foot in the love of nature. I admire nature but I also fear it. I see its beauty and I feel its power but I cannot feel comfortable engaging with nature for nature's sake. Nature does not provide comfort, it does provide the provisions for comfort however and for that I am grateful even so. Nature is not corrupt but nor is it easy and affable. Nature is hard and fierce, passionate and incredible. It is both prayer and command and it is uniquely reminiscent of Divine Providence for all that is alive.

If I was a part of nature, I would not want to be a tree.

I'm still learning what it means to be a river and just "Go with the flow".