Tip of the Tongue |
| Posted by Mark (mark) on Mar 31 2008 at 8:29 PM |
There was once a wealthy man with many servants. He was also a hard man; meticulous and exacting in all his demands and desires. One night he fell into an unusually deep slumber. In this state he dreamt of a tree in a lush garden. Around this tree were other trees and plants and vines that wound their way around the tree trunks. Then the other trees and plants began to die. One by one they decayed into dust. Even the once proud and noble tree in the middle began to droop. The death was so ferocious that in little time, the original tree was no longer set prominently in a lush garden; instead it lay abandoned in the midst of a desert. As time wore on the tree succumbed to death and faded into dust.
Awaking from the dream the man was greatly agitated. Summoning all his servants at once he relayed the dream and demanded an interpretation. None satisfied and in a rage the man banished them from his presence. Sulking, he refused to eat for days and constantly wailed in prayer for an answer. Heaven’s silence only inflamed his indignation.
“You give me a dream, fraught with death and no answer? Am I to simply await death’s approach and accept this?” He cried toward the ceiling.
His body weary with hunger and anguish, he fell into another deep slumber. Finding himself back in the desert that was once a garden he fell to his knees and wept.
A voice over his shoulder arrested his naked cries, “Why does the dream bother you so much?”
Turning he found an Angel staring at him compassionately. “Because I don’t want to die!” he belted.
“You’re not already dead?” came an incredulous reply.
“What does that mean?”
“You wish to understand the dream?”
“Yes please,” begged the wealthy man.
“Then come with me, I’ll set you in another garden.” The Angel began to breathe on the ground and the dust began swirl around them in a hypnotic dance. Soon the dust was changing hues and forming into shapes; trees and shrubs and even a stream. The garden was reborn and the wealthy man rejoiced. “I leave you to tend this garden.” And before the wealthy man could reply the Angel was gone.
Confused but excited and even intoxicated by the life surrounding him, the man spied a vivacious rose bush. Reaching to pick a rose he pricked his finger on a thorn. A torrent of anger flashed forth in an obscene verbal flood. Turning from the bush he tripped on an exposed root and fell head long into the trunk of the great tree. Enraged and a little woozy, he cursed the tree and its exposed root.
A while later, having nursed his wounds the man became hungry. Spotting a fruit tree he went and picked an apple. But it was more bitter than he’d expected, and he berated the tree for producing bitter fruit. As the sun set he was hungry and uncomfortable, and grumbling about the entire garden. Finding the ground hard and not suitable for sleep, he cursed it again and again throughout the night.
As the sun dawned the next day the man was still grumbling. Arising from his lumpy bed, he was astonished at the sight that greeted him. The plants and tree were blackened, shriveled, and dying. The stream was but a trickle and quickly disappearing. By noon he sat alone in the desert; a wasteland.
Crying out once more in anguish and fear, the man writhed about on the desert floor. The Angel, having mercy on him returned. “What has happened to your garden? I told you to tend it?”
“I don’t know,” cried the man, “I rose this morning to find everything dying. And what kind of garden was it? The fruit was bitter, the ground hard. Even the roses rejected me.”
“Did you ask the tree for a sweeter apple? Did you ask the ground for a soft spot to sleep?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you know that what is in the heart flows out of you. Like a river flowing down a mountain and emerging at the base, so your heart emerges from your life. In this way, life and death are constantly on the tip your tongue, and in the midst of your actions. This garden is your life. These trees and bushes and vines and flowers are people God has planted around you. Drink from God’s river and live. Then tend the garden he’s set you in. Tend the garden!”
With those words ringing is his mind, the man awoke from his Slumber.
