If you were a sister and you had a sister

and a brother and more of each other,

would you be a family? 

Would you be friends and talk and love and walk

and share time in fellowship? 

Perhaps, you would be apart of the same genes,

but not of the same things

that once were the name things that made you a family. 

So, as the tree grows and the limbs climb,

leaving the dead kind on the pyre side,

burning all connections, and suggestions to remain the same,

does no one continue to carry the flame for the new growth?

Do two dead limbs mean a dead family tree?

Oh, Lord, Please don't let that be.

From limbs, come branches and branches come twigs

and twigs grow into sprouts and outs into possibilities

of life and seeds and leaves

and nuts and berries and flowers

and all. the. hours. of. time. 

Time reaching further up and out,

multiplying into life more abundant with fruit and family.

Each Limb grows thicker, stronger
holding more life and love,

adding to the union of the beginning.
Each beginning and ending is a sister and a brother

and more of each other, making a family.

A tree. A family tree. 

Do not forget the limbs lying low, or the twigs reaching high.

When one branch gets tossed upon another,

or is broken by a wayward wind,

celebrate the amazing time of mending
of sending the flow of god-given perfected sap

through each root up through the trunk,

out through the limbs to bring
hope in healing of togetherness.

Dear sisters and brothers
are we the limbs, branches, sticks,

twigs, buds, fruits, nuts, seeds-
the life of the Family Tree?

Are we, We?

or are we a split rail fence

divided, sawn down, splintered, hacked

and used to divide and hide

the brokenness of the heart of the family's love and forgiveness?

 
I want to be an Orchard,

a beautiful Orchard bearing fruit,

glistening with the morning dew,

glimmering in the rising sun of new beginnings.

Alive with an abundance of the ripeness of lush,

crisp, fields of mighty trees

overflowing with love

and dripping heavy with goodness and giving

of all we have to raising our branches

in the praising of the roots

and  the reasons for our family tree.