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Seen and Heard

“And that's what she said.”

August 13, 2011 climb trees


“You are a man-woman chink.”

I blinked, then reared back to propel the prickliest pine cone at no-nonsense speeds, straight for his head. I beaned the neighborhood bully in the eye and he took off, whining. Coward. I pelted more at his retreating figure and yelled some rap lyrics I had heard on the radio. Triumphant, heart beating fast and hands sticky, I sat back on the branch of the tree in front of our rent-controlled apartment. Here, I was king. Here, providing I didn’t run out of pine cones, I could beat down anything.

Because home didn’t make sense, I would do the only thing that did: run away. My gawky 10 year old self would bust through the screen door and bee-line for this tree. Like a bear, I would thrust my face into the branches, hug the trunk, and shimmy up high. I would perch there for hours until my stomach ate itself. Just sit and watch: cars clanked across the speed bump, high school kids ambled home, the neighbors would sit outside and inhale cigarettes, pack after pack. This conifer world was good, albeit prickly and sticky with resin.

I was looking for a safe hide away, but found something better: perspective, a higher one, a better one. After that, I would climb trees for that. Something tall to rise above the canopy of a confused home– But also to see the world in another way, a way unobstructed by noise or nonsense– I needed that. Something about the way the light filtered through arboral arms and hit the gold edges of a leaf, the topside of a world taller than me. I had fallen and slipped out in dignified thumps, but damn, it was alive up here. Painful, but good.

This past June, I was offered a paid opportunity to go to Japan to document relief work. It was a guerrilla project, completely chaotic-sounding, and I was about to turn it down. But I didn’t. I don’t feel like putting a joke in here, or witticisms. This trip was hard. Writing this post was hard. But the lessons were good.

The extent of the destruction in the Tohoku region of Japan is journalistic fodder: boats tossed onto fields and through the walls of homes. Personal articles are strewn everywhere, in the branches of trees and fences. Metal is twisted and warped in some poetic mess. Some streets by the ocean are completely gone. No houses anymore, just faint outlines of a home that was. Further inland, some buildings look fine and intact. You walk around to where the waves hit and there’s a large bite missing on one side, the entire first floor stuffed with debris, wood, trees, preciously peeking out of windows. It is shocking. And the stories, the testimonies, the faces, the names, the hearts behind the circumstances– when it is told to you, with it all around you– this is what changes you.

To climb a tree is to seek His perspective, a Truth made up of broken flesh, bleeding lives of people I can call my brothers and sisters because they are His. It is to leave yourself in the open, exposed to a bigger picture. You are likely to be shaken, so shaken, but alive inside. I returned, thankful and really damn shaken: adventures half spilling out of my face, tears constipated because I had no idea what the hell was going on inside. Two things were clear. I came back with a deeper respect for Japanese people in these times. I got to glimpse His immense heart for the nation of Japan.

Various people asked if it was worth going. Some loving friends admonished me for putting myself in harm’s way or inconveniencing organizations. To many, climbing trees is redundant, wasteful, foolish– even selfish, some say. In a tree, you can only go so far, then you gotta slide your way back down– sometimes poorer, hungrier, broken. Agreed. I’m humbled and thankful for my experience, I regret the worry I may have caused, but I stand by the decision to go, to climb trees.

We hear this tossed around a lot: walking in Truth, in Spirit and in Truth, He is the way, the Truth, and the life. In an age of post-modernism, relativism, stream-lined propaganda, and half-truths, I desire a Truth that is sanctified, lasting, and righteous. The Bible is His Truth, but I think there are more than just glimpses of it in the brokenness of the world. So when the opportunity arises: What are you willing to give up to see Truth? How far will you go in order to live Truthfully?

He reveals much when you seek the Truth. He hears when you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding. This truth makes us come alive: the ache of a human life beyond your own, the injustices that you’ve never seen before, but also the breadth of His salvation and grace, the depth of His healing. It’s right here, actually. In front of you, me, in tangible life, in God-breathed Word. Seeing life through His eyes is life as it is meant to be seen.

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