greatness

Story: Grand

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

September 14, 2025

1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

There was a tree, an ohi’a tree, that stood on the cliffside above Kilauea Iki. The tree had stood there long years. He was tall. He was grand. And he was proud.

He looked down upon the mostly flat black rock of Kilauea Iki and sniffed. There were ohi’a trees down there, too, but they were small and bushy. The tallest rose no more than eight or nine feet, less than a tenth of this tree’s one hundred foot crown.

“You’re so small,” he said to the little ohi’a trees below. “What difference can you make?”

Next to him stood another tree, just as tall, just as grand, but not so proud and rather wiser. “Don’t you remember?” she asked him. “This was no more than a pond of lava years ago. These trees had to catch every drop of rain. They had to make their own soil. Someday this crater will be filled with trees, and it will be because these trees got it started.”

“Well, all right,” huffed the other tree. “But what about these little bugs that crawl all over me? They’re even smaller. And they nibble at me. And they itch. They can’t be of any use.”

His neighbor looked him over and said, “These are the same creatures that attract the birds to you. Between the birds and the bugs, they carry the pollen around that means there will be ohi’a seeds.”

“Seeds,” huffed the proud tree. “What good are they? They’re even tinier than the bugs!”

“Seeds,” said the wise tree, “mean that there will be a future for our forest up here on the cliffsides as well as in the rocky bottoms of the craters. Seeds mean new trees where there hadn’t been any before.”

“Seeds,” she said softly, “mean that when we are measuring our height on the forest floor, there will be other trees rising over us.”

The proud tree huffed again. “There could never be a tree as grand as me,” he said, and he ruffled his branches in the breeze.

“Seeds,” said the wise tree, as she watched a little cloud of them dance in the wind from the proud tree, “Seeds mean that there will be a forest even grander than either of us.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (and a little bit of inspiration). What you have just read does not precisely match what you’ll see.

Photo of an ohi’a in the Kilauea Iki crater by Eric Anderson.

Story: The One in Charge

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 20, 2024

Isaiah 53:4-12
Mark 10:35-45

When the birds of the ohi’a forest start to flock together – which tends to happen when the chicks have learned to fly and left the nest – some of those flocks rotate leadership among the birds: an ‘apapane this week, an ‘akepa this week, and who knows? Perhaps an ‘alawi the next.

There came a week when one of the ‘amakihi was chosen to lead, and he was going to lead, by all that was feathered, he was. He had done a lot of watching and a lot of listening to the other leaders, and he knew he’d do a good job. He wouldn’t bully, and he wouldn’t brag, and he would get help from other birds to be sub-leaders, and above all else, he would keep an eye out for food, for shelter, and for danger.

He was, after all, the one in charge.

Things seemed to go just that way for the first couple of days. The other birds followed where he led, they sang cheerfully as they foraged for bugs and nectar, and they avoided both the nuisance of a cranky i’iwi and the dangers of two cats and an ‘io. On the third day, however, something seemed to be going… differently. The birds still followed where he led, but… it almost seemed like some of them were slightly ahead of where he was going. He thought they might just be faster fliers, but as the day went on he noticed that some of them seemed to open their wings just slightly before he did.

What puzzled him about all this was that, as he thought about it, it seemed… perfectly normal. The other flock leaders had also been just slightly behind two or three birds. Which seemed… perfectly normal and perfectly odd.

When the next day came, the same thing was happening, and he kept a close eye on things. Another ‘io came by over the course of the morning, so that a sudden alarm whistle sent everyone deep into the branches. A little while later, the same voice trilled that it was safe again, and the flock took wing for another ohi’a tree – one that he, the leader, hadn’t chosen. He probably would have tried that direction (because the ‘io went the other way), but he hadn’t chosen it. What was going on?

In early afternoon, it happened again. Two or three birds took off just before he did, and later on two or three more took off just before he did, but they were different birds. Still, he spotted what was the same: those birds had been close to another bird, an ‘amakihi, just before they flew.

So he landed right next to that bird when they got to a new tree and found… she was his mother.

“Are you… What are you doing, mother?” he asked. “Are you trying to take over as leader?”

“Not at all,” she said. “I’m following you, just like everyone else.”

“Then how come birds take off ahead of me from around you?”

“Well,” she mused. “I might be mentioning that you’re looking at a tree in a particular direction. They seem to think that’s a reason to go that way. You and I both have been paying attention to what’s safe and what’s in blossom.”

“Isn’t that leading?” he asked.

“It might be,” she said, “if leading is paying attention to what’s good for all the birds of the flock. Which you’re doing. But it’s something that all of us can do along with you. When your leadership time is over, you can do it, too.”

He was a good leader, they all agreed. They were surprised to find, however, that he was an even better follower when another bird’s turn came to lead. He did the best he could to see that all the birds were fed, warm, and safe – and so did his mother.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them in worship from memory. Memory plus a fair amount of improvisation.

Photo of an ‘amakihi in flight by Eric Anderson.

Story: Seeing Greatness

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

December 10, 2023

2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

A pueo went soaring one sunny afternoon. He’d been hunting most of the morning and he was no longer hungry. So he just flew, holding his wings and tail out, gliding with the wind, rising and falling on the steady breeze flowing between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.

As he went, he wondered about greatness.

It started as he looked at the mountains to either side of him. Mauna Kea, he knew, was a little bit higher, and it wears a snowy crown sometimes in winter that’s easy to see from most of the island. Mauna Loa, though – well, it gets snow, too, but it can be hard to see, and it isn’t as high. From the air, though, the pueo could see that over a third of the island is on Mauna Loa’s slopes.

The pueo dipped down over Kilauea and circled around its trees. Some of those ohi’a trees rise a hundred feet into the air, with broad trunks and strong stems. Truly those would have to be considered great.

Other ohi’a grew just a few feet high, but they grew from places which had been solid rock just a few years before. Was it greater, the pueo wondered, to grow broad and tall in good soil, or to grow just a little bit when you had to make the soil yourself?

The pueo saw lava flowing, building up the island. And the pueo saw ferns growing in old lava flows, breaking it up into sand and soil. Which was greater, he wondered?

He saw i’iwi dipping into ohi’a blossoms with their long curved beaks, and saw ‘apapane work harder for nectar with their shorter beaks. But he also saw ‘apapane eat the bugs that also sought out the nectar, while the i’iwi passed them by. Which was greater, the pueo wondered, to have a beak so admirably shaped for nectar, or to have a beak that allowed you a wider diet? Even if it was bugs?

Which was greater, the ocean or the land? The lava flows pushed the island further out, but the ocean wore down the shorelines. Which was greater?

Which was greater, the rain or the sun? Absent one or the other, green things would not flourish, and the creatures would go elsewhere.

Which was greater? He wondered and he flew.

Greatness, he decided, can be found wherever you look. The greatness he preferred, in the end, was the greatness that built things up and made new things.

by Eric Anderson

Author’s note: A Pueo is a Hawaiian owl, a relative of the short-eared owls found in many places.

Watch the Recorded Video

I tell these stories from what I remember about what I’ve written – which means, of course, that I don’t always remember it quite the same.

Photo of an ohi’a in blossom – a small one – by Eric Anderson.

Grace Greatness

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments
Ocean and shoreline.

Damn you for your folly.
Damn you for your arrogance.
Damn you for your violence.
Damn you for your pride.

You strut and march and shout
and call it greatness.
You harm and maim and kill
and call it greatness.

You entertain the wealthy,
set aside the sick,
refuse the refugee,
and call it greatness.

While I have known a woman
in whose presence every soul
received a lift. Every soul
was lightened by her gift.

Of greatness you know nothing,
and so you damn yourself.
Of greatness you know nothing,
and so you damn us all.

Photo by Eric Anderson.