Today is All Saints Day!
Which has me thinking about these icons of Christ as the Tree of Life. Hanging from His branches are images of the saints, or in this case the Apostles:
Hebrews 12 speaks of the saints as “a great cloud of witnesses”, but Christ uses many other images including trees and vines as metaphors of the Kingdom of God. Rather than dwelling on the cloud my mind is drawn to the tree. The tree is a powerful image of the Kingdom because of the ability for branches to be grafted in. That is, healthy branches from a dying tree can be cut off and placed onto a healthy tree.
Jesus himself speaks of his Kingdom as a tree. I see the Kingdom of God as a family tree filled with grafted in brothers and sisters. The most wondrous thing about this tree of the Saints is that it bears fruits of all types.
Like this:
Tree of 40 Fruits, ongoing
by Sam Van Aken
Van Aken grafted 40 different types of fruit tree branches onto one tree. Here is one of his diagram plans:
And here are the fruits:
This image is particularly poignant:
He has grown over 75 of them. They are kinda a hot mess:
Which is why I think the Trees of 40 Fruits are great and pertinent artworks to ponder on this day. We Christ-followers are a motley crew of beggars and thieves, tax collectors and fishermen, sinners made saints.
The fruit comes in all shapes and sizes. Yet all are still connected to the same trunk. The strength of this tree comes from the unity of its trunk. Like all trees, if they do not have a strong trunk and they are not rooted well, they will fall. The beauty and joy comes from the delicious fruit. In his studio orchard, Van Aken circulates warm water through the roots of his trees. This allows the trees to bloom and fruit in every season. There is hardly a month in which there is no fruit available for picking. The diversity of these fruits is the joy and splendor of these artworks. This splendor, found in the uniqueness of the bounty, is what makes a mere fruit tree a work of art.
The 40 different fruits fill me with wonder and draw my mind back toward the visage of a tree Christ used to describe his Kingdom.
Read a story of the life of a saint today. The one I am pondering today is St. Christopher the Dog Headed. Here is a video of Jonathan Pageau telling the story of such a strange Saint:
Love this so much! That icon is beautiful and the trees are amazing!