COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #3: The Gift of Trees

The following post is the third of my COVID-19 updates, written for the participants in our parish's Bible Study sessions. 

____________________________________

"He is like a tree planted near springs of water, that yields its fruit in season; its leaves never wither; whatever he does prospers" [Ps 1:3].

So consumed are we by this virus, this microscopic molecule that defines so much of our lives today, I thought it would be good to step away from it, if only for a while, and turn our attention to another, more benign, of God's creatures.

Galaxies Galore in One Tiny Slice of Our Sky

The universe is filled with wondrous objects, everything from interstellar dust to clusters of galaxies, but God's greatest creative act was life itself. As revealed in Genesis, at the pinnacle of God's creation is man: 

"Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over cattle according to their kinds, and every living thing that creeps upon the ground according to its kind' [Gen 1:26].

But before He created sea life and birds and the beasts of the earth, before He created man and woman, on the third day God created a very different kind of life, a lifeform without which the rest of His living creation could not exist. God created the plants and the trees:

"Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind upon the earth" [Gen 1:11]

It was no accident, then that man and woman were first placed in a garden. There they were nourished by the fruit of the garden's many trees and there, too, they ate the fruit of the one tree forbidden to them:

"And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" [Gen 2:9].

We won't dwell on that first, original sin here, except to affirm that it wasn't the fault of the tree. Indeed, as non-sentient creatures trees are inherently faultless. 

It's hard to dislike trees. They live such long and elevated lives that they project an air of quiet stateliness. If you've read any of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, you will know he had a special fondness for trees. Of course, there are his Ents, the wise, rootless tree herders who come to the aid of civilization as it fights the forces of destruction. But I've always thought the outcry of the hobbit Sam Gamgee in the concluding scenes of Tolkien's trilogy mirrored the author's own sorrow over the sacrificial destruction of trees by modern man:

"They've cut it down!" cried Sam. "They've cut down the Party Tree!" He pointed to where the tree had stood under which Bilbo had made his farewell speech. It was lying lopped and dead in the field. As if this were the last straw Sam burst into tears.

Trees offer us a sign of hope. Their very presence seems to restrain the powers of desolation. Deserts and other empty places, treeless places, have never attracted me. I can imagine no more unpleasant place than the Sahara Desert or the appropriately named Death Valley.

In the books of Exodus and Numbers, God leads the Israelites into the desert. This wilderness is no Eden, but rather a place of trial that tests their faith and readies them for their entrance into the Promised Land. Jesus, too, in preparation for His public ministry and all that will follow, is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, a place of desolation, where He encounters the temptations of Satan. One senses that the evil one is quite at home in such places.

Jesus in the Wilderness

I, too, was once led into the desert, but by the United States Navy. As a young pilot, about to join a squadron destined for service in the Vietnam conflict, I was required to complete a course in survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) to prepare me for the possibility of capture by our nation's enemies. Conducted in Southern California's high desert it taught me many excellent survival skills. It also reaffirmed my determination to avoid capture and my dislike of deserts. But deserts are not the only desolate, treeless places. Consider, for example, the island nation of Iceland.

I've been to Iceland only twice, both just brief stopovers. On my first visit, in the summer of 1965, our U.S. Navy transport plane landed at what was then Keflavik Naval Air Station to refuel. We had only a few hours on the ground, but that was long enough to convince me that Iceland was a barren, forbidding looking place. I wasn't sure why until we took off and could view the landscape from above. That's when it hit me: I saw no trees. Indeed, most of the surface was hardened lava and rock, all craggy and stark and seemingly lifeless. As a 21-year-old, I had never met an Icelander so I wondered what kind of people would call this desolate island home. I assumed these descendants of the Vikings were hardy, practical folks who probably considered themselves slightly superior to the rest of humanity. Today, 55 years later, I've still never met an Icelander, at least not up close and personal, so my prejudice remains.

In September of 2012, I visited Iceland once again, this time in the company of Diane. This visit, too, was brief; all of it spent in the terminal. The first leg of our Iceland Air flight took us from Orlando to Keflavik, now a major civilian airport. After a 90-minute wait, we changed planes for the flight to our ultimate destination, London's Gatwick Airport. As we took off, only moments after sunrise, Diane, who had been looking out the window, turned to me and said, "You know what?" I simply replied, "Yes, there are no trees." She laughed, "That's exactly what I was going to say."

Icelandic Landscape

Actually, Iceland is not completely devoid of trees. But, according to friends who have spent more than a few hours there, you have to look for them. One repeated an old Icelandic saying, which has become a common line fed to tourists: "In Iceland if you see three trees together, you're in a forest." In truth, there are a couple of actual forests, although the trees tend to be rather stunted; for example, birch trees that rarely exceed 15 feet in height. For me it's all very sad, and I could never live in such a place, a place where trees are rare.

I suppose I've always enjoyed the presence of trees, these most magnificent of God's rooted creatures. When I was a boy I climbed many trees, especially one of the Japanese maples in our suburban New York front yard.  I often stretched out comfortably on its branches for an hour or so, to avoid life's distractions, or to read a book, or just to observe the goings on in our quiet neighborhood. 

Our front yard was also home to a large weeping willow, another target of opportunity for my climbing skills. Sadly, my parents were forced to remove that tree because its thirsty roots broke into our home's water pipes. 

And what can be more inviting to a 10-year-old boy than a trail leading into a forest? My friends and I would occasionally bicycle several miles to a local woodland called Saxon Woods and spend the day playing imaginative games amidst the trees.

When we lived on Cape Cod, I often took our children to visit a tree we called, "the greatest tree in the world." A European Weeping Beech, it's branches form a magnificent canopy, stretching  haphazardly in all directions. It is a very special tree and, were it permitted, would be a marvelous climbing tree. But aware of its age and fragility, we simply enjoy its shade, surrounded by its presence.

Weeping Beech - Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod

   

Under the Canopy

Let me assure you, though, I am not a tree-hugger and never experienced the urge to embrace any of those perfectly formed climbing trees. Even as a child, I realized that trees, while certainly living creature, lacked awareness of their existence and of mine. People are free to hug trees if they like, even talk to them, but to expect a response...well, that's nothing but a cry for help. As a wise Baptist farmer once said to me, "Don't talk to the garden; talk with the Gardener." Trees, created by God, the cosmic Gardener, deserve our attention, if not our hugs, both for their beauty and their utility.

That utility can be intentional, like the sawed boards I often turned into bookcases, or accidental, like the dead beech recalled by the poet, Wendell Barry:

the great hollow-trunked beech,
a landmark I love to return to,
its leaves gold-lit on the silver
branches in the fall: blown down
after a hundred years of standing,
a footbridge over the stream;

Its beauty destroyed by death, the beech continued to serve other creatures. In Sacred Scripture, too, we find trees blessed for their utility. Indeed, a tree becomes a key element of hospitality during a divine visit to the patriarch Abraham and his wife, Sarah:

"The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot. Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them, and bowing to the round, he said, 'Sir, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree'" [Gen 18:1-4].

Abraham and God Under the Oak

In Isaiah we encounter the tree's utility, both for good and for evil purpose. Of the idolatrous woodcutter, Isaiah writes:

"He goes out to cut down cedars, takes a holm tree or an oak. He picks out for himself trees of the forest, plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. It is used for fuel: with some of the wood he warms himself; makes a fire and bakes bread...Half of it he burns in the fire, on its embers he roasts meat; he eats the roast and is full. He warms himself and says, 'Ah! I am warm! I see the flames!' The rest of it he makes into a god, an image to worship and adore. He prays to it and says, 'Help me! You are my god!' They do not know, do not understand; their eyes are too clouded to see, their minds, to perceive" [Is 44:14-18].

Scripture also offers us symbolic trees as metaphors of something greater. One of the briefest of psalms uses the olive tree to describe the family of the righteous man:

"Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your home, your children like young olive plants around your table. Just so will the man be blessed who fears the Lord" [Ps 128:3-4].

There are dozens, probably hundreds, of other Old Testament references to trees, far too many to include here. But let me refer you to chapter four of the Book of Jonah, in which God uses a tree to teach His reluctant prophet a lesson in humility and the love of God. It's worth a read.

Jesus frequently referred to trees in His teaching; for example, when He described the Kingdom:

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches" [Mt 13:31-32].

Jesus called on the tree, too, when teaching the apostles of their role in the Church:

"I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower...I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing" [Jn 15:1,5].

And perhaps most fittingly and most gloriously, Jesus was nailed to the dead remnant of a tree. He died on that tree, raised up for all to see, making it the universal symbol of our Christian faith. We celebrate that tree, that Holy Cross, every time we bless ourselves and others with its sign. We honor the tiniest pieces of that tree, protecting them in reliquaries spread throughout the world. The Cross is, in a very real sense, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Eternal Life.

As Christians, indeed and human beings, we should praise and thank God for the goodness of all His creation. Take a moment to turn to the Book of the Prophet Daniel and read the beautiful prayer of blessing by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they stood in the fiery furnace in the Presence of God. It is a prayer echoed by all of creation. [See Dan 3:51-90]

This is a good lesson for us today, as we huddle in our homes, separated from others, wondering when it will end. But even now we can walk through our neighborhoods and see Gods creative goodness spread out all around us. Savor it. Breathe it in. Thank God for it.