Another story from back in the day- In the forest near where I grew up, I got to witness many of the transitions that come with the changing of the seasons. One of which has stayed with me for many years… in the back of my mind. I didn’t even know this until a couple years ago when I witnessed it again.
Mayapples grew up in little colonies throughout my forest. Like little crowds of green umbrellas, they’d grow and open up. Sometimes I’d pretend I was a really small person and climb under them… I still think about that. One day I looked down to notice that one had unknowingly grown up through the hole of a dead leaf, talk about the odds. Every time I came back I revisited it and stared at it in wonder. I’d find it among all the other Mayapples that got to grow freely to their normal glory in height and strength. This one Mayapple looked like an umbrella trying to open but with the belt still tightly fastened around it. Trapped it was in the carcass of something that got to experience its own glory in seasons past.
How? Perhaps it was chance but that wasn’t how I thought of it. As I wondered, I would think of people who suffer from the decisions of others who either have died or at least who are long gone from their life. The lasting effects of a manifestation of the Fall that strangle and force limitations on an unsuspecting victim.
One would think that since I took the plight of this plant a bit personally that I would have done something about it, but I didn’t. That didn’t even enter my mind. I thought that the best thing was to let it break free by its own power. That as it would grow, the bonds of the leaf would naturally fall apart.
Years later, over a decade actually, I found another trapped Mayapple. It may have been because by this time I had gone through many trials that have left their marks, it may have been because by this time I had kids of my own that I want to see grow up to their full potential, or it may have been that I just realized doing stuff on your own power isn’t strength, it’s weakness, I walked up to that Mayapple and stepped into new territory. I ripped apart the leaf bonds and set it free.
It was a plant, a Mayapple whose lifetime doesn’t even make it to the end of the season. But for some reason, freeing that one plant felt like I was freeing myself. Who knows, but acts that resemble the Kingdom, no matter how small, work against and counteract the Fall. You know things matter when it causes you to look at people and life differently. When we step out of our understood paradigm ruled by fear and logic that is dead-locked with fate, and we step out of the boat to realize with Him nothing is as it should be, it is then that power is unleashed. Power to bring freedom, to move mountains, to not be a victim, to overcome not just be protected.
Perhaps you know of a Mayapple that is stuck in a Leaf. Someone in your life who is caught and isn’t strong enough to free themselves. Maybe you are there to help rip the Leaf apart.
-Brian Carter