Jesus answered,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he
cannot enter the Kingdom of God…Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be
born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know from where it comes or to where it goes; so it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
- John. 3:5,7
Then turning to His disciples He said privately, “Blessed
are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and
kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you
hear, and did not hear it.”
-Luke. 10:23-24
The tree house is way up on a hill in the woods behind my
family’s home. Built high up the trunk of an old and mighty oak over twenty
years ago, the tree house though unfinished still stands tall and proud today.
Its open view of the fields and meadow beyond the edge of the forest below remains
as majestic and magnificent as ever.
To get to the tree house my sons and I built a switchback
trail up the hill. Tim was in the fourth grade at the time. Pat was in 7th.
The tree house is not at all that far into the woods, requiring perhaps a
little more than a hundred steps to reach it. It is a climb that even now in my
twilight years I can handle, and more than my family knows I will often climb
the path to that awesome house in the tree. I do so because the house is holy
site to me. It is a place where the Lord taught me ever so clearly and
powerfully what a blessed man I am – blessed with the wealth that only God can
give.
I remember so well the night of Grace when I received
that teaching. It happened sixteen years ago. Tim was nine by then. Pat was 12.
It was July 31st, the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It was a most
beautiful summer night. The moon was full, and there wasn’t a cloud in the
starlit sky. There was a soft and cool summer breeze blowing steadily through
the trees in the forest. The wind was moist and refreshing, coming from the
south and east, therefore blowing inland with ocean air from the Atlantic only
an hour away.
It was later in the evening, around 10:00 PM, when
through open windows I could hear the sound of the summer winds blowing through
the leaves of the forest trees. The sound was tantalizing, alluring, exciting, even
enchanting. I went out to our back deck where I could clearly look up the hill
into the forest, directly toward the house in the midst of the trees moving in
the winds.
It was then that I first noticed the awesome sight that
added to the refreshing breeze rustling through the leaves. As the leaves
swayed in the wind they literally sparkled in the moonlight. The forest seemed
alive with bright little specks of spraying light – reflected moonlight that shined
off the leaves, as with sounds like excited children, they seemed to sway and
swing in the summer winds.
I got a flashlight and headed out into the forest. I had
to go up to the house in the trees. As I climbed I turned off the flashlight.
The forest was so full of scintillating moonlight filtering down from the
leaves that I did not need any light of my own.
I prayed as I walked. The presence of God was so
palpable. His Spirit and Love seemed to permeate the woods and the wind. I felt
no fear in the darkness. The Lord was with me.
I reached the tree house. Climbing the ladder, I lifted
myself from the forest floor into the tree above. Soon I was sitting in the
unfinished home high up the oak tree; and like that tree and all the trees
around I was swaying in the currents of the wind.
I sat in the solitary chair we had in the house. It was
the only one we had taken the time to carry up there from our home below. It
was a sturdy chair and comfortable – easy to rock in it too. It was also high
enough that I could look out the wide openings in the wall frames, openings for
spacious windows that would give awesome views toward scenery on every side.
As the tree house was unfinished, with only the side
frames up and no completed walls or roof sections, so the breezes blowing
through the trees also moved easily through the house. Their speed as they
brushed by me was unimpeded, and their refreshing coolness unabated in any way.
I sat there and prayed in what seemed to be a mystical
setting. I prayed my own original version of the Jesus prayer: “Jesus and Mary,
I love you…” Over and over one says those words with deep and calming breathes
– the names of “Jesus and Mary” invoked while in haling; “I love you…” on the
exhale. Even as the Bible tells us, to invoke the Divine Name of Jesus is to
summon His Presence. And already on this night I could say with the Apostle
John, that I was experiencing His Risen Life present in power to my own life –
“the Word of Life…which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon and touched with our hands, was made manifest” to me. His
Love was so alive in the winds, in the scintillating moonlight radiating off
leaves swaying in the summer breeze, His Life so completely permeating His
creation with nothing less than Real Presence.
While I prayed I looked out beyond the forest from high
in my perch toward the open meadow behind our home. At times I would gaze at
the full moon, and the silver glow moving out from its center and filling the
night sky. And with every breeze I gazed at the leaves moving in the wind,
sparkling with reflected moonlight. At all times I felt God’s Presence, as if
all creation this night was breathing with the Spirit of His Love.
Now there was a rustling heard down below, a movement
through the leaves on the path leading up the hill to the house in the trees.
It was Tim, my nine year old fourth grader. Though after 11:00 PM, he was
moving up the hill in the dark without a flashlight. Did he know that Dad was
in the tree house? I think he did. But still he called up to me, “Dad, you up
there?” and I assured him that I was.
Tim climbed up the ladder and entered the tree house frame.
Then he laid down on the treated deck wood floor right beside me to my left.
With arms arched back behind his head, he gazed up at the moon through the
trees.
We didn’t talk much. It was enough for him to be there
with his Dad. It was enough for me too just to share the beauty and power of
this night with my son – above all though to share the sense of the Spirit of
God so alive in the light and wind. In fact, once Tim came I understand that
something very important had been missing from the power of this night – the chance
to share the Love and Joy which was anointing me. Is it ever enough for us to
have Jesus only for ourselves? Or in the encounter of His Love, are we not
driven irresistibly to share Him with others? I think of the excitement of the
Apostles who upon meeting Jesus, rushed to share Him with friends and family.
Now there was another sound of rumbling from down below,
moving ever closer and closer up the path to the house in the trees. It was
Patrick, my twelve year old seventh grader. Without a word he came all the way
up the path in the dark, and joined Tim and I in our perch high up in the huge old
oak.
Following Tim’s lead, he also laid down to my right on
the floor boards beside me. Then he too focused on the trees branches above,
moving in rhythm with the breezes of summer. In silence now all three of us
watched with awe as the leaves sparkled with reflected moonlight, as they swayed
and vibrated in the currents of the wind.
So there we were. Now past midnight, then past 1:00 AM…
We were drawn into the enchantment of a night forest all aglow with
scintillating moonlight, so alive with wind, Spirit, Presence. Hours went by
like minutes. Like Peter before the transfigured Christ, we wanted to stay
before this feast of Joy, Love, Peace; Spirit, Power, Freedom. Like Peter, we did
not want to come down from our little mountain. We did not want this moment in
time to end.
After 2:00 AM my sons and I left the house in the trees
and climbed back down the hill to our home below. His Joy was in us and our Joy
was full – the Joy and Peace of the Love only God can give. That Love had
touched us and filled us in a most extraordinary way this night. Yet for myself,
there was more than that. I realized that a blinding Light of illumination had
come over me this night, anointed me if you will. I was coming down from my own
Mount of the Transfiguration with a new knowledge, a new wisdom. From this
night on I knew for certain the Grace, Gift and Blessing which the Lord bestows
upon the believer. I now had eyes to see what many prophets and kings wanted to
see but could not. Really, I was made to know by the Spirit this night the
magnitude of the wealth which filled my life, wealth which money can’t buy and
only God can give.
The wealth only God can give… There on the hill, in the
house in the trees I had felt it, and not only in the Glory of His Love which
filled the forest and which fills all of creation. I had felt it most of all in
the love of my son to my left, in the love of my son to my right. I had felt
that wealth at the thought of my wife’s love and the whole of my family’s love,
my family safe, secure, asleep in our home below – and all of this love
enhanced and energized by His Love Present in power to our love as well. Thus,
I had felt the wealth of God most of all in the Church present to me.
Up there high on the hill, in a house high up the old oak
tree, I had felt a true foreshadowing of the communion of Saints sharing in the
Triune Life of God. I had seen a glimpse, looked upon and touched something of
the breadth, the length, the height and depth of that Love known only to those
filled with all the fullness of God - known only to those filled with a Love
which reaches out from a Sacred Heart pierced and broken for us, and a Love
which then draws us to Himself.
