I went for a walk in the wood last weekend. But the woods weren’t there anymore. I hadn’t been on that network of trails since autumn rains and winter snows began. When the snow melted, I headed back to my favourite hillsides. The gravel road leading to the trailhead was gone. “Closed,” a sign said. The hillside slopes looked like a testbed for a Mars probe -- not a living thing left anywhere. The developer is expanding his subdivision. Okay, I accept that he has a legal right to do so. I also accept that a municipality cannot collect taxes from trees. But why this obsession with eliminating everything green? For this subdivision’s first phase, the builder worked around the trees. Some of them, anyway. A few of the original pines remain. Subsequent construction phases cleared everything. I guess it’s easier to build in a gravel pit -- you can always plant trees later. Non-native species, of course. In 20 years, they’ll provide patches of nature  between blacktop roads and stucco houses.
Because we can In my freelancing days, I wrote the history of a church in Mississauga, Ontario. When the first settlers arrived there, the land was covered with white pines. So tall, so straight, they were used for the masts of the great ocean-going clipper ships. Not one of those pines remains. Mississauga today embodies Malvina Reynolds’ lyrics -- endless rows of “boxes, made of ticky-tacky… and they all look the same.” Why do we do it? I suspect the answer is simple -- because we can. We have the tools and the power, so we use them. It’s the same rationale used by the dirt bikes and ATVs that chew up the hiking trails. So far, I haven’t found one trail without the scars of knobbly tires. I stopped one rider. “You know this is a hiking trail, don’t you?” I asked. “Sure,” he said behind his Darth Vader full-face helmet. “I checked the sign; it said motorized vehicles are welcome if we stay on the trails.” I don’t know what sign he was reading. That network has just three trailheads, or entry points. Two of them state clearly: “Motorized vehicles are requested to stay off the hiking trails.” The third used to say the same, but the tree the sign was attached to no longer exists. Bulldozed.
Sacred symbols And yet if anything in nature should be treated as a sacred symbol, it would be trees.
Years ago, for my daughter’s 12th birthday, I wrote a little book of poems for her. They encouraged her to see familiar things in new ways. So I wrote about trees as “stitches” that kept the earth and sky from splitting apart -- roots gripping the ground like toes, branches grasping the air like fingers. I may have been more prophetic than I realized at the time. Max Adams wrote a book he called The Wisdom of Trees. He doesn’t suggest that trees have brains, or even feelings. But they have experienced this earth longer than any other living thing. At 10,000 years, some bristlecone pines of high California are older than all of recorded history. Oaks can live 500 years; yew trees, 2000. Trees learned how to pump fluid to great heights long before we did. They discovered how to bind tensile fibres together long before we invented glass- or carbon-reinforced plastics. They created solar panels -- we call them leaves -- to harvest the sun’s energy. Their wood gave us fire, building materials, tools, weapons… Says Adams, “If trees are not our teachers, we are at least their pupils. They have given us shelter, medicine, shade, food, and fuel in great abundance. Forests are the earth’s lungs and climate-regulators, habitatprotectors and the greatest reserves of biodiversity.” I would go further than Adams. We are not just pupils, but the children of trees. But for trees, we wouldn’t be. The oxygen they created as a waste product provided the atmosphere for our first breath. A host of recent studies show that minds, bodies, and emotions work better when we are exposed to green spaces. Especially to trees. The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries even coined a term for it: shinrin-yoku. It means taking in the forest atmosphere -- literally, "forest bathing," A century ago, poet Joyce Kilmer wrote, “I think that I shall never see/ a poem lovely as a tree.” In another century, given our obsession with getting rid of inconvenient trees, we may never see a tree at all. ******************************************************** Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca ********************************************************
YOUR TURN
The mail last week broke all records -- 37 letters -- because of a column that wasn’t there! Joan and I thank all of you for your good wishes and prayers. Whatever it was, something worked. Joan has been much better this week, and the cough that had been gobbling up her scarce energy has almost gone. I won’t attempt to acknowledge all of your letters. A few of you added personal anecdotes and experiences.
As Ginny Adams wrote: “Boy, do I appreciate your comments on how your mind is ‘gel’ with your wife's illness. Same here, too, my spouse, Tim Adams, has a very bad pneumonia, and he's pastoring a church here in Aberdeen SD. Glad I'm also a semi-retired pastor as I'm working full time this week, and  my mind is also ‘gel’.”
I was particularly moved by a letter from Dao-Zeun Chu, the unofficial secretary of my class back in India: “I am really sorry to read that Joan is not feeling well. She has been battling cancer for so long and so courageously, I pray she will overcome whatever is getting her down this time too. We will keep her, indeed both of you, in our mind and pray for her recovery soon. “I also got the bad news on Friday that my cancer has returned. I too will be starting my chemo infusions treatment soon. Joan and I shall both prevail. All the best to you both.”
David Pickering wrote from Leeds, in England: “There is much in life that we can be tempted to take for granted, I include in my lengthy personal list the posts from you that fly over the Atlantic and pop into my inbox with thoughts and perspectives. They are always a good read…
“I can also take health for granted, but your message is a reminder that is a mistake too. So I wanted to say thank you for courageously sharing about life for us all, and your family life too, with someone you have never met and are unlikely to meet.”
Like David, several other writers felt prompted by the absence of a column took time to tell me how much they appreciated these weekly mailings. Gerhard Neufeld put it in a slightly different way: “Sometimes I wish your blog would have LESS truth in it!”
Gwen Boyd traced her connection to my family waaaaay back: “You don’t know me but I subscribe to your weekly columns and have for some time. I am a retired UC minister and actually spent a night with your parents on when my husband and I were on our honeymoon!”
Rob Brown (who describes himself as a “post-Socratic gadfly”) has been one of my longer-term readers: “I remember, ages ago, when you first mentioned that Joan had been diagnosed with cancer. I was concerned than, and have been ever since. And now this. I don’t suppose there is anything I can do which would be helpful, but I will carry both of you in my mind and heart.”
Jean Hamilton sent good wishes, and some comments on the letters I forwarded last week on previous columns: “A couple of comments on the comments. “First, I had forgotten how offensive exclusively male language is, ("all men are created equal,") probably because we hear it so seldom these days. I guess that means that we have made more progress than we might have realized, and that is to be celebrated. “As for the Ghomeshi trial, it is so discouraging to see that once again it is the accusers, rather than the accused, who are on trial. Not much progress there. “And I want to cheer for Tom Watson's take on the connection, or lack of it, between sin and suffering. I thought that Jesus had laid this debate to rest with his response to the question, ‘Who has sinned, this man or his parents?’ I just heard from a friend yesterday who, having already lost a son, been widowed in mid-life, and losing her vision to macular degeneration, has now lost a daughter to breast cancer. So I found Tom’s comments timely.”
Along with his good wishes, Tom Watson kept the conversation going on sin and suffering: “We may well be bearing, to a greater extent than we'd like to own up to, the fruits of our own folly because of what we are doing to our food and our environment. “A case in point, I think, is that of genetically modified foods. On the one hand, the ability to produce greater crop yields may well mean a greater ability to feed the earth's population, and yet at the same time we're not yet sure of the effects of genetically modified foods on our bodies. Why, oh why, does everything seem to revolve around trade-offs?”
********************************************
TECHNICAL STUFF
This column comes to you using the electronic facilities of Woodlakebooks.com.        If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.        To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedgesunsubscribe@quixotic.ca.        You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.        I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedgessubscribe@quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
 Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.com Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up,  http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>  Alan Reynold’s weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap” -- reynoldsrap@shaw.ca  Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com  Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town – not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net
***************************************