Trees

That's right. This post will be about trees.

Currently going through (over and over) the beginning of the Bible, I think about the trees of the garden of Eden. The LORD God made trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food, first of all. This gives pause more than ever after choosing a vegetarian lifestyle for forty days. How many different kinds of fruits ("trees that bear fruit with seed in it" according to Scripture) can I add to my palate, to maintain variety? And when I take the time to look at the fruit, indeed, they are aesthetically pleasing. The roundness of the pear, the beautiful mixture of red and yellow in the skin of the apple.

CRUNCH. Most definitely good for food. Sweet juices trickle down the side of my mouth which my tongue enthusiastically wipes clean.

Then there were two other trees. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why did the tempter neglect to deceive the woman to eat from the first tree? What did he know that she didn't?

The end of the Bible then talks about that first tree. The tree of life will heal the nations; the curse will be lifted (curse of sin?). But before we get to the end, Psalm 1 also talks about a tree that always bears its fruit in season, never withers, always prospers. Taking root in the Word of God.

Yesterday, I watched a video about the earth. One that talked about how we need to be careful at how we use its limited resources. I thought of the scene in Evan Almighty where the God character shows Evan how he had intended the land to look. Certainly, we have a lot of cleaning up to do, just as there are many ways in which we could be living off of much less.

But the part of the trees also got to me. The narrator had said something about how trees are the only living creatures that perpetually defy gravity. They feed off the sun and transform its energy into leaves and wood. Sure its roots dig deep for water, but what about this idea of looking to the sun to provide real life?

Later the narrator talks about how we penetrate the depths of the earth to sequester as much coal and oil as we can for ourselves, and that in the end, it really just leads to the destruction of our planet. What if we stopped looking inside for answers, and followed the example of the trees? What if we instead looked to the Son for our source of energy/life? Might there be less dangerous side-effects? Might this be what it means to see this healing of the nations talked about in Revelation?

Chau.