Sacred Geometry, or "Why You Cannot Reverse Engineer Your Influence"
This pine tree manifests the brilliant art of its Maker just by growing.
Its branches and its seed (pine cones) do that beautiful, spiral, "sacred geometry" thing.
This made me think of when I was interviewed for a podcast. Stay with me, here. There’s a mighty point to the story, I promise. Before the podcast interview, I sat down to pray, to ask the Lord to "give me the right words" because I want everything I do to point back to Him. I also want to help others.
So for seemingly good reasons, I was angsting a little bit, wanting to be wise and generous and very much hoping to inspire.
It was then that the Lord interrupted my thoughts and said, "You are at your very best, and you glorify Me the most, my daughter, when the good that you do is unconscious. Shalom, Sheila."
BOOM. The angst was gone! Honestly (please don't take this the wrong way) but I knew I was done praying. Not only in that moment was I at a place of full-on Shalom, but I have gone out to meet LIFE with more joy since that day.
After all - and I say this all the time - what we impart is NOT what we think we have to say. What we impart is the cumulative result of all our secret growings…or shrinkings. We impart to others our essence - we impart to others who we actually are, not how we want to be seen. We can only give to others what we first OWN for ourselves: which is whatever we have faithfully been in secret for YEARS. Not months or days. I’m talking about a way of being that can’t be reverse engineered.
This pine never attempted a Fibonacci sequence. It didn’t see its neighbor doing a spiral pattern, and then decide it was time to do the same thing. This pine did not admire its friend, and rush to its desktop to buy a website called “thegoldenmean.com” to try to become an iteration of its best pinegirlfriend. It did not read about another pine tree’s experience, and then write a blog post with borrowed thoughts on Divine Proportion. It wasn't going for Sacred Geometry.
Yet, there it is. Breathtaking and inspiring and yes, I laid flat on my back to grab this shot. This pine is who it naturally, unselfconsciously GREW to be, over many years.
Gosh, we can both rest in that, and be convicted (in a healthy way) in areas where we need to do and be differently. The results accumulate over much time. Which way is your tree growing? Who are you when no one is watching?
