bonsai and horticulture

Stuart and I went to a bonsai class at the National Arboretum in DC for National Bonsai Day a couple weeks ago.  We weren't planning on this, but it was advertised on our visit to the Arboretum, and so we sort of walked into it.  I was impressed with how much the lessons from the bonsai cultivator who gave the lesson on bonsai mirrored things that are true of our lives with God as the master gardener who cultivates his vineyard (Isa. 5:1ff, 27:2ff; Eze. 19:10ff.; Hosea 10:1ff.), of which Jesus is the best example (John 15:1ff.).  I think we've lost much of the significance of the careful cultivation of growth, fruit, and natural beauty because we simply don't do it anymore.  I have a garden, and I still didn't know much of what he said that I thought was significant for insights for our lives.  So here they are. 

First, I loved what the speaker said about how he picks plants with which to make a bonsai, a specially cultivated and shaped miniature tree:  he looks for the ugliest ones.  He didn't explain why, precisely, at least not that I remember, but it was an encouragement to me as I thought of God molding our lives.  If our speaker can intentionally pick the ugly plants, surely God can use us with the brokenness we bring and can shape us over time into creatures of beauty and fruitfulness.


http://www.asktonythegardener.com/Article/tabid/55/smid/370/ArticleID/75/reftab/36/t/Bonsai-Plant-Art/Default.aspx

Time is another bonsai requirement.  Bonsai, the teacher explained, is a long-term practice, a development of beauty of form and structure that requires patience since every change can require months to "set" and long-term shaping requires years.  Families pass a tree down through generations since it can take that long to form it.  It is a never-ending process, and you can never simply leave the tree alone as a finished work of art.  Instead, as a living piece of art, it is constantly changing and growing and so requires ongoing molding and shaping.  I remember learning in Old Testament class in college that one of the benefits of the Old Testament is seeing the work of God over years and centuries with his chosen people.  Their recurrent failures, few luminous successes, and ongoing gradual transformation through the pages of the books of Law, Prophets, and Writings encourage me that God will be faithful to continue working in my own life and the lives of those around me.

Learning what leads to and inhibits growth was also interesting.  For instance, in the process of shaping the tree to a certain shape, you often cut off much of its foliage growth.  However, it is important to maintain at least the growth at the end of the branch since the branch will die if one cuts off all of its growth.  It makes me wonder what parts of my life I expect to maintain if I do not allow room and cultivation for them to grow and be fruitful - simple things like playing piano, or certain oft-neglected relationships, sometimes even more important things like my spiritual life, etc.  In a busy lifestyle, it is easy to forget the importance of maintaining growth and exposure to light and food for the important but sometimes not-so-urgent parts of my life.

Another growth principle involves encouraging ramification (branch formation) and fuller foliage pads through pruning.  If new growth is pinched off (e.g. removing the new bright green growth in the spring), it will allow the tree to funnel more energy back into its branches and remaining leaves.  For deciduous trees, sometimes defoliation is practiced (removing all the leaves) since reformed leaves are smaller and more numerous after defoliation.  For both evergreens and deciduous trees, new branches are formed, and the remaining foliage pads that have been pinched off grow in more fully. 


http://www.mybonsaibuddy.com/749px-Trident_Maple_bonsai_52,_October_10,_2008.jpg

Pruning is always something that makes me a bit nervous in gardening.  It requires cutting off something that looks like growth (e.g. a leggy stem of my petunias with flowers on the end) and trusting that more and fuller growth (e.g. more flowers closer to the plant and a fuller, more attractive result) will result from the loss.  In the same way in my own life, pruning takes courage.  It involves passing through pain, allowing God to take away something I thought was growth and flowers and trusting that he will cause different and more beautiful growth in its place.  It can mean redirecting energy into remaining branches and leaves when distractions are fewer.  It means trusting the as-yet-unseen.

A final aspect of growth involves growth that can be missed - that of the roots.  The overall picture and part of the beauty of a bonsai tree involves the roots.  They are considered in deciding how to shape the tree, and they grow when the tree seems most dead:  in the winter.  It is encouraging to me to think that the foundational strength of the tree, the ability to stand tall against storms and winds, the deep reaching for water, the stability and, well, rootedness of the tree actually grow when the tree looks dead.  As I look at my own life and the lives of those around me, where could growth be occurring under the surface where things look lifeless?  When we pass through periods of barrenness and cold and lack of fruit, can we trust God to be causing our roots to grow, actually to make us more stable in the very times when we feel least productive and secure?


http://mfs.piccsy.com/t/pall-bonsai-winter-156626-475-545.jpg

Besides organic growth, the bonsai maker/cultivator actually shapes the branches and directs where they will grow.  He does this by first wiring the branches, using flexible coated wire to wrap in spiral fashion the branches nearly from the extremity on one branch to the trunk and back out to the small distant parts of another branch.  Once all the branches are wrapped, he starts to shape them, moving them into the position he wants them from bends in the branches themselves to their overall direction so that foliage pads are placed in pleasing, balanced ways.  It reminds me of how God wants to be Lord of all of my life, shaping and forming and crafting all of it from major branches to smaller parts to be an overall picture of beauty and wholeness.

An interesting part of bonsai's idea of beauty is the idea of dead wood.  Part of the ideal of bonsai beauty is the idea of age, and the bonsai maker will cultivate bends in the branches and an overall downward, weighted-down droop to the branches of even a young bonsai tree to simulate age.  Another way to simulate age is through dead wood on the trunk (shari) and branches (jin) where the bark is literally torn away to leave dead wood and simulate the wearing experience of age in a young tree. 

In other words, the creator of bonsai actually intentionally makes scars to contribute to the beauty of the tree.  I don't think God necessarily wounds us intentionally, although pruning can feel like it; we probably create enough wounds of our own as we pass through life and fall into scrapes and pits we could have avoided if we had listened.  But the idea that the scars can be part of the beauty is intriguing.  Do we lament our wounds instead of offering them to God to be formed into part of the work he is making?  Do we try to cover scars that could be used to nourish others' healing as they see how the scars form part of the beauty in us?  Do we really trust - in pain or in plenty - that God knows what he is doing in us?

http://artofbonsai.org/galleries/images/stemberger/small/stemberger_juniperus_procumbens.jpg

The final insight I gathered about bonsai making is that the artist shows through in the art.  Some bonsai are crafted to look windswept and forlorn, evoking a favorite gnarled tree near the artist's usual hiking trail.  Others are upright and stately, reminiscent of a childhood tree that perhaps housed a swing or treehouse.  No matter the story behind it, the artist's own person shows up in some way in the art.  And that is the goal of God's working in us as well:  that we would reflect his image.  The reason God got so riled up in the Old Testament about idols was that they showed how completely Israel had missed the point:  instead of being the image of God, the reflection of his character and glory to those around them, they were worshipping images of wood and stone.  What further purpose could we want but to reflect back the shining grace, strong justice, and tender mercy of our Father?  As we come to know him, we will grow in love of him, and we will grow more like the One we love.  This is what it means to be a tree "planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither" (Ps. 1:3).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai


Of note, Stuart will have a lot more time to continue learning these and other lessons.  There was a raffle at the end of the bonsai class.  He won the demonstration bonsai.  :)

reflections

written 5/6/12 on the train on the way back from the airport

After 17 hours en route, I arrived back to Lancaster today.  I did my best to say my despedidas (farewells) well as I left.  Before I start a busy month on OB tomorrow, I wanted to try to process some of the rotation today.  

  

Ecuador, at least the parts I experienced, is much better off economically than either the majority of India or Zambia, my two most recent overseas points of comparison.  It shows up in little things, like the fact that having dogs as pets is common (no one can afford to feed a dog regularly where I was in Zambia when their kids come into the hospital with severe malnutrition).  Fashion in Ecuador goes beyond the usual more-dressed-up-than-your-average-American lack of cotton (usual in Latin America in my experience) and tight jeans, reflecting more the fashion mores – the little I know them – of North America and Europe with scarves, boots, and cute handbags.   The life expectancy is high, and I did see some diseases of affluence (e.g. diabetes), even if their management is more difficult (no glucometers, no lancets, etc.)

It makes me wonder if I would be needed there, medically at least.  I respect the doctors who work there, many of whom have given years of their lives to serve far from their culture of origin, families, and same-culture friends.  Their sacrifice to be obedient to God's call on them is not to be ignored or easily dismissed. 

Still, my experience also made me think about the style of missions I want to be part of.  Due in part to the need to be close to the hospital, in part to regulations requiring them to clearly demarcate the HCJB lands, and in part to security concerns, the vast majority of the missionaries from various organizations live together on a fenced in compound behind the hospital with a gate that closes and locks at night.  Most of their kids go to a missionary kid (MK) school where Spanish is taught as a language. 

I’m ambivalent about these things.  When I’m on call at night, I like the security of knowing there’s a locked gate when I walk home at one or two in the morning.  I like the fact that the walk takes me two minutes and not ten (and that would be dangerous for patient care in some situations if I couldn’t get to the hospital quickly enough).  But I don’t like the sectarian feel of living in a separated-off part of town (“Gringolandia,” as the residents called it, and even they didn’t "trespass" there) rather than with the people whom I came to serve.  

Jesus came and tabernacled among us (John 1), walking in our dust, eating our food, suffering our vulnerability in service.  If he is my model, to what extent can and should I avoid the daily complications and risks of life overseas if it lies within my power?  Eating from vendors off the street?  Risking getting a few GI bugs and parasites in order to eat with people in their homes, including vegetables and fruit that weren’t soaked in special cleaning solution?  Risking being a target of robberies or worse if I live among people as someone who is noticeably different?  How would this look with a family?  To what extent could I expose my children – Lord willing – to risks I undertake to serve him and his people?

I’m also ambivalent about the schooling.  Part of me thinks that an MK school right next door to the hospital would be attractive – a quality school where one’s children could attend in their native language without having to be far away (i.e. like the old boarding school model where one’s children were sent off starting at age five and saw their parents in the summers).  But part of me wonders what message it sends the community about my opinion of the quality of their schools, the desire (or lack thereof) for our children to be friends with their children, and the importance of language and culture learning in the nearly effortless, osmotic way that only children can learn them.   

I envision children being such a potential benefit for building relationships and bridges when in a new cultural context and for modeling in a marriage and a family what effects Jesus has on our lives.  What would it mean to do what is best for them and also avoid setting up additional barriers between me and the national people?  This is especially complicated with older children (how different can it be to learn to add and subtract, read and write in another language as long as they use the same letters and numbers? but what if they didn’t?) and when I’m not sure about coming back to the States for the children’s schooling later, meaning they would have to be able to fit back into our educational system and learning in English.

A photo of a painting by famous Ecuadorian painter Guayasamin, who broke expectations by portraying his subjects with the blunter fingers and facial planes of the indigenous people.  Ecuador does still suffer controversy regarding discrimination against its indigenous population.

These questions aside, there are many ways in which working in a place like Hospital Vozandes del Oriente would be much easier and simpler than working in many other places I have been.  Many more lab tests and even imaging studies are available, if not at our hospital then in Quito (e.g. Pap smears, TSH) or in nearby Puyo (e.g. CT scans).  As mentioned in other posts, living and working conditions themselves are relatively easy (e.g. electricity, running water, even hot water, washer/dryer).  I would enjoy working with residents and interns, and I LOVE speaking Spanish regularly.  It certainly is a spiritually open culture where I can speak of God and people generally understand what I’m talking about and are open to hearing it.  But I still don’t know…

Underlying all these questions is the bigger question of calling.  It is not so much a question of a calling overseas itself.  I’ve heard God’s voice on that enough times to trust that he wants me somewhere for some length of time at some point in the future.  But I still don’t know where or in what sort of context, and I’m nearing a point where I may have to make some decisions as I have one year of residency left. 

In general, I do have some personal sense of the importance of serving the poor as part of what it means to be working with God to bear witness to and bring about characteristics of his Kingdom.  But does that mean a certain percentage of my patients should suffer from the diseases of poverty?  Or that I should have to live a certain standard of living to really serve the poor?  Does that mean that most of my patients would die if I weren’t there, or is that simply me wanting to feel necessary and affirmed in my work?  If I were in a situation like Zambia where there is tremendous need and simply not the resources (people- or finance-wise) to meet it, would I still have the time in my schedule and energy in my life to reach out to people’s spiritual needs, or would I be so stretched thin and overworked that all I wanted to do was go home and sleep at the end of the day?  What would that sort of life look like with a family? 

Clearly a lot of prayer and discernment is still needed in my life over the next year(s).  I think a few good books on different styles of missions might be helpful.  I hope to continue talking with both the missionary contacts I have made and with mentors and friends in the States as I walk through this process.  God has been faithful to guide me clearly in each of my major life decisions to date (college, seminary, medical school, residency), and I can choose to trust that he will continue to do so.  In the meantime, I can also look for ways to learn more medically and missiologically, seek to do my best at working cross-culturally in a sensitive fashion with patient encounters that I have, and grow in loving God and allowing his love to overflow in me to others around me so that I can offer the life-transforming power of His grace to the needs that modern medicine 

trip to Quito

My final weekend in Quito was a great time of reconnecting with some of the first group of residents/interns and doing some touristy stuff with them before I left.  I had a wonderful dinner with Marita and her family, Anita and her brother Fernando, and Gaby and her husband and son on Friday night in a beautiful part of the downtown called the Ronda.  It is in a neighborhood of restaurants and shops in the old colonial style buildings with flowerpots everywhere and live music in many of the restaurants, including ours. 

Anita graciously hosted me despite having to work at 5 am on Saturday, and her parents fed me breakfast in the morning (after meeting me for the first time since we had gotten in around 1:30 am after a late dinner the night before.  Then I headed out with Gaby and her husband Luis (and later her son Gabriel and her parents, sister, and grandmother) to La Mitad del Mundo, the traditional (although slightly off) site of the equator in Ecuador. 

I loved the afternoon festivities of group after group of various folk dances from different parts of the country.  They included different brightly colored outfits and everyone seemed to enjoy watching, including the mostly Ecuadorian audience.  I got a little more involved in the enjoyment than I planned when one of the dancers hauled me into the dance at the end when they went around trying to get other people to join them!

 

This dance was from Esmeraldas, a mostly Afro-Ecuadorian province in the north.

 

 

A good reminder of how much dancing is a part of Latin culture for old and young alike.  These little girls and their little boy partners enjoyed the dance and participated just as much as the older dancers!

At lunch afterwards with Gaby's family, I even got to try cuy, or guinea pig, an Ecuadorian specialty. 

After the lovely day, we met up with Anita who had finished work and went to the artisanry market in Quito, where I got some earrings for my sisters.  Then I returned to Anita's house and hung out with her family until it was time for me to go to the airport.  I was blessed and touched by the hospitality of my friends, despite our short acquaintance.  They welcomed me into their families and homes and lives with no self-consciousness and no hint of the effort and time that hosting me cost them.  I am grateful for the grace they showed me.  It was a wonderful ending to my time in Ecuador.