Elizabeth is at Velvet Ashes today . . .

A river runs through my city. And on the main riverfront there’s a tree. Actually, there are many trees along the riverfront, and they’re mostly palm trees. Palm trees grow everywhere in the tropics. And while they are stunningly beautiful, palm trees don’t grow very large.

But there’s a tree on the riverfront that dwarfs all the palm trees. It’s the biggest and greenest tree around, and it’s planted on the banks of the river right where raw sewage is discharged. My city’s waste rushes thick, black, and odorous right into the river where the tourists walk by.

The first time I noticed this, I was struck by the sight. How could two such unlikely things come together like this? An enormous, thriving tree and an ugly, smelly, polluting flow of refuse? I couldn’t stop looking at it. I couldn’t stop gazing and pondering: a tree full of life next to a stream of death.

This riverside tree became, to me, a symbol for Resurrection. For the ability and tendency of God to take garbage, to take death, and to make new life out of it, to make beauty out of it.

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