Dream of the Rood Response

So as I’m reading this I think the poem here is basically a commercial for old Anglo Christianity because in the first stanza I think the narrator is hit with the voice of god and in this “conversation” he’s given a small tour of heaven. In the continuity of this poem it seems everything is centered around this “greatest tree, brought into the sky, bewound by light”. I really like this idea that a giant tree is like the pentagon for god and his angels up in heaven where “they kept close watch, holy spirits for all of humanity across the earth, and every part of this widely famous creation,”. I also like how during this tour the narrator compares the himself to the tree in such a negative context with the line “Surpassing was this victory-tree, and me splattered with sins” where he’s basically says he’s a piece of garbage compared to this perfect tree because of his sins and because of his sins he can see what might come for him if he doesn’t clean up his act with the lines “Then I saw that streaking beacon warp its hue, its hangings —
at times it was steamy with bloody wet, stained with coursing gore,
at other times it was glistening with treasure.” I just love how that’s the fear that the writer put into this poem to convert people because as messed up as it is, the line and use of fear is really effective.