I was planning to write about a few specific plant and tree symbols from a religious viewpoint for this diary, and so I googled “planting metaphors in religion”. I got some specific information on plants I was interested in, some of which I will share below. As is often the case with me, a random click on a link from the search lead me to something that got me to thinking (dangerous, I know!).
Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.
My click took me here...
Religion is the trellis that our experiences of the Divine climb on.
This quote from Tony Jones’ blog on Patheos made me want to have a conversation with this community about all of our varied experiences of the Divine and how we choose to structure it (or not). Tony is approaching it in his blog from a Christian viewpoint, but not all of his readers do. I know that we Brothers and Sisters come to our weekly online meeting from many different perspectives on religion and spirituality. So I want to extend his metaphor even further…
We have experiences of the Divine, and we attempt to communicate our experiences of the Divine to other human beings. We use symbols to do that communication: words, images, bodily postures, etc. This is “culture;” that is, it’s how we cultivate our experiences of the Divine — how we take the messy field of experience and plow it into rows that we can work.
And it turns out that others have done this before us. Many others. They have used words and images and bodily postures to cultivate and organize their experiences of the Divine. And others have seen that and thought, “Hey, my experience of the Divine is like that. Let’s throw in on this together.” And they do. And there you’ve got religion.
Religion is the trellis that our experiences of the Divine climb on. The handholds, if you will, by which we organize our experiences of the numinous.
God is the bulb.
Your experience of the Divine is the vines and fruit.
Religion is the trellis on which those vines and fruit grow, on which they thrive, and on which they reach heights that they could never otherwise reach.
I like this imagery—many different religions could (and do) use it. What do you think? I am really interested in what we think of structure in religion and spirituality. Please leave your prayers, joys, concerns and thoughts below...
Now for some of what I was originally going to write about (I'll do that diary another time!):
Spiritual Symbolism of the Oak Tree:
* The oak is the mightiest of trees and symbolizes strength and courage.
* The ancient Romans thought oak trees attracted lightening and thereby
connected the oak tree to the sky god, Jupiter and his wife, Juno, the goddess
of marriage. Thus, the oak is a symbol of conjugal fidelity and fulfillment.
* The oak tree was regarded by Socrates as an oracle tree. The Druids likewise
ate acorns in preparation for prophesying. In addition, the Druids believed the
leaves of the oak tree had the power to heal and renew strength.
PEACE...
From the comments-- a request for a link to Human Touch, from Bruce Springsteen-- a reminder of the Human Touch of this diary series. I like it! Thanks vzfk3s! Link to Human Touch...