From My Nature Journal: Trees of Life

Trees of life.

One would have had to be living in a cave for the last several years to not have heard of the dangers being posed by the clearing and destruction of Amazonian rainforests. Of course, no one is currently decrying the former destruction of forests around the globe – boreal, temperate or tropical -- including most native forests in North America. It’s just that everyone on earth needs those Brazilian rainforests like never before in order to help sequester the superabundance of carbon being produced worldwide by the burning of fossil fuels. It seems those forests have become something of a poster-child, representing one of our best defenses against unrestrained climate change. Turns out they are trees of life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about those trees, and for one simple reason: I realize that Gail’s and my carbon footprint is larger than we’d like it to be, contributing to the growing problem in the first place. All of us should be concerned about our carbon footprints, you know. (Need some help? Check out carbonfootprint.com.) Oh, Gail and I practice a lot of the simpler creation care efforts like serious recycling, volunteering for environment care efforts, bunching our trips, shutting off lights and unnecessary appliances, limiting herbicides and pesticides, conserving water, converting to LED’s, and minimizing waste, especially plastics. (See zerowastehome.com.) But there are two major issues within our lifestyle that probably contribute more carbon harm than all our mitigation efforts combined. First, our home has an electric furnace. Before moving to Washington recently, I

did not even know that there were such things. It is a beast of an electricity user. We’re making plans to redo our home’s insulation and install both a heat pump and woodburning stove, but even still, our small home’s heating needs require a surprising amount of energy. Secondly, with three of our four children and our parental families half a continent or more away, we do a lot of traveling, and can really rack up the highway miles, our preferred method of travel.

Which brings me back to those trees. All of this has gotten us thinking a good deal about carbon offsetting as another possible mitigation. (See nativeenergy.com or terrapass.com.) Yes, it seems the ‘affluent western approach’ to the problem, but at least it is something that can be done. It’s literally, pardon the metaphor, fighting fire with fire: the best way to counter the destruction of a forest is to plant another. It won’t assuage my guilt, but I cannot live in a cold cave without a car at this season of my life, and at least it’s a start. I applaud those who can do more, but I appeal to them to let me do what I can without judging me too severely.

Trees of life. Trees impact life positively, no doubt about it, and that’s an understatement. It should surprise no one that trees play an important part in the well-being of Earth; indeed, a greater attention to creation, I believe, will produce a greater physical and spiritual well-being in the lives of individuals as well. And as for trees, nature has such a positive impact, for example, that children would simply do well to get outside and climb a few trees more often!

But as usual I’ve got something else on my mind as I continue, at least with this particular blogpost. The Bible also speaks of a Tree of Life, and that in several places. It first appears in the opening story of creation. God placed such a tree in the Garden of Eden alongside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and bade the man and woman leave the latter alone. Well, they didn’t, and we all know the outcome of that, an outcome that includes the abuse of creation. (My nephew by marriage posted on Facebook today that his three-year-old daughter, when reading in their children’s picture Bible, saw the apple tree and said, “Oh, yummy, apples! Yum! Apples!” And then he asked, “Should I be concerned?” Thank you, Anthony. Yes, be concerned. Be very concerned.) And whether Eden is history or allegory is not the point; the issues it addresses are still true truths. In fact, it was the very presence of the Tree of Life that caused God to banish Adam and Eve from the garden, simply to prohibit their access to it (Genesis 3:22-24). God even goes so far as to set angels with flaming swords at the ‘east entrance of the garden’ to bar the gate and keep men and women away. Say what? Apparently there was something about that Tree that God did not yet want people to know, or, more likely, that God knew people were not yet ready for. And did you notice? Curiously, God did not prohibit them eating of the Tree of Life until after they had sinned. Fascinating. It seems it was available to them beforehand, though they did not appreciate the fact.

And then, just like that, the Tree of Life seems to disappear from the Biblical narrative for a long while. What ever happened to it? One might even ask today if it’s still out there somewhere.

It is spoken of somewhat casually in the book of Proverbs, but poetically. That wily old Solomon was quite an eclectic character and used all kinds of images in putting his truisms to the pen. Four things there are likened to a ‘tree of life:’ wisdom, righteousness, fulfilled yearning, and gentleness of tongue, all good. But I don’t think Solomon is referring to the Tree of Life here at all, he’s just making poetry out of some pretty good maxims for life.

So where next? The Tree of Life doesn’t show up again literally until the very last book of the Bible. Yep, it jumps from the first book of the Christian Bible to the last, the apocalyptic literature of The Revelation of St. John the Apostle. Some kind of consummation is afoot here that involves this special Tree. Almost immediately, in 2:7, we are told that the privilege of eating of the Tree of Life will at last be given the one who stands firm for God. As John’s heavenly vision continues, he speaks of the healing properties of the very leaves of that Tree (22:2), and this not simply for individual healing, but for the ‘healing of the nations.’ Whew, how we need that healing. Again, in 22:14, John speaks of access to the Tree given only those who keep God’s commands, and lastly, a final warning is given that will again bar access to this Tree from those who alter God’s plan (22:19). It looks like some pretty heavy stuff here.

With only a brief poetic reference in between, it seems that the Bible moves from referencing this hugely significant mystery Tree in the creation narrative to stating its important place in the consummation of time. How can this be? There must be something more, and there is. There’s one more tree of life we cannot omit, one that ties creation and consummation together; in fact, it’s where I want to end my thoughts today.

Jesus’ cross is called a tree several times in the Bible, the apostles speaking of it in their preaching in the book of Acts. For example, in the midst of a sermon about the death and resurrection of Jesus that Paul preaches in a synagogue in Antioch, he says at one point, “When all things were fulfilled that were written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. (13:29)” Peter speaks similarly a couple other times in Acts. But I love what Peter says in a letter he wrote that we have in our Bible as 1^st Peter. He’s also speaking of Jesus there and says of him, “…who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live to righteousness. By his stripes you were healed. (2:24)”

Jesus’ cross is the Tree of Life. It is there both for our healing and that of the world. Through Jesus, God has finally dismissed those crack guards with the light sabers and made the Tree of Life available to eat from yet again.

I guess it’s something like sin offsetting.

~~ Go plant a tree.

RGM, September 17 2019

From My Nature Journal: “Hey, Dad, The Millers are at the Door…!”

There is a lovely little, inch-long, brownish-gray moth here in Colorado commonly known as the Miller. It’s an interesting moniker, so I am told, coming from its dusty cloak that reminded yesteryear people of a miller covered with flour dust.

A couple times per year in mid-year months, Miller moths seem ubiquitous here on the Front Range -- once in the late spring when the adult migrates up to the mountains from the plains, following elevation gain to the later blooms of the kinds of wildflowers it likes, and then once again down from the mountains and foothills and back to the plains in the early fall to lay its eggs and die. The moths seem abundant due to their attraction to light, drawn to street lights and gas station overhangs, to the glow behind a garage door on its way open, or hovering around the windows and windowed doors of a house, ready to come in uninvited, two or three or more at a time, at which moment they normally fly clumsily for a lampshade or for the highest point in a room.

Once in, they’re not hard to catch. One can even snatch them midair if they can be nabbed before parking themselves on the ceiling. In that event, a well-aimed sock gives another chance for their capture. Invariably, if Gail and I are away from home for more than a few days during their migrations, we’ll return to find several that have suffered expiration on the living room carpet. How they got in is unknown.

Curiously, in spite of their diminutive size, Millers can be an important food source for, of all things, grizzly bears, who prize the moths’ fat content in preparation for hibernation.

I have a pastor friend who found his church’s auditorium infested with several dozen of them early one summer Sunday morning. In his opening welcome he jibed, “We want to give a warm welcome to the Miller family attending en masse today…” Few caught the crack, many looking around to see who he had been referring to. Some never did get it. I thought it hilarious.

There is a strange and problematic habit Millers have, though, that I just cannot figure out. I lit a campfire tonight in my backyard, and as the flame caught and roared its opening blaze, one after the other flew into the small inferno and perished. I stepped back and watched the scene with astonishment. It had been a while since I had had a campfire during a Miller migration.

What glitch has there been in this little creature’s evolutionary development that might lead it to do this? One would think that through the eons it would have learned to sense heat before casting itself headlong into the flame. In fact, I can think of no other organism in the animal kingdom that will run intentionally and recklessly toward its own demise, perhaps save man. Even the proverbial overpopulated lemming casting itself into the sea is a myth. Now, granted, moth brains cannot be very substantial, but is there not some powerful instinct in every creature for survival, for the capacity to endure, to persist, to last, to live? I don’t get it.

Yes, the only other creature that can display this destructive propensity is a human being. We often race toward things that can destroy us.

The Bible says that “…the wages of sin is death…,” a pretty costly price for what usually amounts to a bauble. And yet we run headlong toward it. What is sin’s ultimate attraction anyway? Now, I am not inferring that we, like the Miller hurtling toward the flame, are running eagerly toward the fires of hell; thankfully, there are lots of ways God can use to redeem us from our tendencies to self-destruction before it’s too late. I guess I am more inferring my confusion that we run away from the possibility of vibrant life to something hurtful, something far from life-giving in the end. I don’t get it.

Perhaps God doesn’t either.

I came across an old prayer recently: “Lord, grant me the fullness of your grace, that I, running to your promises, may become a partaker of your treasure.”

Now that’s something worth pursuing.

~~RGM, Adapted from a 2012 Entry

in my Leather Nature Journal

From My Nature Journal: ‘Perpetual Wildness’ and the Human Heart

A few months ago I finished a book my son Jarrett had recommended, one I finally ended up borrowing from my Chicago brother John, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. (Which reminds me, I need to return it!) It’s a fascinating read, and chronicles the impact of the three named things on societal development down through human history, and, ultimately, their ongoing influence on world politics and culture, even geography, to the present day. I am jazzed by history, both human and natural, and Diamond did not disappoint. It’s a fine book…

As might be imagined, Diamond also addressed prior steps in societal and cultural development that made possible the eventual impact of guns, germs and steel. Of course, the recruitment of fire as a manufacturing method was a necessary advancement, making possible the refining of metals. Another was the development of agriculture, which brought people together to settle in closer proximity with others, in contrast to those societies in which independent and widespread hunting and gathering predominated in family groups. This sped up further social evolution: with farmers now able to produce more food than they could alone eat, simple market economies developed, allowing in time the establishment of such things as specialized guilds, skilled artisans, even civic leadership. Few things, however, had the technological ability to advance a settled ancient culture more quickly than the domestication of animals. And we’re not just talking horsepower.

Picture it. A helpful canine companion for the hunt, or feline friend for rodent control... Ox power in the field… Reliable milk and meat in the pen or shelter… Wool and skins for clothing… Surefooted and seemingly inexhaustible steeds for travel… But interestingly, animal domestication also came with a drawback. Coupled with the greater proximity of people in close settlement with each other, it was intimate animal contact that also brought about the development of serious communicable diseases, the germs part of the triumvirate. I guess some bitter almost always comes with the sweet.

But back to animal domestication, my subject of interest du jour. Historians are united in their agreement that the first animal to be domesticated was the dog, bred, of course, from wild wolves and dingoes. This had already long taken place by 10,000 BC, with the date of domestication difficult

to pin down with precision. What followed then was the domestication of what has been called the ‘ancient fourteen,’ the great, domestic, herbivorous, utilitarian land mammals, in the following likely order and timing:

·      sheep, goats and pigs by 8000 BC

·      cows by 6000 BC

·      horses, donkeys and water buffalo by 4000 BC

·      llamas and alpacas by 3500 BC

·      camels by 2500 BC

·      reindeer, yaks, gaurs (oxen native to India and Malaysia) and bantengs (oxen native to Bali), dates unknown

Cats were in there somewhere, likely by about 8000 BC, though this is also more speculative. But I’ve never been sure they’re really domesticated anyhow. They just let us live in their house. Perhaps, in their way, they have domesticated us…

Other attempts have been made at the domestication of additional mammals, but without success. Individuals can be tamed, of course, even carnivores, but bred domestication is something else altogether. It doesn’t matter how tame a wild animal has become: some of the wild remains in it, and its offspring will be wild. I recall an interesting article in National Geographic several years ago about efforts established in Russia over a century ago, and still ongoing, to domesticate the fox, but it has not yet been successful. No doubt successful domestication took much longer than a hundred years. Who knows how long it actually took? And thousands of additional years have passed since, breed upon breed developed in some cases. Can you just imagine both Chihuahuas and St. Bernards from the same ancestors?

But here’s what I wanted to get at. I found a couple of comments in reference to domestication that were fascinating -- obvious, but fascinating, and thought provoking in relation to my nature and Christian spirituality blog. Jared Diamond says that there were animals that “…presented insuperable obstacles to domestication.” Insuperable. That means ‘impossible to overcome.’ Diamond quoted British scientist Francis Galton as putting it this way: "It would appear that every wild animal has had its chance of being domesticated, that a few… were domesticated long ago, but that the large remainder, who failed sometimes in only one small particular, are destined to perpetual wildness.”

Destined to perpetual wildness. Insuperable obstacles to domestication.

Intense.

“…Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love…” is the way the hymn writer said it.  The Prophet Jeremiah, speaking forcefully within a deeply degraded culture, put it much more severely: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)" Or elsewhere in Genesis 6, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Can my wildness, my proneness to wander,

be softened, tempered, or at least tamed?

How ‘destined to perpetual wildness’ am I?

Hmmm. Evil continually. Can my wildness, my proneness to wander, be softened, tempered, or at least tamed? How ‘destined to perpetual wildness’ am I? Are we? Lord, have mercy. Jesus:

Purify my heart. Touch me with Your cleansing fire.

Take me to the cross: Your holiness is my desire.

Breathe Your life in me. Kindle a love that flows from Your throne.

Lord, purify my heart, purify my heart.

~~ RGM, February 13, 2017