Wonder Over Jealousy
I was in the park on a Friday afternoon with the dog as the sun began its descent into the fog, when I saw a women with a long brown skirt and a white coat. Boots. Sunglasses on her graying hair.
She was at the base of a large sycamore tree. A tree whose bark, light and brown, had peeled away in circles – revealing the white underneath, not unlike an exposed bone. Not one leaf remained on its branches. And the woman, dressed in the colors of the tree itself, stood at its enormous base, completely still, mouth open slightly, and looked up at its old, clenched-finger branches – only the tops of which – caught the fading orange glow of the sun.
We slowed, the dog and me, we looked. There was no bird. No squirrel. No plastic bag caught in the branches. No person. Only the tree. Only the tree and the woman who wondered at each other. Her head didn’t move as I shuffled by.
This woman, whose skirt was the color of bark and whose coat was the color of bone, was lost in wonder. A wonder I could not see. I could not bring myself to interrupt. Rather, only to wonder second-hand at the wonder she saw and to let that be enough.
In today's First Reading, the brothers of Joseph saw his presence as a threat - much like the tenants of the land in Jesus’ parable, who murdered the servants to protect their inheritance. Each is a story of the lengths we’ll go to ensure our own safety and finances and control.
How often I look at the life of another and worry to lose my own.
But sometimes, I can wonder instead. I can wonder second-hand at the wonder of another and it is even more beautiful than me seeing the same thing myself.
Do I find myself wary of the successes of others? Are there people and instances in my life where I might be invited to wonder instead of jealousy or destruction?
Teresa Nygard