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| 'Jealous Tree', Roberta Fernandez, Mulan, WA. 2005. |
When this painting was given to me by a young woman from Mulan, a community on Gregory Salt Lake in the Great Sandy Desert, the heart shapes intrigued me. I discovered that they are special leaves of a vine that grows alongside clay pans They are called jealous leaves. When the young woman told me the story of the painting she explained:
When you get jealous of someone, you need to go out, find some
of these leaves and eat them, and the bitter taste makes you forget your jealousy
and anger. Then you can go back home quietly.[i]
The leaves indeed do taste bitter, and the process of obtaining
them makes a person reconsider why they were jealous, or for that matter, envious
or angry. The process does the healing, and the eating provides the ritual
context. It is a local representation of the famous parable of Jesus to which
we have just listened.
The parable can be called that of the Lost Son, the Prodigal
Son, the Loving Father or the Unforgiving Brother. Each of these emphasises a
part of the story. The younger son was attracted by the bright lights, by what
was over the fence, by what others had seemingly without strings attached; he
did the unthinkable and sold his ancestral inheritance, (sold the family castle,
if you will) even while his father lived. In Jewish culture of the day, doing
so meant that he wished his father was dead. He departs the scene. The older
brother stews in anger at the younger brother for his treachery, but does not
deal with it and this anger slowly consumes his spirit. The younger brother
finds life is not so wonderful away from family, love and support, but he knows
he has well and truly burnt all his bridges. He has no place to move, and
eventually stoops to the lowest of low and lives with ritually unclean animals.
Only the father has not been ruined by jealousy, anger and envy. We are told that he waited patiently.
That is where the story would stop if the spirit of God was
not present. I like to think that the father walking up and down, looking over
the horizon, waiting for his son. Every now and then, when his feelings become
a bit raw and considering the hurt done to him, I picture him stooping down to
pick up a bunch of jealous leaves. Chewing the leaves, the bitterness reminds
him of the reality of the situation: Yes he has been wronged, but he still has
a son somewhere out there, as well as an angry son at home whom he needs to
help cure. The father is wise beyond belief.
So as the Spirit touches the son to return, the father he
wished dead uses his God-given serenity to welcome and forgive him. Amazing! The
older brother, however, did not accept the spirit, at least not by the end of
the parable. The anger that has consumed all his energy now paralyses him
outside the house.
In our journey through Lent the father leads us on a journey
of life.
Lent is the time to practice eating jealous leaves, the time
to drop our jealousies, envy and anger. Lent is the time to allow God to work
within our lives, whether they are like the seemingly normal life of the elder
brother with hidden unresolved issues, or whether they are younger brother,
whose faults and follies are obvious to all. The fact is that most of us have a
way to go before we can claim to enjoy the serenity of the father. To many of
us it seems impossible in this life, and maybe it is, but the journey of Lent
attests that we don’t need to allow our weaknesses and sin to hold us back. Through
prayer, fasting and giving, with the help of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, healing
is possible and transformative.
Around 450, Pope St Leo the Great urged his flock:
Dear friends, what the Christian should be doing at all times
should be done now with greater care and devotion, so that the Lenten fast
enjoined by the apostles may be fulfilled, not simply by abstinence from food
but above all by the renunciation of sin.[ii]
This week, walk out and find a jealous leaf, chew it and see
where it leads you in your faith journey!
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