(Not) Again!

Dear Friends,

I’m delighted to share the second half of my conversation with the Reverend Canon Professor Trevor Hart, the final episode in my series on metaphor and my book You are a Tree. In this half of the conversation we dive into the theological dimensions of metaphor, and the metaphorical dimensions of metaphor! We speak about revelation, the ways that worship and liturgy engages metaphor, and the importance of the metaphor of God as father or parent as a guiding metaphor in Christian theology. Oh! And we talked about God as a moth…

“But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah” (Hosea 5:12)

To celebrate the conclusion of this series on metaphors, I am hosting a give away!

I will send a signed copy with a box of things I enjoy to one person, who answers this question: what kind of tree are you? To enter, answer the question either here or on my most recent post on instagram. Simple as that!

And for the record, I am an apple tree. I am an apple tree because they have a certain loveliness to them, but they’re also very practical and productive. This resonates with me. I value pretty things and loveliness and art. But I think I am still a fundamentally practical and hardworking person. But the other (and perhaps more pertinent) reason that I am an apple tree is that they are a little bit delicate and persnickety. If they overproduce, they will sometimes exhaust themselves and refuse to bear fruit for two whole years. I identify with that. The being slightly delicate and dramatic. And the capacity to exhaust myself. But at the end of the day, I like being a lovely little hardworking apple tree, like the one I wrote about in my book (pictured above!): “the tree produced six perfect red apples each fall (no more, sometimes less)” (Clarkson, You are a Tree, 15). I don’t know about you, but at this stage in my life, I’m content to, metaphorically, produce only six apples each fall, no more, sometimes less...

Much love and happy listening, friends!
Joy