How to be a Tree

The world around us is a great teacher. Nature, in all its mute complexity, expresses such vibrant wisdom and emotion. The Bible says that creation groans (Romans 8:22), the mountains and hills burst into song and the trees of the field applaud the Lord (Isaiah 55:12). Besides this, “the heavens tell the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth.” (Psalm 19:1-4)

Since I was two years old, I have lived as close to nature as it is possible to do without growing up in a tent. I have miles of forest for my backyard. On one side, a stream makes its way through a grassy, forested hillside filled with wildflowers, while on the other a meadow stretches outward giving a stunning view of a mountain which reaches 13,000 feet above sea level. During the day, if I look out my window, I might see a bear stopping to scratch his back on a tree or eat some ants out of a decaying stump. I might chase half a dozen deer away from the flower garden, or pause to watch a flock of turkeys bob through the tall grass. At nighttime, the stars are so bright and numerous that you feel the insignificance of your little life, and the world is so quiet that you could feel like the only living being besides the crickets. I have learned to love nature, and at times I have been so far away from the bustle of the world that I’ve had no choice but to listen to its inaudible voice and learn from it because no other teachers were available to me.

Today, as my mom and I followed a quiet and deserted trail through the forest, eating wild raspberries, hopping streams, and admiring the foliage, I started to turn my thoughts towards the trees around me. As fall slowly closes in on the mountains, the trees dutifully begin to change. There has hardly been a whisper of fall, but the tips of the leaves have begun to glow ever so delicately with yellow, and blush ever so sweetly with red. Their work of the spring and summer is over, and they seem to nearly be bursting with excitement at the thought of the winter’s rest ahead of them.

As I admired their beauty, I had a curious thought. What does a tree work for? When an acorn, fallen to the ground, finds lodging in the soil and becomes an oak tree, and this oak tree grows, produces leaves, lets them drop in the fall, only to grow the leaves back and busily produce more acorns, what is it hoping to achieve? You could say that its purpose is to feed the squirrels and the bears, to put more oxygen into the air, to provide shade for weary travelers, and to keep the soil from eroding, but these are just uses that other beings put the tree to, or effects of their existence. I doubt that the tree works all year just to feed the squirrels. Rather, I think the goal of a tree is to simply be a tree. It works all year, sheds its leaves, and produces acorns so that, when the last of the snow melts, it can continue to be a tree and maybe in the process create more trees which will grow up and be trees. It is the same, I pondered, with other things in nature. The squirrel works to collect acorns and store up enough food for the winter so that it can continue being a squirrel. The bear eats enough berries and nuts so that she may remain a bear, and protects her young so that they may remain bears as well. It seems at first glance to be a hollow and purposeless object, but then I think, isn’t it enough just to be? Isn’t simply being a tree a great and glorious thing and something worth striving for if, indeed, you are a tree?

Trees are so good at treeing and squirrels are remarkably adept at squirreling, but humans, I think, are so caught up with feeding the squirrels with their acorns, and keeping the soil intact, and filling the world with oxygen, that we have lost our skill at humaning. As humans, the Bible says we are made in the image of God. Being a human, then, has unimaginable dignity and glory. We have the honor to bear his image and proclaim his glory to all of creation, simply by being human. I think that we are far too concerned with producing fruit, and our work becomes toil because of it. But I think that when we turn our attention to reflecting God in a way that only the human, in the image of God, can, the squirrels will get fed, the soil will stay intact, and the air will be crisp, clean, and filled with oxygen  without our meaning to do so. If we are humaning well, of course we will produce fruit, and our fruit will identify us as humans and image bearers, but the fruit isn’t the end goal. The end goal, I think, is to be human, to reflect the glory of God, and to lovingly and devotedly bear His image. If we keep our eyes on Christ, our prize and our perfect human example, the rest will fall into place.