the birds, the bees, and the Australian flame trees

With the weather being so pleasant lately, I’ve found a good deal of pleasure and relaxation in spending the afternoons lounging in my parents’ back yard with an interesting book in hand. As I read, I am often startled back into my surrounding by the whir of a curious hummingbird hovering inquisitively just a foot away from my head. I watch as it, satisfied that I am neither a threat nor a source of food, flits over to a nearby flower and inserts its beak into the blossom. Delightedly, I observe him move on to another flower, then another and another. How unaware he is of the entirely crucial rôle he is currently serving! He and the other birds and pollinating insects who frequent the garden are unwittingly responsible for the variety and general vitality of the flora therein, but to them it is simply a matter of sustenance. For the flowers, it is a matter of sustenance. For me, too, it’s a matter of sustenance, because I’m reliant on the plants and, indirectly, their pollinators for food. But where do I fit into the circle? Lounging on a deck chair beneath an umbrella, with a glass of ice water in one hand and a novel in the other, I feel like a bit of a freeloader.

I grew up in and lived in the same house my entire life, up until moving away for college. It’s the house where my parents still live today and the house where I’m currently residing as I wait for the next epoch in my life to take hold and whisk me away overseas. There’s a tree in the front yard that my parents planted before I was born—a Brachychiton acerifolius, more popularly known as an Australian flame tree, not very commonly seen in Southern California besides, perhaps, at the San Diego Zoo—with a thick, sturdy, and perfectly perpendicular trunk. Throughout my childhood I recognized that it was an exceptionally nice tree; it looked attractive and never made a big mess. When I was about fifteen years old, my parents were forced to remove the fig tree from our back yard because of its tenaciously expanding and increasingly-threatening roots system. To replace the empty space left in the lawn, they opted to plant a young Brachychiton, noting that the one in the front had served them so well for so many years.

The next spring, however, something happened which none of us could have anticipated: the new flame tree began sprouting a profundity of brilliant purple flowers and the old tree in the front yard, which had never before given any sort of bloom in all the years on our lot, broke out into a perfect profusion of reddish-violet blossoms. Amazing. We had never known or even suspected that this tree held the capacity for such splendor, but there it stood: decked out as magnificently as though it had been practicing this for years. It was cross-pollination with the flame tree in the back yard that finally allowed it to demonstrate the true full capacity of its inborn potential.

Naturally, I’m struck by the allegorical parallel that can be made between the cross-pollinating Australian flame trees and the self-actualization that comes through human communion; about how, so often, we are not free to truly be who we were created to be until another person calls it out in us.

Living at home these last few months has taught me several things about the importance of human relationships. It has also brought to the forefront of my mind several conundrums over the nature of family that remain, as of yet, unresolved. Why did God command his people to honor our father and mother? So that we wouldn’t put our hand on the stove or walk out into the street unattended? Or was there some deeper meaning?

Human relationships. I met with a few of my fellow future AETs for lunch on June 7th and am all the more excited about the amazing times we will have together in Japan over the next year. Laura Hoppe and Jared Christenson are married now, and their wedding was beyond beautiful. Jared Tharp lives in Senegal, but still finds time to chat with friends over the internet. And, as I write this, I’m aware that I need to start getting ready for work at the self-serve frozen yogurt place where I’ve been employed for almost a month. If you come in to visit, I can’t give you free yogurt. But I can feel happy that you are there, and tell you so.