a tree with strange fruit



crucifixion mural
behind the altar
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port-au-Prince
summer 2009

I've been praying with a hymn today, one written by a friend of our community, Carl Daw. "Were Tadpoles to Fly or Fireflies to Sing" is particularly appropriate for Good Friday.  Using the image of a tree with strange, withered, dying fruit whose bitter pressing turns to a sweet vintage, it tells the marvel and wonder of a love stronger than death. 

I count on that love.  I count on its being stronger than death, than despair, than violence, than heart and life-breaking poverty. It is a love that doesn't settle for helping us to avoid death or for making it less painful, but rather is a love that takes that death and turns it inside-out, turns it into life, overflowing life that can and must be shared. 

Today is Good Friday, and we stand at the foot of the cross with Mary and other women and with John. Unlike them in that moment, we know the end of the story - which is yet another beginning.  But for now, we wait and grieve with them and with all those who are in similar death-dealing places in their lives. 

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This hymn is copyrighted, so I can't print the lyrics here, but I can give you a link to them on the site where you may also contact the publisher for the music and appropriate permissions.  It's worth your visiting this page so that you, too, might pray through these images. 

 http://www.hopepublishing.com/html/main.isx?sitesec=40.2.1.0&hymnID=2819#