And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations…
Revelation 22:2
Growth is gradual but great.
With just the faith of a mustard seed…you can do so much!
As you enter the door of our home above the lintel are the words from Revelation 22:2 ‘And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations…’
Since moving to The Moorings I have planted over twenty trees. Most have flourished, but some of the older trees planted before we arrived, have been blown over in storms and we mourned the loss of each one of them. Our beautiful old walnut tree was taken from us in front of my eyes. A tree as large as that, when it does fall, does so as if in slow motion. The roots which are deep and long gradually disconnecting from the ground- as I watched in horror our favourite and only climbing tree gradually uprooting, I asked those with me if we might somehow save it- but apparently not- once the disconnection has started there is no hope for that tree- we simply had to take the swings off it and let it go. We mourned the loss of it, it created a huge hole just outside our studio buildings. What can we fill that with? But then an opportunity to put a beautiful swimming pool there arose out of the gap and now a little swim school come during school term time to use it- and we can also enjoy it- it’s not the same pleasure as the old tree, but has other equally good benefits. It was the start of a new thing which in a real sense has added more than before. My son and one of our students explored the area before it was sealed again and ‘The Moorings Museum’ was also born with pieces of pottery dating back to Roman times now displayed in glass cases in the studio behind. So sometimes removing things can reveal the hidden treasures below.
But in some places I have had to remove trees because their toxic shade doesn’t allow others to flourish and grow, or they’ve been planted in the wrong places- self seeding trees like Ash and sycamore are known as the ‘weeds’ of the tree world, taking over if they’re given a chance to, but preventing the flourishing of other trees.
A beautiful garden needs variety and fruit trees, as well as ornamental ones, it needs to weed out self seeders if they aren’t to totally dominate the landscape. So we remove saplings from unwanted spots and plant more variation which benefits the birds and the beauty of the space.
We have planted cherry, plum, apple, pear and peach trees here and their blossoms and fruits fill the place with good treats for birds and humans alike.
Suffice to say, I love trees, but in order to keep them strong and healthy they need to be pruned in the winter, fed in spring and watered in summer. In the autumn, unless they are evergreens, they shed their leaves, and those leaves become the amazing nutrients for the next generation of trees growing in the garden. The young trees need the leaves from those older trees to be composted down and used around their roots to grow big and strong.
As a community here at home, we have been quietly, gradually, growing, from a couple of students living in the house in 2018, to many more passing through for lunches and events we host, ever since. Now we have more PhD students coming to live with us during term time and speakers and other guests coming and going in between, or sometimes at the same time by the river.
One of our students was keen to give me a gift of our own college scarf colours a couple of years ago, as a birthday present, leaving me the final choice of the combinations of colours and crest. They asked me to choose from a selection of colours last year. This has now developed into a crest and a motto and our first rugby shirts arrive shortly for the team at The Moorings.
The crest started as a tree itself, the bottom of the tree is shaped like an anchor, the anchor which is Christ and his vision of love for the world, and the motto in Latin around the base of the crest when translated reads, ‘and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations…’
This was all done and enabled by students living here who wanted to crystallise their love of this space and place and give me a gift back. It is a wonderful gift to me from those around us here, in which we have all played an active creative part. Even the design has been a group effort with input of many who live here, or on this street and love this place. It sums up who we are and our values. Green for the garden and the everlasting, purple lilac for the king and also the colour of my old college Magdalene and Cambridge blue for the river and the location by the Cam and the university. Finally, gold, for our home with the true King and the golden leaves that fall in autumn to heal the world and nourish the younger trees.
One of our students plans to make ties, cufflinks and blankets for those who love being here or live here and support the vision of this place.
And who is that?
Well, we have students and professors and people from all walks of life coming to stay with us here, students from all different backgrounds, different stages of their journey in faith and life. They all bring and contribute something of themselves when they join us here. We have had Jewish, Lebanese, Polish, Portuguese, Ghanaian, Chinese, Scottish, Irish, English, Russian, German, Australian, Canadian, American and South African - and this is just in this past year staying here and I’m sure I’ve missed our at least couple of nationalities!
Our aim is to seek the truth, to follow Christ and anchor our home in his love for all.
The agape love he shows to us and gives to us to pass on -that cuts across barriers of race, class and backgrounds- that brings healing for all, through the hope of His risen life.
We try to fast when we should fast, we try to feast when we should feast and we work the land, as well as the mind - and practice hospitality when we can, hosting Sunday lunches during term time with students and other guests and fellow travellers on the way too and events and retreats throughout the year.
This isn’t a huge conference centre, or a glamorous location, it is a home. It has more of a shabby chic and homely feel than something polished- like us all- it is a work in progress, not perfect - far from it, but despite that, or perhaps because of it, it is a place where people can come and just be, be themselves.
The garden winds down to the river and the space helps others just pause for a moment. The trees and garden are in fact the healing balm of this home. So it has just gradually become somewhere where people seeking the truth and a living community and a home cooked meal, gravitate to be. Be it on a Sunday or feast day, or just for a cup of tea or coffee. It is a place to find fellowship.
Being based in Cambridge, I have come to realise that in a very real sense, with students working quietly around the garden, in the studio or orangery or in the house, it is what collegiate life used to look like, when the monks originally founded it. It was what Cambridge colleges were originally founded to be and for. The meeting of minds, the breaking of bread and the seeking of truth where it may be found- totally unreservedly through the lens of being followers of Christ.
So our students wanting their own colours and crest and motto is understandable and in the way we do so much here, it is a truly collaborative effort with each colour meaningful to this place.
The real meaning and hidden heart of our garden is a little chapel, which you have to seek to find. Those who wish to, can go and sit and be quiet there, hidden from view.
There is a student led morning prayer held there twice a week, which takes place during term time on Mondays and Fridays at 8:30am. It is a gentle reminder of who we serve, but also a time to offer up our day, our own hopes and dreams and our prayers for others and the world, to God.
Entering into the garden for the first time, the first thing that strikes you are the beautifully mature trees, they stand tall, they speak of ancient ways and hidden paths and ‘rooms’ the garden contains beyond them.
I have come to realise that a garden with just young trees feels new, but also unestablished. A garden with a mixture of old and new trees has a timeless beauty about it. There were others here before us, now presumably dead, who tended and loved this garden long before we lived here and planted trees, a hundred two hundred and even longer ago before us here. And there will, I pray, be others who will continue to love it and plant more trees when they fall, long after we have gone. It reminds us both of our frailty and humanity and also of eternity and our soul, when will enter into another everlasting garden, God willing, after we leave this one.
The Anglican communion, of which I am a part, has those older trees, the deep roots of faith going back to the pilgrims who planted the churches in this land in the thirteenth century. I am passionate about continuing to help those ancient roots flourish and grow, to not allow them to become stuck in the vision of the past, to preserve the vision of a community buildings they built, as a hub for the whole village where hospitality encouraged them in. Like our community here, they were meant for fast days and feast days and everything in between. They were bright and beautiful and airy, they had high ceilings reaching upwards to remind us of heaven- carved pillars at the bases to remind us of earth and a sanctuary at the top to remind us that amidst and beyond the business of life there is and always remains the holy of holies, where worship continues day and night. A sanctuary of prayer and praise.
The life of the parish church was also the parish hall where all the celebrations of life took place- whilst the Victorians separated those out- it’s now our turn to restore them to that inaugural integrated vision of places of worship that are also community spaces for all. It’s time for us to reclaim them for God’s kingdom, for our young and old alike, where saplings and oaks can flourish together. We need all ages in the church to make it flourish and grow, just like we need trees that are young and old to create a beautiful garden.
So imagine my joy this week on entering the Albert hall, at a leadership conference in London. It was 5000 people packed into the Hall. Possibly heaven might taste like that a little bit, everyone there worshipping God and open to the holy spirit. Everyone there hoping to grow and be inspired and fed. Everyone there because they wanted their leadership to be better, their relationships to be better, because they wanted more. Because they knew that their own strength wasn’t the answer to life and to being a good leader after all.
As our host, Nicky Gumbel, began his opening talk of the conference there behind him were the words, ‘…and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations’…
This is the vision we can never lose sight of - we are about healing and wholeness and looking out.
I was struck by the fact that my takeaway point was ‘all the best leaders have a servant heart, so who are you serving?’
At the heart of the gospel is a Messiah who died for our sins, who said “father forgive”, so in his strength and not our own we can forgive others, and whose agape love was shown on his final day on earth, by washing his disciples’ feet.
How we treat others, how we are in our heart and who we serve, are what end up, at the end of day, creating in us a joyful and happy life, or not. Kingdom living turns out to be good for heart, for home and for life after all.
A professor who is an ‘expert’ on analysing data on “happiness” spoke at the conference about this need to teach and serve as we mature, which marks out those who are truly happy to the very end of life, from those who are not.
He talked about the roots beneath the Aspen tree that run for thousands of miles and make it one of the strongest trees in the world, because it isn’t a single large tree after all, braving it on the harsh mountain slopes standing alone, in all weathers, but it turns out to be one giant tree, with thousands of miles of networks of roots- it’s a community, not a lone plant, but a forest.
Aspen and the large root network helps every tree in its network weather the storms of life.
At the end of the day, in our younger years we innovate, in midlife we can grow and foster and teach, and in our later life pass on our wisdom and let go of our control and build up our teams, from the younger minds around us.
This is how we build community, it is how we will be remembered. We grow, by giving away what we have learned over a life time, to others. It’s that simple.
I don’t just mean materially- we can be materially poor- but spiritually rich. In fact, often those who have little materially are able to declutter their hearts and minds much more affectively by focusing on what really matters in life, which is ultimately those people around us, more than anything else because they have less stuff in the first place to worry about- less to think they have ‘control’ over. It is in fact how we inspire and lead and nurture and hand on to others what we have learnt, that creates happy hearts in us.
How we learn to give away well.
My own father and mother gave me the gifts of joy and peace and unconditional love at home and actually a sense of fun and celebration from day one. I had the opportunity to make mistakes and say I was sorry and move on. The chance to speak my mind, which might be different from their own view, and my father would listen to me without judgement and with the willingness to change his mind if he felt I made a good point.
I am honoured to pass on to my children and those passing through our home the love of lively debate, story telling and laughter which I had given to me. Dad always sang- as he worked and did tasks around the house - now without realising it, so do I. So does my daughter and so does my son, it’s not even about having a good voice it’s just a joyful noise! It was God’s gifts to dad that he passed on to me and trickles down to our children. That and his relentless optimism!
My mother, in her own quiet way, had a wonderful ability of listening well and of making you feel welcome and a servant heart.
She was also an amazing peacemaker. When she died I realised that had been her greatest gift to me all along and to the whole family, day in, day out, every day, seeing and sewing seeds of peace, simply not allowing the annoyances of others to get on top of her. A total servant peacemaker’s heart.
And really at the heart of their home was their total surrender to the understanding that God loves each one of us deeply, unconditionally, beyond what we dare to hope and imagine ourselves.
God gave me a voice to sing and to speak and a love of beauty in nature, in art and in all life. So on top of this joy - I felt emanating from my parents and from God- or perhaps because of it- I have developed a love of writing, be it poetry, music, sermons or songs.
The point of tree roots is they develop organically, they grow and spread wherever they are watered and fed.
When I first met James, my husband, we had a picture of sitting back to back, facing out at the world. We both have our gifts and our ministries - he is a masterful communicator and has been given an amazing capacity to learn and assimilate facts and figures and pass on information in an inspiring way to others. In other words, he is a great teacher, and speaker and thinker. He has many more gifts than these, but those who meet him always leave enriched by a fascinating conversation and insight.
Books have always lined every area of our home and in smaller places even on the stairs and in the bathrooms…his gift, this joy of learning, is palpable too as you enter The Moorings.
I love to create a homely atmosphere, books do that, but so do old and new things nestled together- large tables and sofas and outdoor seats for folk to sit and be still on, or join in, a place and space to welcome people in, to remind them they are known and loved by God, to create feasts and fasts that we can all join in together, celebrating life and the joy of simply being here.
We both love inviting in those who feel on the margins here, for home cooked meals and metaphysical conversations- for wine and song and sitting by the river. Or just for a cup of coffee and a dog walk.
When we moved to The Moorings, which is nestled in what used to be a village, but is now part of the city of Cambridge, yet feels like a country garden, I knew this was the ‘Pearl of great price you sell everything for’. We did. We sold everything and moved.
I have been very blessed to have a husband who has supported and allowed me to do that and let it happen. I am so grateful to him for that and the way he has let me continue to grow and expand our vision of hospitality for the students and joined in that expansion himself inviting folk we meet here who need a friendly face, a place to be encouraged and heard, or just some quality time to sit and be by the river. For the way he brings people in from all walks of life for lunch in the garden if it’s sunny, or a cup of something hot if it’s not. The guests come here wanting to seek truth and build up community life, or just sit and chat about anything.
I admire the courage and tenacity of James and those like him who come and visit us here, who care deeply about living a life of love and freedom and hope, that will benefit our children and the next generation’s future and doesn’t just try to come up with quick fix solutions. Homes and anything lasting takes time to build. Growth is slow.
Like trees.
Did we start with the vision of building a purpose driven community in the centre of Cambridge? No! It grew slowly and organically. But roots that are fed and watered, do grow. And so we have gradually grown and continue to flourish and grow and send out our students to plant and flourish and grow too, the hope and love and the joy they have discovered or seeded whilst here, and create their own networks of hope and joy across the globe.
God has a vision and purpose for each of our lives that is much, much bigger than a lone tree on a hillside. We all have the potential to be part of an Aspen root network that stretches for miles and not simply polish our own leaves.
The opening quotation on the first day in that Albert Hall gathering on the big screen above our heads turned out to be, ‘…And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations…’ Revelation 22:2.
So I already had tears in my eyes before Nicky spoke because he couldn’t have possibly known that these words appearing on the screen, were the words I had written above the lintel on our doorway at The Moorings, when we moved in and that those same words had become our own little college motto and that it was what we try- or at least “fail towards”- creating here at The Moorings now too.
But God knew.
It was confirmation to me that what we are doing here is part of God’s bigger vision for our whole life and for the lives we touch, for all those who come to visit us here at The Moorings and all those who will come seeking a joy filled life in the future.
God has a bigger vision for you, for your network, for your whole life as well.
This week when we celebrated the eightieth anniversary of ‘Victory in Europe’ at the war memorial in my village of Bassingbourn it was a chance to reflect and give thanks for so many who gave up their lives, to create a lasting peace in Europe for us all.
We know that visions are not without cost, nor without a fight, nor indeed sometimes like trees, they may involve pruning, or even uprooting, for the sake of the whole, but if the cause is just and love is the end goal, the roots will find a way.
Perhaps ask God how to help you discover your own roots today if you don’t already know and if you do, dare to ask to grow deeper and spread further with the vision and gifts He has given you in your unique life to pass on to those before and beyond you and…
…Be blessed!
Helen