By Pat James
I’ve had several trees that I counted as special. Trees I climbed, explored, hid in, hung from by my knees, read in, ate from, and a few times, fell from. A while ago Carla posted a video of Kai scampering up a tall tree as if she belonged there, as if it were home. 

Did you have a special tree as a child? Do you still have one?
There is magic in trees. Anyone who’s had a special tree knows this. As I grew in my knowledge of plants and trees, I began to understand that the magic was not just a projection of my imagination.
The magic is real.
Think about it. They are some of the oldest living beings on earth. They sprout from seed, and with only soil, sun, air and water, most can live at least as long as humans, and some live for millennia. Trees are the largest living beings on the planet. I’m not referring to the giant sequoias out west. I’m talking about Pando, the name given to a stand of aspen trees in the Utah Rockies. Pando looks like a forest of individual trees, but it is in fact a single organism connected by a massive root system covering over 100 acres. Pando started growing about 80,000 years ago. Pando has begun to die.
Trees live in community. Forests are wonderful examples of interspecies interdependence. The smallest life forms – bacteria, viruses and fungi – are critical to the life of trees, and trees are critical to the life of these microscopic beings. A tree supports its own offspring, as well as other trees and plants, and dozens, even hundreds of animal species. Our native black cherry tree alone provides habitat for dozens of birds and mammals, and hundreds of native pollinators critical to maintaining our natural world, and pollinating our food crops.
Trees are intelligent. Scientists have only recently begun to understand that a forest is not a collection of individuals – it is an individual, with a complex network of underground communications that can warn trees on one side of a forest to mount defenses against an insect predator attacking the other side.
Trees communicate with each other, and I believe they are speaking to us as well. 

• I believe the trees whisper to us to care for them, and for ourselves, by loving each other and caring for the planet. 
• I believe the trees are asking us to help them heal the soil, water and air, and ourselves, from the toxins we’ve spread around the Earth. 
• I believe the trees are begging us to stop and reverse the climate change that makes it more difficult for the plants and animals that co-evolved to continue to live in harmony. We might be pleasantly surprised when a favorite tree blooms earlier than ever in the spring. But when that happens, those blossoms die before pollinators who depend on that nectar emerge to eat. The pollinators starve, and the tree sets little fruit for lack of pollination. 

For all our love of trees, we often take them for granted. In the Amazon, the lungs of the world, we lose more than 150 acres every minute of every day. Here in the US we clear old growth forests for short-term profit.
Look around. We are surrounded by those trees. 

• The clapboard that sheathes our building – trees. 
• Our pews are trees. 
• The paper for today’s bulletin and the tissue in each pew – trees. 
• Organ pipes – trees. 
• Hymnals and Bibles – trees. 
• The story of our faith begins and ends on a tree shaped into a cross, and then it begins again. 
• Our Joys and Concerns are written on trees.

I bet every one of us has had an experience of being among trees and feeling a sense of connection to All That Is. I believe there was a time when we humans didn’t see ourselves as separate from the forest, but as one with it. We understood that we were part of the interdependence of soil, sun, water and air.
I believe there was a time when humans understood the language of trees. Science is helping us to retrieve that language, but I don’t think we need science to help us to remember how to listen. When we read a book, or blow our noses, or sit in our hard, hard pews, we can remember that we are part of the forest.
I believe the trees are asking us to witness their example: We can take a stand where we are. We can have faith that we will be nurtured to the fullest expressions of ourselves as long as we care for each other in the faith that our needs are fewer than we think, and our gifts are greater.
The great writer and activist Barbara Deming reminded us, “We Are All Part of One Another.” First Corinthians reminds we are all part of one body, meaning the body of Christ. I believe the Body is more than just people. I believe the Body is bugs, birds, soil, microorganisms, air, rocks, water and sun. And us. And trees. We are all part of one another.
When Peter Ives embarked on a long hike, someone asked him if he had a goal. Peter said his goal was to see the face of Jesus in everyone he met. What if we all did that, and not just with our human siblings. What if we saw in every tall tree, in every minute soil particle, in every breath of air, drop of water, and every rising of the sun, the body of the One Who Died on a tree and lived again.
Amen

Opening words delivered at Haydenville Congregational Church Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019