Incredible meditation.

In my Patrology class I often come across spectacular quotations, however one from today's reading was particularly moving. It comes from an anonymous Greek homilist of the third century. Don't be afraid to slow down your reading in order to appreciate the breadth of images being recalled and employed, especially in the last two parapraphs or so:

"This tree is my everlasting salvation. It is my food, a shared banquet.
Its roots and the spread of its branches are my own roots and extension. In its
shade, as in a breeze, I luxuriate and am cared for. Its shade I take for my
resting place; in my flight form oppressive heat it is a source of refreshing
dew for me."

Its blossoms are my own, my utter delight its fruits, saved from the
beginning for my harvest. Food for my hunger and well-spring for my thirst, it
is also a covering for my nakedness, with the spirit of life as its leaves. Far
from me henceforth the fig leaves!

Fearful of God, I find it a place of safety; when unsteady, a source of
stability. In the face of a a struggle I look to it as a prize; in victory, my
trophy. It is the narrow path, the restricted road. It is Jacob's ladder, the
passage of angels, at whose summit the Lord is affixed.

This tree, the plant of immortality, rears from earth to reach as high as
heaven, fixing the Lord between heaven and earth. It is the foundation and
stabilizer of the universe, undergirding the world that we inhabit. It is the
binding force of the world and holds together all the varieties that human life
encompasses.

It is riveted into a unity by the indivisble bonds of the Spirit, so that
its connection with God can never be severed. Brushing heaven with its uttermost
branches, it remains fixed in the earth, and between the two points, its huge
hands completely enfold the stirring of the air. As a single whole it penetrates
all things and all places."

Can you imagine hearing this kind of meditation from the pulpit every Sunday? And not some stupid "When I was a kid I remember christmas morning was sometimes a dissapointment, but I knew that my aunt harriet would always get me what I wanted no matter what" personal antidote drudgery?