The Sacred Tree
“The
Christmas tree is not in the Gospel story, but the idea of a sacred tree is
common throughout the world.”
Thomas
Moore (The Soul of Christmas, p.77; Franciscan Media, 2016)
I did
not put up a Christmas tree this year. I gave one of my sons most of the
ornaments we have collected over the years. Instead, I draped white lights on
some metal trees, plugged them in just after Thanksgiving, and have not turned
them off since. I needed light in this season of darkness. I enjoy waking up in
the night and seeing the glow from the living room. It comforts me.
Biblically,
we have had sacred trees since the Eden story (Genesis 3:1-7) about the tree
in the center of the garden upon which grew the fruit of knowledge of good and
evil. Sometimes called the “Cosmic Tree,” it was, according to Thomas Moore,
later associated with the tree of Golgotha on which Jesus was crucified. I
prefer to think of it as a tree of Light, since Eve said that it was “desirable
to make one wise.”
In the Jewish mystical
teachings known as the Kabbalah, there is the Tree of Life which grows down
from heaven, with its tip on earth (Gaia) which is thought to be the Path to
God. The Scandinavians believed that evergreens were the sacred tree of the
god, Balder. The ancient Celts, Druids, decorated their temples with evergreen
boughs. But the modern rendition of the Christmas tree came from Germany. In
the 16th Century, Martin Luther is credited with adding candles to
the tree to make it look like the stars in the night sky.
The tradition
of the evergreen tree only arrived in America in the 1830’s, brought to Pennsylvania
by German immigrants. Because it was considered a pagan symbol (not unlike
Easter eggs) America was the last place to accept the Christmas tree. Unfortunately,
what we have done with it is take away the references to anything sacred; instead,
we made it into a symbol of commercialism.
Perhaps this year, we can
restore the tree of light to the center of our spiritual garden and recognize
its rightful place in the rituals of this season. It is a symbol of Light, of
the return of the sun, of increasing daylight, of the birth of the Child of Light,
and of the promise of the coming spring. It portends renewal; what better symbol
for that than a tree which is forever green. I pray that it is also a symbol of
the return of America to sanity and generosity and grace. May it be so.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment