O Wisdom

We come upon the first tree, with a sign posted at its base:  “O Wisdom!  Come, teach us to walk on the path of knowledge.”  This tree has large leaves that spread widely and its trunk sways in the wind.  From its treetop, yellowish, long and smooth, fleshy fruits hang down from a protruding spike.  They look like bunches of hands, with individual fruits like fingers…

This is colloquially called a banana tree; but, it is actually a giant plant.  Look closely…  Things are not always what they appear to be…  What resembles a trunk are many leaves wrapped tightly, one over the other, around a single stem.  It is succulent not wooden; and so, it bends without breaking.

Slaves on the plantation roasted bananas and believed them to provide “almost the sustenance of bread,” so much were these fruits food security.  Their abundant content of potassium is called the “salt of intelligence.”  And, buried in the scientific description of the banana is the Latin musa sapientium – “muse of the wise person.”

O Sapientia tree, you bear the fruit of Wisdom that is here personified in the banana tree.  What protrudes from you is the stem of Jesse, wrapped tightly as in swaddling clothes, one over the other.  Gentle baby Wisdom, even your Childish reach is mighty and widely spreads out from the days of eternity.  This is by hidden means, now, in smooth and fleshly incarnation.

While the banana figures as so-called brain food; you, Wisdom, are soul food.  You choose Bethlehem for your birthplace because it signifies real, sustaining bread – the staple consumption during our advance to salvation.  Slice across the width of a banana and see in the tiny black seeds a semblance of a cross.  Delve into the breadth of Wisdom and see the implantation of the Cross…

O Wisdom!  Come, teach us to walk on the path of knowledge.  May we follow in your footsteps along that garden passageway.  Grant that seeds of Wisdom germinate in us and take root and, thereby, we yield fruit – indeed, a harvest of fruits, of peace.