Woods Down

 

The still blue of a new spring day drew me outside for an early morning walk. I was delighted to see the wild primrose blooming beneath the detritus of tangled twigs and branches walloped by the winter winds. Circling back round the stand of trees, I breathed deep as once again I took in the damage left by Storm Arwen last November. As well as cutting our power for nearly a week, it decimated the woods all over Scotland.

As I approached the point where the forest fringes the field, I was surprised by my thought: ‘It’s just like Ukraine.’  Some of the trees, large and small, have been toppled, uprooted totally. The remaining skirt of roots rises in the air, drying out, dying slowly even while providing new habitats for insects and small animals. Some Ukrainians have fled the approaching army, taking with them whatever they could carry. Refugees in foreign lands, they grieve all they have lost, a chunk of themselves dying slowly, while new life sprouts unseen.

Some of the trees were snapped off in the middle of their trunks. Broken and bare, their stumps stud the ground and their roots remain secure. Perhaps they will sprout again, but they will always bear the scars of the massacre. Many Ukrainians who have chosen to remain in their country will be broken physically, mentally, and emotionally. Rough shards of memories of brutalities seen and experienced may one day be softened by new growth, but may never really heal.

Finally, other trees, both sturdy and slender, remain rooted and stand tall, isolated now where once they shared their neighbourhood, communicating through the network of fungi. Some trees support others which were partially uprooted and lean heavily, precariously on them now. Some stand alone. There are, no doubt, some Ukrainians who may look unscathed by the conflict, but their outer strength may shroud an inner brokenness.

I will never pass that wood again without remembering, and praying for, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine whose land is being blasted by a vicious north wind.

When you saw me hungry…thirsty…naked…sick…in prison… and you helped … you cared for me, you demonstrated your love for me, Jesus told those on his right. To those on his left: When you refused to help one of these, you refused to help and honour me.

Woods are damaged globally: in Yemen and Eritrea, Myanmar and China, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan and Venezuela. Change the minds and hearts of those who would hand a one-way ticket to Rwanda to the wounded and traumatised asylum-seekers, Lord, and may this nation be found with hands extended in friendship and peace when you come in glory, I pray.