I have a forest; it’s my garden of Eden. Each tree is an idea, a principal, or an opinion that I cling to for protection. The trunks are unbreakable. The branches can bend in a breeze and double over in a storm but always stay attached to the trunk, while the foliage is lush and strong, standing up to any rain, wind, hail, snow or survive any drought. My forest, my mind is everything it needs to be as far as I can see but then again maybe I can’t see the forest for the trees.

Here I stand as I do every day in my forest of my thoughts.

It’s dark most the time with little light getting through. Once in a while the darkness is penetrated by lightning seen only because the wind parts the branches and exposes me to the storm. I struggle to hold onto a tree, a thought that seems to best protect me from what is going on around me. My trees are rooted deeply in my brain so it should be fine. I notice that there are a few branches that look like they could break and there is a bit of rot in a trunk, but these are still my trees, my thoughts, it should be enough to survive.

This is my Garden of Eden, my forest.

Who I am, how I perceive the world and the way I understand good and evil are the fruit born out of the seeds from the very first trees that populated my forest. The trees in the forest of my mind bring meaning to my existence, they are my trees of life. I trust my trees to stand tall and remain in place when the outside tries to get in. I rely on them to protect me from whatever tries to enter my forest carried on the wind that has blown through other forests. I know what is right. I know what is wrong. I have lived in my Eden all my life and watched as more and more trees were added to my forest, more and more ideas added to my mind. I find safety and beauty, well, maybe not beauty but at least in my mind I have a forest that is not ugly like other people’s forests, one that’s not dirty or damaged like some of the forests that surround me. Sure, from time to time I let a seed or two from another forest plant itself in my forest and allow it to flourish into a tall tree like the others but only because I believe they are a good fit to my trees, to my thoughts, to my Eden.

I am safe here.

If something outside appears to be a threat I run to one of my trees to hide or climb. Here nothing can hurt me. These are my thoughts. These are my ideas. These are things that have and will protect me. In some areas my Eden looks like your Eden, my forest like yours, I think like you think, I plant trees like your trees because your trees look good to me. When all is said and done, I believe that my forest, my mind, contains trees that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.

The logger has come to my forest.

His hands and feet have healed-over puncture marks, his forehead tiny scars that continue under his hairline. As he got ready to work, he took off his shirt. More scars. His back was a weave of lines crisscrossing from his shoulders to the base of his spine, his side had a deep stab wound healed but still so prominent. First, he stood beside the tree I called truth but instead of it being the towering coastal redwood I thought it was, it was no more than a weed withered almost as if it was ashamed of its lying self. He moved on to my noble oak but instead of standing tall it was hunched over with not even a hint of being anything more than just there. My blue spruce tree no longer looked the way it should once he approached it, and my elm tree seemed to be rotten. The shade once offered by my maple tree was gone. He stood next to its leafless branches and all I could think was how ugly. I had rows of pine trees that once stood tall in straight lines that would make any military man proud but once he walked through I saw them for what they really were, haphazardly planted and crooked, an embarrassment to say the least.

He cut them all down.

I didn’t say a word, after all, the trees in my forest, the thoughts in my mind, were no longer worthy of taking up space in my head let alone forming words in my mouth. He handed me new seeds and instructed me to plant them in the soil he provided and feed them using only his food. I was to avoid looking at other forests or importing other trees. There was to be only one Eden filled with trees of life and his knowledge of good and evil and if I ever was unsure of what it should look like I was to think about him, to meditate on his character, to act based on his commands. My forest is now full of whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy [it is there because I] think about such things. Philippians 4:8b (NIV)