Salix Integra

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree,”
That is a powerful inspiring proclamation, especially for our days. War is leaving cities and regions in ruin. Young girls are abducted and subjected to an atrocious fate. Nature and environment are destroyed on a unthinkable scale. You don’t need to follow the news to know that “apocalyps” is daily reality. Even where we are not directly affected by it, it is clear that we cannot evade our responsibility to answer seriously in respect to suffering and violence which scourges our fellows worlds.

Those simple words of faithful hope and powerful love are said to be spoken by Martin Luther. Maybe that is only a legend. Maybe these appealing words were ascribed to the Reformer in more recent time as people despaired where to take up their lives out of the ruines of Europe after WWII. But does it really matter? Because every day anew, wherever we awake - in tents, huts, houses or villas, we will be confronted with that something unexpectedly breaking down to pieces. Be it the beginning of an illness, a partner crying, a friend dying, your savings lost or your job. Something does not work, turn on your TV-screen and you see literally the world in ruins.

How strong and undestructible is my faith then, not to give in to that ‘normal’ despair or cynism in feeling there is nothing what you can do effectively to heal or bring peace in a world full of conflict, destruction and disaster. Well, there is always that unnoticable most unimportant thing you can do or help to do: cultivate your small (balcony-)garden or plant your apple tree. Or if you prefer, a small Salix Integra, your Dappled Willow or Harlekin Weide, as you can see above in front of the Lutheran Church in Bad Karlshafen. If you can afford it, a whole forest is fine. But one small tree will do.