Faith blossoms in Shanghai this spring
The yearly blossoming of our city is an aide-memoire that there’s always the possibility for growth and renewal.
Many of you have texted or tweeted pictures of Shanghai in bloom this week. We’re all enjoying looking up. The city is blossoming, but what about trees makes us blush? And why is our romance flourishing so intensely this spring?
Every tree tells a story. We hold trees in our imagination, where they can grow in strange and beautiful ways. Forests are home to fantasies and fears that shelter the spirits and witches of childhood stories. Trees provide rich metaphors to guide us through life as we grow: We turn over new leaves and branch out while ideas blossom or bear fruit. Though our momentum gets sapped, our resolve remains deep-rooted, and sometimes we cannot see the wood for the trees.
Trees inspire, not just through language but through ideas. In 1666, an apple fell from a tree, prompting Issac Newton to study the laws of gravity. Newton’s wasn’t the first or last eureka moment under a sapling. Buddha reached enlightenment while meditating at the foot of the famous bodhi, and in “Learning from Trees,” poet Grace Butcher wrote:
If we could,
like the trees,
practice dying,
do it every year
just as something we do —
like going on vacation
or celebrating birthdays,
it would become
as easy a part of us
as our hair or clothing.
Since words were formed, humans have found the workings of the world under trees and poetic brilliance amongst their branches. But some trees go beyond eloquence or imagination. They hold memories, embody beliefs, and mark the joys and sorrows of life. Trees have witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth and death of great leaders, the bloodshed of war, and the chaos of natural disasters.
Some memories sicken the soul, like those held within a chestnut tree outside the house at 263 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam. There, Anne Frank watched a tree mark the seasons from an attic window before the Gestapo dragged her and her family to a concentration camp. After reading her diary, Anne’s father said: “How could I have known how much it meant for Anne to see a patch of blue sky and how important the chestnut tree was for her.”
Other trees go right to the heart of humanity, like the innocence and loss embodied by the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Sin resulted from eating the tree’s forbidden fruit, which infected the world with the pain we endure now. But if the dark side of human nature originates under a tree, isn’t it possible their shade also offers comfort?
On April 19, 1995, a terrorist attack in Oklahoma City claimed 168 lives. The blast embedded debris in a 35-foot-tall American elm growing in a nearby parking lot. Today, the “survivor tree” is a feature of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, bringing solace to those like Doris Jones, whose 26-year-old pregnant daughter died in the explosion. “It comforts me to look at it,” she said. “Something good survived something so bad.”
Perhaps survival is at the root of our relationship with trees. At the heart of every human is the need to know we’ll be OK. That life — in one way or another — will go on. This basic desire drives people to wed their life’s partner under a tree or spread the ashes of a loved one at the foot of it. For “there” is forever. Amidst roots and soil is life, and above them stands a symbol of endurance.
One year on, I realize that hope doesn’t grow on trees. Faith does.
Trees are nature’s memory stick at a molecular level. Every year they grow a layer containing air that’s transformed into carbon. Trees literally hold the life and residue of whatever field, forest or city they live in. 2022 was the most challenging year in Shanghai’s recent history: Many of us spent days watching the still of the world from our windows. I found small solace in the trees that line my street. They stood tall and sure, a constant, comforting presence in a time that felt anything but. I had put this feeling down to hope. But one year on, I realize that hope doesn’t grow on trees. Faith does.
Hope and faith are powerful emotions we often mix up. But there’s a subtle yet significant difference between the two. Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a specific outcome, while faith is a belief in something without the need for proof. Hope is fleeting. Faith is a constant and unwavering trust in something bigger than ourselves. And in the case of trees, it’s a trust in the cyclical certainty of nature.
We can put our faith in trees because they are a tangible reminder of the enduring power of the natural world. They are a symbol of resilience. When life is messy and unknown, trees offer stability. As everything else falls apart, trees remind us of what we can rely on. We need to continually relearn what the trees already know: Life is a cycle. There will be moments of darkness and difficulty, but periods of light and loveliness. The yearly blossoming of our city is an aide-memoire that there’s always the possibility for growth and renewal. Emotions, experiences, people and places will change as leaves will fall. Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting the past; it means moving forward with it. Trees embody the years they’ve lived, and so too do we. While years leave scars, time brings blossom.
At the end of any long, harsh winter is proof that life goes on. Find strength to look up, and there’s faith in the blooming beautiful.
Reach Emma at emma.leaning@shanghaidaily.com or follow her on Facebook (EmmaLeaning) and Twitter (@LeaningEmma).
