by Melissa Faith Jensen

By the time my imagination started producing less figments and more semi-plausible
futures, I decided that a weeping willow would be the most charming hideout possible. But the
branches must reach to the ground, no hovering three feet in fear of the weeds. Its skirt of leaves
must be more than garment-friendly; may it be worthy of an Amish woman’s sacred legs.

Within such a whimsical refuge one could do countless very real things: read clever
books, write stories, embroider daisies on denim, offer epiphany-prompting prayers, climb its
branches as if a pirate ship’s mast, duel your brother with stick swords, learn to play fingerstyle
guitar, host a picnic of strawberries and ritz crackers, play cards atop a big board book, plant and
tame an array of wildflowers, hang a few light bulbs, and wear gingham while you’re at it. Of
course there would be a wooden swing which could launch you beyond the green veil into a
pond populated with calico koi.

Though these activities are not embarrassing or strictly solitary such that they require a
private space, I would imagine that without the tree many books would go unread, jeans
unadorned, pirates undefeated, guitars unplucked, neighbors not invited. What is it about this tree
that calls for therapeutic play?

I stare rapturously at the puzzle of tree bark which swallows my attention, especially
while I wait for someone who must be coming around the corner: I hope that they catch me in
this act of wonder without assuming that I intend to be caught because that would just be
ostentatious performance on my part, and the tree is really the one performing here. Any tree is
worth beholding, but this weeping willow that I never met is more than just beheld. It also holds.
It is a sequel to my womb. And I trust it not in some Emersonian way that bows to nature as the
greatest teacher, rather I trust the tree to foster a confident surrender—to train the child to stand
in this holy place and be moved (DC 87:8). The willow’s presence in my backyard will increase
endearingly domestic activities that form in young minds tender, generous, and refined impulses.

This space apart—much like a temple—prompts a certain quality of activity: work that is
not strenuous, rest that is not lethargic. The willow’s walls create a boundary between two
worlds, and whoever knows the tree gets to pick what belongs inside and what remains outside.
The existence of a threshold requires that sort of decision.

Not only does the boundary delineate an inside and an out, but the boundary also creates
an empty space which demands to be filled. A purposefully and perpetually empty box would be
a little absurd, or just a minimalist’s statement to self. My mother expects the flat and open
counter to be clear of things no matter how useful they may be, but an empty box asks to be
filled with things no matter how useless they may be. The willow cries out in its emptiness, and
the children (whose ears are better-tuned to such cries) come in response.

The tree also calls simply because it is beautiful. French philosopher Jean Louise
Chretién asserts that “the call of the beautiful… draws us out of our poise and makes us lose our
immobility” (10). The willow not only demands attendance but also requests an embodied
response. The most organic response to beauty is reproduction, which is exactly what the child
supplies when she enters the world of the tree to create her song, her story, or her needlework.
Delightfully convoluting the categories of work and rest, this willow and the activities she
provokes are not profitable or useful in the way we usually ask things to be. What the tree
produces in the child means so much more than what the child produces under the tree. She pulls
the child in to nourish him and then releases the child, urging him to go out and nourish his
brothers.

While the willow weeps for the child who must brave a hardened and hurried world, the
Lord weeps for his wild vineyard of obstinate olive trees. If I were their master, I would not be so
bent on preserving the fruit “unto mine own self” (Jacob 5:20). But if it grieved the Lord to lose
one tree that produced “all kinds of bad fruit [that] profiteth [him] nothing” (Jacob 5:32), then
the trees still must have carried worth beyond their product. Was it the trees’ potential? Did God
imbue them with merit as He nourished, pruned, dug, and dunged? Or was there some latent
value within the tree—independent of utility—which predates the Lord’s commitment and care?

While highlighting God’s intimate understanding and deep love for each child, the Book
of Mormon urges readers to see themselves as part of a whole, constantly referring to “the
fathers” as well as descendants or posterity. Jacob makes clear that each tree represents a
community rather than one single person (Jacob 5:3, 6:4). Although Christ ministers one by one,
he does not see each soul as an isolated salvation project. The gardner severs branches, breaks up
the surrounding soil it calls home, and expertly grafts in foreign limbs. He cannot attend to each
tree one at a time because he finds his remedies in the other trees. As he orchestrates the collision
of strangers and stretches our circles of mutual influence, we collectively begin to produce good
fruit.

In the allegory we witness the Lord oscillate between invasive surgery and permissive
waiting. But between the labor, the Lord lets “a long time [pass] away” (Jacob 5:15, 29). I
worship a God who mourns the potential loss of a tree that gives him nothing, one who spares it
a little longer, one who waits but does not worry. If he could have done no more for the vineyard,
and yet spent long intervals doing nothing, then God considers waiting to be a kind of work.
Whether he or the trees needed time to rest, this allegory challenges my own hyperactivity.

While the willow tree invites the child in and holds her there, the olive trees seem to
release their master, as if to say “let me alone.” Both the invitation and the release offer a kind of
rest that reproduces the trees’ God-given loveliness; in both approach and retreat we answer the
call. Whenever I rest I become as a little child: I assert that I am worthy of care and attention just
because I exist—just because I breathe, cry, laugh, and need. Thus rest is more than a break from
work or a recalibrating means to the end of that work’s accomplishment. Thinking celestial, rest

is the end. While we cherish the principle of eternal progress and imagine our heavenly
counterparts busy with God’s work and glory, we may confuse that progress with exertion. And
in that movement, we often miss the chance to be moved.

While we celebrate that we are “to act” and not “to be acted upon,” we forget that Jesus
consummated his reconciling work for humanity by exposing himself to the will of others.
William H Vanstone, an Anglican priest and theologian, demonstrates that Christ most glorified
his father and our future when he submitted himself to be “led…as a sheep before the shearer is
dumb” (Mosiah 15:6). He extends the passability of God beyond the moment of his surrender
into a paramount piece of his character:

Of all that God has done in and for the world, the most glorious thing is this—that He has
handed Himself over to the world, that He has given to the world not only power of being
but also power to affect Himself, which is best described as power of meaning…power to
mean something to Himself, power to be the subject over against Himself as the object.

This risk—this surrender—is what qualified Jehovah as Savior in the premortal council of
heaven. Cradled in chaos from the moment of his incarnation, Christ let the cruel world hold
him. Though we mutilated the only whole one among us, he fearlessly calls us closer. He handed
himself over to us, and in doing so claimed us as his own. What appeared to be a powerless
moment proves explosive. While we celebrate Christ’s submission and remember that he
received the victory from his Father (Hel 5:11, 3 Ne 27:15), could we also catch a glimpse of
glory in our own moments of weakness?

In a fit of striving, I reach for the gifts of the Spirit as if they were things I could hold.
But the Holy Ghost isn’t distributed among us in pieces and portions; we are the pieces within its
network. As Elder Bednar suggests, we do not possess charity so much as it possesses us (April
2026). We do not obtain truth so much as it obtains us. We do not hold God’s power so much as
it holds us. Could we proudly call ourselves objects of his grace?

This wild olive tree waits on the Lord to return with a shovel and shears. There is work to
do in his vineyard, but exhaustion is no indicator of success. He will do some waiting too. This
risk—this surrender—is what the olive trees require and what the willow tree inspires. In
answering this call to hand ourselves over, we decline all other propositions and pulls, part that
verdant veil, and step into the tree’s refuge of wonders. May we behold the God who waits and
weeps over his twisted creation (Jacob 5:41). And may we also be held by that weeping God
(and his weeping willow).

This essay by Melissa Faith Jensen was the third-place entry in our 2026 Every Good Tree Writing Contest.