I believe the generally accepted belief is that human life first originated somewhere on the continent now called Africa. However, there is also quite a movement of archaeologists and geologists who argue that human origin – including the Garden of Eden itself -- was in the Armenian highlands. The first country to accept Christianity as its official religion, and still today more than 90% Christian, Armenia is a captivating mix of old world and new ideas. I like to tell myself that this comes from the New Testament Christian tenant:
“So much as we, mothers and fathers, are mature branches on the olive tree of the Lord, standing strong in His orchard, so must we not grow our young upon that tamed and studied tree but rather cultivate them in the wild, beyond the stately rows, so that Christ, the Orchardist, might gather them back to graft them to the tree and keep it whole. For without the wild branch, brought in from the forest and mountainside, the Living Word which is the root, deep and eternal, will eventually quiet, speaking only in silent tongues. Only the untamed branch can renew faith.”
Because, truth be told, I'm less interested in the science of the human body, and more drawn to the soul of the olive tree.
Jiteni, native to Armenia, was brought into Palestine around 4000 BC and taken by the Phoenicians to Greece, perhaps best known for her. It is the Greeks that, of course, were gifted the olive tree by Athena, warrior daughter of Zeus, and namesake for Athens itself. The underside of the olive leaf is gray and when the wind blows, these flashes are considered the gaze of gray-eyed Athena, watching, wisely, over her people. Though a child of Zeus, Athena was unique in that she could openly oppose his plans and question him. Though almost always emotionally controlled, Athena was wild in her own way. She was new tradition born, literally, from the head of the old.
“It came to fall that some branches of the olive tree did wither and others broke away, and thou, the wild olive branch, cometh now to be grafted to the tree and partake from the root of the Lord...” (Romans 11:17)
The olive tree has Biblically been used as a symbol of the covenants and promises to Israel with Christians being the wild grafted branches among the natural ones, all of us fed from the same divine tap root. Times change. Time passes. New ideas – like the ideas laid at our feet... or rather, pushed into our hands, by Christ – come to the tree and are grafted there, adding their genetics and power of belief to the tree as a whole. This is looking at the olive tree on a global sense, of course. On a plain where denomination means something, and authorship (as in the authorship of various scripture) has meaning.
The heart of New Testament Christianity is to return from the universal to the deeply personal. Our “mothers and fathers” are encouraged to allow their children the freedom to explore and discover “outside the stately rows of the orchard of tradition.” Change is recognized as something previous generations cannot recognize but can embrace and accept through the children of the following generation. Change is grafted to the tree of the community, the family, the self.
Our children are encouraged to laugh loudly, to play in the rain, to be everything but stayed. Our youth, when they feel desire, are said to be “wilding,” and this word may as well be interchangeable with “praying.” Have opinions. Disagree. Articulate. Dance. Turn up the volume on your stereo... especially on Sundays. I don't know anyone raised New Testament Christian who has “left the fold.”
Because how can you leave what you carry within you? There are no trappings. There are no implements. There is nothing but you and Christ. So turn up the music and bring that bassline back to the tree.
“...a tame olive-tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to decay. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive-tree began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and perish not. And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to his word. And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main atop thereof began to perish. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck the branches from a wild olive-tree, and bring them hither unto me; and we will pluck off those main branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire that they may be burned.” (Jacob 5:3 (3-7))
These olive tree allegories are just unending. The appear in almost every Christ-centric religion and yet very infrequently are they allowed to be more than parables of denomination and Israel. I remember my grandmother – who looked like my mother only silver-haired and even sharper – arguing with my mother, their accents coming out stronger and stronger until finally they lapsed into Armenian with a fluidity that left me out of the conversation:
Rae'sol: Where is the *risk* in Juilliard, Pahmela? Where is Christ in the performing arts?
Pahmela: You want her, perhaps, to mission in Iraq? Or take the Word to Beijing?
Rae'sol: I want her to attend Goddard. I want her to paint.
Pahmela: Because brushes are divine, dangerous...?
Rae'sol: Yes. Yes, they are. Brushes and pens.
My grandmother and my mother had very little in common in terms of their personalities, though they looked very much alike. But one thing they shared identically was their blazing gazes when they were impassioned... which was most of the time. Yes, my mother's always seemed to have an untempered edge... and grandmother always seemed to have unspoken secrets... but the fire was the same. The fire said:
Burn the branches from the tree. Their ashes will feed the new grafts. The tree first. The tree forever. It is eternity. It is salvation. It must be kept alive. It must be kept whispering the Living Word. Do you hear it? If not, then it is time to prune and graft.
As in nature, so in our bodies. As in nature, as across the universe, so in our souls. Mathematics do not lie. Fractal repetition is a given not a theory. Nature does not lie. If it exists in nature, it exists in man by the hand of Christ. His design is divine. All other is interruption. Abstract art.
“The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.” (Judges 9:8)
Reign thou, Christ, over us as thou reigns over the wind and tides and dawn and dusk. Reign over us as our sun and moon, as our lover and friend, as our father, brother, and Orchardist with hands both gentle and skilled, to graft and prune, to renew and end. My trust is in you.
“I am like a green olive tree in the house of the Lord: I trust in the mercy of Him forever and ever.” (Psalms 52:8)
Be like the young olive tree. Wild and renewed outside the stately rows. Do not mirror the studied trees that grow already for our Lord. Be unto Him a celebration of change. Laughing loudly in His sunlight. Wilding together under His moon. Hear the Living Word. It does not always have to whisper.
Sometimes it sings.
Sometimes it proclaims.
Sometimes it shouts.
EJ
