Alphabet Writing Series - D

(Written December, 2007)

Deliquescent – adj (del-i-kwes’ent)
1. To melt away.
2. To disappear as if by melting.
3. Chemistry To dissolve and become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.
4. Botany
a. To branch out into numerous subdivisions that lack a main axis, as the stem of a myrtle or elm.
b. To become fluid or soft on maturing, as certain fungi.

I found deliquescent in a list of favorite words on the internet. The person who posted it said he loved the way the word’s spoken sound mimics one of its meanings - ‘to melt away.’

“Deliquescent. Del-i-kwes’ent.” I suppose it does have a pleasing sound to the ear.

In chemical terms, deliquescent refers to a substance that is so dry as to be able to pull water from the air and cause a transformation from solid to liquid form. In botanical terms, deliquescent describes a type of tree branching in which many divisions and subdivisions occur that render the tree without a central axis. An example would be a myrtle tree. The opposite type of branching is called excurrent and is seen in conifers such as pine trees. These types of trees have one large dominant trunk from which all the other branches grow.

Considering these words, deliquescent and excurrent, made me compare my life, my Christian walk, to these two types of trees: a myrtle tree and a pine tree. A myrtle tree has many branches on which fruit (flowers) can grow. Often these trees have beautiful leafy crowns, lovely boughs in which to climb, and lots of shade for shelter. As the world begins to chill, their greenery turns to magnificent reds, golds, and oranges until they lose their leaves altogether and stand naked in the elements. (There are many different species of myrtles other than the ornamental pink-flowered trees we see so often in the South.)

A pine tree is strong and stately, soaring heavenward with a thick bark-coated trunk, evergreen through all the seasons – steady, well-designed, and noble. The heights a pine tree can reach seem to arrogantly defy gravity. My neck cranes back as I stand beneath a great pine and try to find its tip. You need a good distance to be able to really see a large pine tree in total. During a fierce storm, a pine will sway with mighty graceful arcs and limber beauty as it dances with the wind.

Are we to be myrtles, reaching out to stretch and spread and swell? Roots wandering deep and wide in the soil of Christ, do we branch out to provide comforting shade for others, grow limbs heavy-laden with fruit of the Spirit, and speak with a colorful truth and beauty that bursts forth even as the world moves farther from the sun?

Are we to be pines, reaching ever upward, trying to touch heaven itself with one great root anchoring us firmly to the ground, drawing life-giving water from the depths of God’s Word? Does Christ’s light shine from within us, forever green, fresh, and fragrant? Do we move through life’s storms with grace, swaying rhythmically without fracture or splinter?

In Creation God speaks and in these two trees I hear His voice tonight. I am to be like the myrtle, spreading and growing, providing strong limbs into which others can climb and cool shade where they can rest. But, I am also to be like the pine, strong, straight, and always green, weathering the gales to reach for heaven yet another day, pointing always quietly upward.

Deliquescent or excurrent - I pray my heart be true to heed these breezy whispers that stir the needles and the leaves tonight.

Isaiah 55:11-13
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD's renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed."

The trees are God's great alphabet:With them He writes in shining greenAcross the world His thoughts serene.~Leonora Speyer

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. ~Martin Luther

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~William Shakespeare

We all travel the milky way together, trees and men... trees are travellers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true: but our own little comes and goes are only little more than tree-wavings - many of them not so much. ~John Muir, Scribner's Monthly, November 1878