St.

Vincent de Paul Parish Bible Study

COVID-19 Update 3

"He is like a tree planted near springs of water, that yields its fruit in
season; its leaves never wither; whatever he does prospers" [Ps 1:3].

So consumed are we by this virus, this microscopic bug that defines so much of our
lives today, I thought it would be good to step away from it, if only for a while, and turn
our attention to another, more benign, of God's creatures.

The universe is filled with wondrous objects, everything from interstellar dust to clusters
of galaxies, but God's greatest creative act was life itself. As revealed in Genesis, at the
pinnacle of God's creation is man:

"Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over
cattle according to their kinds, and every living thing that creeps upon the
ground according to its kind' [Gen 1:26].

But before He created sea life and birds and the beasts of the earth, before He created
man and woman, on the third day God created a very different kind of life, a lifeform
without which the rest of His living creation could not exist. God created the plants and
the trees:

"Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees
bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind upon the
earth" [Gen 1:11]

It was no accident, then that man and woman were first placed in a garden. There they
were nourished by the fruit of the garden's many trees and there, too, they ate the fruit
of the one tree forbidden to them:

"And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" [Gen 2:9].

We won't dwell on that first, original sin here, except to affirm that it wasn't the fault of
the tree. Indeed, as non-sentient creatures, trees are inherently faultless.

It's hard to dislike trees. They live such long and elevated lives and seem to project an
air of quiet stateliness. If you've read any of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, you will know he
had a special fondness for trees. Of course, there are his Ents, the wise, rootless tree
herders who come to the aid of civilization as it fights the forces of destruction. But I've
always thought the outcry of the hobbit Sam Gamgee in the concluding scenes of
Tolkien's trilogy mirrored the author's own sorrow over the sacrificial destruction of trees
by modern man:
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"They've cut it down!" cried Sam. "They've cut down the Party Tree!" He
pointed to where the tree had stood under which Bilbo had made his
farewell speech. It was lying lopped and dead in the field. As if this were
the last straw Sam burst into tears.

Trees offer us a sign of hope. Their very presence seems to restrain the powers of
desolation. Deserts and other empty places, treeless places, have never attracted me. I
can imagine no more unpleasant place than the Sahara Desert or the appropriately
named Death Valley.

In the books of Exodus and Numbers, God leads the Israelites into the desert. This
wilderness is no Eden, but rather a place of trial that tests their faith and readies them
for their entrance into the Promised Land. Jesus, too, in preparation for His public
ministry and all that will follow, is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, a place of
desolation, where He encounters the temptations of Satan. One senses that the evil one
is quite at home in such places

I, too, was once led into the desert, but by the United States Navy. As a young pilot,
about to join a squadron destined for service in the Vietnam conflict, I was required to
complete a course in survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) to prepare me
for the possibility of capture by our nation's enemies. Conducted in Southern California's
high desert it taught me many useful excellent survival skills. It also reaffirmed my
determination to avoid capture and my dislike of deserts. But deserts are not the only
desolate, treeless places. Consider, for example, the island nation of Iceland.

I've been to Iceland only twice, both just brief stopovers. On my first visit, in the summer
of 1965, our U.S. Navy transport plane landed at what was then Keflavik Naval Air
Station to refuel. We had only a few hours on the ground, but that was long enough to
convince me that Iceland was a barren, forbidding looking place. I wasn't sure why until
we took off and could view the landscape from above. That's when it hit me: I saw no
trees. Indeed, most of the surface was hardened lava and rock, all craggy and stark and
seemingly lifeless. As a 21-year-old, I had never met an Icelander so I wondered what
kind of people would call this desolate island home. I assumed these descendants of
the Vikings were hardy, practical folks who probably considered themselves slightly
superior to the rest of humanity. Today, 55 years later, I've still never met an Icelander,
at least not up close and personal, so my prejudice remains.

In September of 2012, I visited Iceland once again, this time in the company of Diane.
This visit, too, was brief; all of it spent in the terminal. The first leg of our Iceland Air
flight took us from Orlando to Keflavik, now a major civilian airport. After a 90-minute
wait, we changed planes for the flight to our ultimate destination, London's Gatwick
Airport. As we took off, only moments after sunrise, Diane, who had been looking out
the window, turned to me and said, "You know what?" I simply replied, "Yes, there are
no trees." She laughed, "That's exactly what I was going to say."
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Actually, Iceland is not completely devoid of trees. But, according to friends who have
spent more than a few hours there, you have to look for them. One repeated an old
Icelandic saying, which has become a common line fed to tourists: "In Iceland if you see
three trees together, you're in a forest." In truth, there are a couple of actual forests,
although the trees tend to be rather stunted; for example, birch trees that rarely exceed
15 feet in height. For me it's all very sad, and I could never live in such a place, a place
where trees are rare.

I suppose I've always enjoyed the presence of trees, these most magnificent of God's
rooted creatures. When I was a boy, I climbed many trees, especially one of the
Japanese maples in our suburban New York front yard. I often stretched out
comfortably on its branches for an hour or so, to avoid life's distractions, or to read a
book, or just to observe the goings on in our quiet neighborhood.

Our front yard was also home to a large weeping willow, another target of opportunity
for my climbing skills. Sadly, my parents were forced to remove that tree because its
thirsty roots broke into our home's water pipes.

And what can be more inviting to a 10-year-old boy than a trail leading into a forest? My
friends and I would occasionally bicycle several miles to a local woodland called Saxon
Woods and spend the day playing imaginative games amidst the trees.

When we lived on Cape Cod, I would often take our children to visit the tree we called,
"the greatest tree in the world." A European Weeping Beech, its branches form a
magnificent canopy, stretching haphazardly in all directions. It is an incredibly special
tree and, were it permitted, would be a marvelous climbing tree. But aware of its age
and fragility, we simply sit in its shade, surrounded by its presence.

Let me assure you, though, I am not a tree-hugger and never experienced the urge to
embrace any of those perfectly formed climbing trees. Even as a child, I realized that
trees, while certainly living creatures, lacked awareness of their own existence and of
mine. People are free to hug trees if they like, even talk to them, but to expect a
response...well, that’s nothing but a cry for help. As a wise Baptist farmer once said to
me, "Don't talk to the garden; talk with the Gardener." Trees, created by God, the
cosmic Gardener, deserve our attention, if not our hugs, both for their beauty and their
utility.

That utility can be intentional, like the sawed boards I often turned into bookcases, or
accidental, like the dead beech recalled by the poet, Wendell Barry:

the great hollow-trunked beech,

a landmark I loved to return to,
its leaves gold-lit on the silver
branches in the fall: blown down
after a hundred years of standing,
a footbridge over the stream;
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Its beauty destroyed by death, the beech continues to serve other creatures. In Sacred
Scripture, too, we find trees blessed for their utility. Indeed, a tree becomes a key
element of hospitality during a divine visit to the patriarch Abraham and his wife, Sarah:

"The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat in the

entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot. Looking up, he saw
three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the
entrance of the tent to greet them, and bowing to the ground, he said, 'Sir,
if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let some water be
brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree'" [Gen
18:1-4].

In Isaiah we encounter the tree's utility, both for good and for evil purpose. Of the
idolatrous woodcutter, Isaiah writes:

"He goes out to cut down cedars, takes a holm tree or an oak. He picks
out for himself trees of the forest, plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. It
is used for fuel: with some of the wood he warms himself; makes a fire
and bakes bread...Half of it he burns in the fire, on its embers he roasts
meat; he eats the roast and is full. He warns himself and says, 'Ah! I am
warm! I see the flames!' The rest of it he makes into a god, an image to
worship and adore. He prays to it and says, 'Help me! You are my god!'
They do not know, do not understand; their eyes are too clouded to see,
their minds, to perceive" [Is 44:14-18].

Scripture also offers us symbolic trees as metaphors of something greater. One of the
briefest of psalms uses the olive tree to describe the family of the righteous man:

"Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your home, your children like
young olive plants around your table. Just so will the man be blessed who
fears the Lord" [Ps 128:3-4].

There are dozens, probably hundreds, of other Old Testament references to trees, far
too many to include here. But let me refer you to chapter four of the Book of Jonah, in
which God uses a tree to teach His reluctant prophet a lesson in humility and the love of
God. It's worth a read.

Jesus frequently referred to trees in His teaching; for example, when He described the
Kingdom:

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took
and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown
it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air
come and make nests in its branches" [Mt 13:31-32].

Jesus called on the tree, too, when teaching the apostles of their role in the Church:
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"I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower...I am the vine; you
are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing" [Jn 15:1,5].

And perhaps most fittingly and most gloriously, Jesus was nailed to the dead remnant of
a tree. He died on that tree, raised up for all to see, making it the universal symbol of
our Christian faith. We celebrate that tree, that Holy Cross, every time we bless
ourselves and others with its sign. We honor the tiniest pieces of that tree, protecting
them in reliquaries spread throughout the world. The Cross is, in a very real sense, the
Tree of Life, the Tree of Eternal Life.

As Christians, indeed as human beings, we should praise and thank God for the
goodness of His creation. Take a moment to turn to the Book of the Prophet Daniel and
read the beautiful prayer of blessing by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they
stood in the fiery furnace in the Presence of God. It is a prayer echoed by all of creation.
[See Dan 3:51-90]

This is a good lesson for us today, as we huddle in our homes, separated from others,
wondering when it will all end. But even now we can walk through our neighborhoods
and see God’s creative goodness spread out all around us. Savor it. Breathe it in
deeply. Thank God for it.