Planting Hamamelis intermedia "Jelena"

I planted a Witch Hazel tree today with the pretty name Jelena. Here's how the  catalog describes this February-March bloomer:

This is a favorite of ours for bringing color to winter gardens. The large ribbon-like petals gleam copper orange, and in autumn, the shrub lights up again as its green leaves turn fiery shades of red and yellow.

Winters can be hard here. One long time resident told me that her family had a large Mother's Day barbecue-picnic where they kept the beer and soda cold in the snow under a tree.  

Digging a suitable hole for any tree is a many-houred task. The old saying about the soil in these parts is: For every piece of dirt there's three rocks. I used a car jack once to dislodge a boulder from the ground.

When the hole is dug and the augmented and de-rocked soil pulled back around the roots, it's time for a short prayer. Bless you, little tree. May you be safe and happy here. May you flourish according to God's design. That's a nice prayer to pray for people as well.

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But I'm also prompted to ask myself and the readers of this post: We all plant ourselves in something. What are you planted in?

A Christian ought to be firmly planted and rooted in the Gospels. Many Christians, including clergy, are more planted in churchman-ship which is not the same as the Gospels. Churchman-ship means being busy about parochial things: church committee meetings, church finances, dogma-fighting bloggers, church connections, inside church information. For the clergy: power, recognition, clerical maneuvering and ladder climbing. 

It would require a tremendous self-awareness and honesty before Christ to acknowledge being rooted in nationalism. Nation before Christ. And it's not just politicians who are nationalists more than they are Christians. People who are plugged into certain TV and radio stations can have a bad case. Militarism often goes hand in hand with nationalism. Scary how many Christians there are who are itching to send young people to war. They distance themselves from the horror of it by the use of the casually tossed off phrase: Boots on the ground.

Or to be rooted in consumerism. Our country is all over the planet and it's not all about wanting everyone to share in our freedoms and form of government. Are wars being fought so we can secure or protect the precious metals needed for us to maintain and advance our computer and media centered life-style?

I mentioned in a sermon once that many Christians know their bank books better than their bibles. One honest fellow stopped me afterwards, nearly in tears, that he had never thought about his life that way before. 

We never have to leave our homes to spend the entire day shopping as the products sold on commercial television seem to be getting more and more ridiculous. Are diseases being invented just so we can buy the remedy? Thomas Merton wrote in the 1960's of the foolish trap even a monastery can fall into being known more for the beer, wine, cheese, jelly and vestments it produces than for the depth-holiness of its monks.

Or I can be planted in resentment, anger, addictions, projecting anxieties. I expect Jelena will flourish - blooming prettily in February-March because she's been carefully and well-planted. But how about it?