April 19, 2026

Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Luke 24:17-35

The ‘apapane was young. He didn’t have his red and black feathers yet. That was OK. He knew they’d come. He was content even with the somewhat odd look of red patches on his mostly white chest. He’d be wearing red and black soon.

It was also OK that he’d learned to fly and fly pretty well. There had been some awkward moments in the learning, even one or two painful moments when he’d misjudged a landing, but all in all, he was content with his feet and his tail and his wings.

What he wasn’t happy about was the local ohi’a trees.

He wasn’t very old after all, and he’d never seen the cycle of the ohi’a trees before. As far as he knew, ohi’a trees wore their red flowers all the time. That was his experience. But now whole groves in the forest had no flowers, and he thought that was awfully careless of them.

“Where will I find flowers?” he wanted to know.

He followed the flock to find them, of course, and each day they found plenty to eat, whether it was ohi’a nectar or bugs and caterpillars in the trees. But why weren’t all the trees in flower? That was how he remembered it. Wasn’t that how it should always be?

“Why aren’t the trees in bloom?” he asked aloud one day, and his grandfather overheard him.

“They can’t always be in bloom,” said grandfather, who had seen a few seasons and knew that flowers come and go.

“Why not?” demanded the grandson, who couldn’t think of any reasons why the world shouldn’t run the way he wanted it to run.

“Because otherwise we don’t get new trees,” said grandfather.

The grandson thought this sounded ridiculous and said so, but he followed his grandfather as they flew over to an ohi’a tree that was definitely bare of blossoms. They landed near the end of a branch, where there was a cluster of short brownish stalks. The grandson recognized that they had formed from a cluster of flowers.

“The flowers have died,” he said. “So what?”

“Look closer,” said grandfather, and he did.

One or two of the brown stalks had opened, revealing tiny flecks. “Those are ohi’a seeds,” said grandfather.

“They’re tiny,” said the grandson.

“They are,” agreed grandfather, “but if one roots in the right place, it can become a great tall tree. In another place, it becomes a shorter tree. Both of them will blossom many times. And both of their blossoms will fade and become these seed pods. Then the seeds blow away on the wind and new trees rise up.

“You can’t just look at what’s in front of you, grandson. You also have to look ahead to what might be, can be, or will be. Today’s flowers fade so that tomorrow’s flowers will bloom. Today’s seeds fly so that tomorrow’s trees can grow.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation during worship on Sunday morning. The story you read does not precisely match the way I told it.

Photo of a juvenile ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.