Pastor Devin Strong

Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church

One of the toughest things about being a pastor is trying to convince myself and others to live a radically different life than what we see in much of American society.

After all, capitalism and the American way have produced incredible comforts and blessings for many of us. Why would you and I want to turn our backs on habits that work for us?

Perhaps because Jesus says so, except what this first century rabbi teaches seems to be an anomaly. So much of what the world tells us is to look out for number one, accumulate as much as we can, and climb over others who get in our way. In such a world, promoting the ethics of Jesus of Nazareth to oneself or others is a tough sell. But just maybe care for others, sacrifice, and new life are actually built into the fabric of creation.

I am no expert on nature.

As a kid who grew up in the suburbs and an adult who does life from a wheelchair, I spend most of my life on the pavement. Still, I try to stretch my base of knowledge whenever I can. Toward that end, I just finished a fascinating book. It’s titled, The Hidden Life of Trees by German forest scientist, Peter Wohlleben. In this book the author does a lot more than describe the different characteristics of trees. Since he is mostly writing about trees that exist within a forest, he writes extensively about how the trees live together, how they behave, and even how they “think.”

With his deep love for our arboreal neighbors, Wohlleben ascribes almost human motivations to the trees that he cares for and studies.

For starters, this author helped me realize that much of the life of giant trees happens underground. Their extensive root systems do more than suck water and keep the mighty Oak standing. Trees send messages through these underground pathways. They let other trees know about potential dangers above.

They send signals to their leaves to produce certain scents as warnings for other trees. In addition, these huge creatures partner with the smallest organisms for their mutual benefit. Various fungi attach themselves to the roots of trees, both as a means of finding nutrients themselves and helping the tree maximize food and water resources. It turns out that even the biggest in nature need help from some of the smallest in nature.

More than that, Wohlleben insists that trees make friends, that they are entirely capable of distinguishing both the branches and root systems of trees of their same species versus those of other species. Trees will willingly divert resources to a sick friend and feed it from their own storage, and they will not grow, above or below ground, into the space of a friendly tree. Trees even help keep their weaker neighbors standing in a storm.

Perhaps most exciting of all, when a tree falls in the forest, neighboring trees have been known to give nutrients to dying stump so that it can, in turn, grow the next generation of saplings. Do trees know something about death and new life?!

Learning all this about trees makes me wonder if the grace and healing of Jesus aren’t the order of the universe after all and the greed and self-centeredness of our “sophisticated” society the anomaly.