Talking Trees

"But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him."
--Habakkuk 2:20

Monday - It is only mid-afternoon and I am already exhausted. I take refuge on my bed and fall into a troubled sleep. Thirty or forty minutes later I wake up knowing something isn't right. Something has disturbed me but what?

It takes me a few minutes to get my bearings and remember where I am. And that is when I hear a sound so strange that everything in me protests its presence...it is the sound of a human voice.

It isn't that people never talk in this place, they just do so with hushed reverence. There are only a few designated places on the grounds where people are free to speak but they are out-of-the way places. The silence here is holy...it makes room for the praises of His creation...it provides sanctuary for searching souls.

Who would dare to break such a thing?

I listen more carefully. Yes, I can clearly distinguish the voice of a man. Still in bed, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. My irritation increases when a second voice joins the first.

It occurs to me that there is nothing charitable or Christian about how I feel in that moment. I don't care. My solitude, THE solitude has been broken. I want it back.

I consider my options: go find someone in charge? Go knock on the door of the offender(s)? Write a note and stick it under their door? I even go so far as to pen the words to the note (all in my head).

In the end, I do none of these things. Instead, I get out of bed and step out onto the veranda. As I take a deep breath the voices begin, again. They are coming from somewhere above my head. The third floor perhaps? But when I trace the sound's path with my eyes, I am looking out over the large expanse of the tree covered front lawn of the Big House.

The sound is coming from the treetops?

And there they are; two men clinging to the tops of different palm trees. Day laborers. With sharp knives/machetes they are chopping down the dead and dying undergrowth at the top of the trees. Every branch they cut loose is sent crashing to the ground. In between their efforts they call back and forth to one another.

I still wish they would stop speaking but my anger evaporates as I watch them work. In fascination, I take a seat in the rocking chair and study their movements. After removing the branches they spend time cutting away the fibrous undergrowth. The evidence of their work piles up on the ground below. When they are finished they scale down the trees with ease and move on to the next.

The newly trimmed palms look healthier, greener, and more beautiful without the weight of their old branches.

I am here so that God can do the same for me.