Roots and Branches – Letter from the Editor

This year’s theme of “Roots & Branches” emerged out of a late fall conversation when the dropping of leaves was putting a punctuation mark on the passage of time, and has bloomed into a particularly personal and moving issue. In your hands, dear reader, you hold a collective meditation on our relationship with the past and a hopeful turn to imagery which runs from one end of the Bible to the other. From the trees of Eden to the vine of Jesus to the radiant Tree of Life in the apocalyptic visions of John, biblical trees and their deep roots represent resilient life and blessing in community (and much more!).

As the editorial team worked with writers and artists, we grappled with how we are embedded within our pasts, memories, and inheritances. As a society we are still emerging from the collective shock of the recent pandemic, dazed by effects of isolation and strain that we can hardly quantify; as individuals and, especially, as artists, we have been reminded of how precious the intangible qualities of relational trust are. In times like these, the ecosystems of trees and their forests seem like a glimpse of another world, and I hope that this issue offers you a moment of rest in that kind of place.

Forest-lovers will delight in several of this issue’s pieces which explicitly examine the life of trees. Sharon Lam invites us to learn directly from their nature, while Christine Kang and Kyle Simpson follow in the rich artistic tradition of imagining people as trees. Others unpack the idea of roots in terms of our relational or psychological foundations: Jeff Hynds, myself, and Kelly Anne Meagher reflect on the way that our memories or access to the past impact who we are today, and Kan Cheung, Gwen Sampson, and Corrina DiLella Cameron draw out the struggles, gifts, and longing of intergenerational family relationships. Sam Elkana and Aileen Thomas offer visions of the new growth that is possible for people rooted in the hope of faith, a rootedness that Maria Faber and Michelle Choi show extends to the stories that fill our imaginations, while Caitlin Condit and Tammy Storey ask us to reckon with how we see and imagine community on a societal level. The issue closes with John Sampson’s poetic praise of the triune God, the source of the living waters which sustain every Christian tree.

In “Roots & Branches,” it is our privilege as an editorial team to lift up the voices of artists in our communities who celebrate and lament the past, dwell in the complexities of the present, and gather strength to imagine our future. Imprint would not be possible without the support and encouragement of our wider communities, so we send it out into the world with thankfulness and a prayer that it will bless our readers.

– Joel