If Trees Could Talk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

This is the text of the reflection I offered on Sunday, January 7, 2018, at the congregation I serve in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Bare Tree" (© Erik Walker Wikstrom  2012)

During that tree planting ceremony I was talking about during the Story Time, when it got to my mentor and friend Ed Lane, he talked about spending time in Sequoia National Park, out in California.  He mentioned, in particular, one tree there – the largest and oldest tree in the Park – the General Sherman Tree.  (It was named after General Sherman in 1879 by naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War.)  This tree – not only the largest in Sequoia National Park, but in the world, I’ve learned – is estimated to be about 2,000 years old, and Ed mused on the stories that tree could tell, if only it could talk.

“That tree first grew around the time that Jesus was on the earth,” Ed said.  It would have been able to observe the thriving cultures of the Monachee and Potwisha peoples, the arrival, and eventual dissolution of the Kaweah Cooperative Commonwealth, a experimental socialist colony established there in 1886 (which renamed the tree the Karl Marx Tree, and which is remembered in the name of the largest and most eco-featured residence at local Twin Oaks Community).  This tree would be able to tell of Colonel Charles Young and his company of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers, who served as caretakers of the, then, 13-year old national park.  And, of course, it could talk about the visit of Ed and Helen Lane, in more modern times.  Oh, the stories that tree could tell, if only it could talk.

The oldest tree in Virginia, until it’s death in 2008, was a bald cypress dating back 1,000 years or more which lived in a remote swamp 80 miles southeast of Richmond.  (I couldn’t find anything about the tree that claimed its title as the oldest tree in the Commonwealth today.)  Oh the stories that tree could tell; the things it witnessed. 

The oldest tree in the world, until 2013, the oldest individual tree in the world was Methuselah, a 4,845-year-old Great Basin bristlecone, in the White Mountains of California.  It didn’t give up its status because it died, but because an even older tree has been discovered – another Bristle Cone Pine, in the same region, that is 5,062 years old. 

By contrast, the oldest living animal on the planet – again, until recently – was Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise, estimated to have been roughly 255-years old when it died.  The member of our own species with the longest lifespan was Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997, at the age of 122 years, 164 days. (She was born in 1875.  To put that in some perspective, she met Vincent van Gogh when she was 12 or 13.)  The oldest living person today is a woman from Jamaica named Violet Brown, who is 117 years old.

The oldest living person today could tell stories of our history over the past hundred years or so, but the oldest tree, if it could talk, could tell tales of the past 5,000 years.

Besides being, I hope, at least at least a little as interesting to you as it’s been to me to learn all of this, why am I spending time on a Sunday morning giving something of a biological history lesson?  Because I believe that trees can talk, and their collective longevity gives them more than a little perspective.

What do I mean when I say that trees can talk?  A member of the congregation emailed me this week, having seen today’s topic, and told the story of a very difficult year for his wife and himself.  While he was in the hospital, he was able to see a tree outside his window, and he was moved to write a poem:

Outside my window

Is a tree

Large, imposing, yet graceful.

It's arms extending

Reaching towards Heaven.

Though last month stripped of leaves

Its fingers left intact

Provide haven for perching

Flocks of dark starlings.

Hundreds flying and landing

In perfect unison

Against fall's backdrop

of

Clear, blue skies.

Years later, while sharing this poem, someone suggested to him that the tree he was looking at, the tree that inspired that poem, was a living metaphor for … him.  He concluded the email, “I wonder if perhaps, that tree, at that critical point in my life, did talk to me.”

And, as I said to our children earlier, every single person in that circle during that tree planting ceremony – almost 25 years ago now – had a story about a tree – or trees! – that had touched their lives and, it’s really not much of a stretch to say, taught them something important.

We’ve begun, this year, to order our liturgical cycle not only by monthly themes – and this month it’s the image of a bare tree, but seasonally as well, taking a category of life’s Big Questions.  For the winter it’s:  why is life so full of pain and struggle, and what can we do about it?  Why do people we love die?  What do dreams shatter?  Why do our dreams so often elude us?  Simply, why is it so often so hard between the twin realities of being born and having to die?

Those are questions which, ultimately, have no answers – no definitive nor, for most of us when we’re in the midst of the struggle, fully satisfying answers.  But the “what to do about it?” piece, does.  And I think – not surprisingly given what I’ve said so far – that one of the places we can go for those answers is, not surprisingly, trees.

Trees, as the examples I’ve given, are often long lived, so they take the long view.  If those trees could talk they would tell stories of joys and sorrows, loss and gain, celebrations and consternations, hard times and good times, and they would tell us that all of these things come and go.  No one experience of reality is eternal; no one experience lasts forever.  And so it is with us.  Our lives see this same rising and falling, ebb and flow, and whatever hard time we’re going through at the moment will pass.  It is as certain as the branches of the bare tree bringing forth new leaves in the springtime.

They would also remind us that even in those hard times all is not lost.  As the poet in our midst noted from his hospital bed, even the bare branches in wintertime, “provide haven for perching / flocks of dark starlings.”  And so, for us, even in the midst of our struggles, when it might appear to us that there is nothing good, there always is something to celebrate.  I do not mean this in a pollyanna-ish way, the so often too glib idea that “every cloud has a silver lining,” as if that should make everything “okay.”  As Monday’s page of my Grumpy Cat calendar said, “Don’t forget:  every silver lining is part of a larger, darker cloud.”  Yet without denying the reality of that cloud, trees tell us that even in the times of our own winter bareness we can be on the lookout for those starlings.

Trees put down roots.  Some have very shallow roots, and those are easily knocked down during powerful storms.  The ones that have roots that go deep can withstand the hardest winds.  Remember, as the poet Marge Piercy noted in a poem (that’s at #568 in our hymnals), “More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.”  If we listen well to the teachings of the trees we will sink our roots, too, deep into the soil of our lives, deep into what grounds us and nourishes us.

At the same time, as Taoist sages observed centuries ago, the winds of life can break a tree that is too rigid, too stiff.  Flexibility is a lesson we so often forget – the flexibility to bend with those winds, to resist the urge to fight them, to push back, but, rather, to accept them as they blow, knowing that the time will come when the winds end and we can rise again.

Three more teachings, quickly.  (There are so many more that I can’t mention before my time, and your patience, runs out … but which, perhaps, may give you a conversation starter during the time of fellowship in the social hall following the service.  Go up to someone and say, “Hey, what have trees taught you?”  And then, after listening to their answer, you can say, “Here’s something they taught me.”). 

First, after the first service someone on their way out told me that trees grow best in a diverse environment, with different species.  A grove which has only one kind of tree in it doesn’t do as well.  I don’t think I need to elaborate on the lesson there.

Second, those Bristlecone Pines I mentioned – Methuselah and its successor?  Again, someone on their way out of the first service asked me if I knew what else it needed to live so long, besides the obvious sun, water, nourishing soil:  fire.  It needs fire to survive.  This, too, is something I don’t need to expand on.

The lesson I want to offer you of the teachings of trees comes from a fact about trees that I haven’t mentioned yet.  Those long-lived trees I talked about earlier?  They are individual trees.  There is another type of tree, a tree that grows in colonies, which, though made up of individual trunks and branches, are considered to be one living organism, because they share genetic markers and grow from one root stock.  The oldest of these is not 1,000 years old, or 5,000 years old.  The oldest living colony tree is … wait for it … 80,000 years old. 

The lesson here, too, is obvious, but I will spell it out – don’t go it alone during the hard times.  Be part of a colony.  Remember the truth that if we are like trees, then we are colony trees, connected at our roots to one another, part of one another.  This faith community can help to us to have the lived experience of being part of a larger whole and, if this community does its job well, points us to the reality of our interconnectedness with all those who ever were, all those who will be, and the entirety of the earth and the cosmos on which and in which we live.

There is no avoiding the hard times we will unavoidably experience in this life, but the world abounds with lessons about how to cope with them.  As I said to our children, I hope that in this day (this week, this month, this year, this lifetime) you keep your eyes open to trees, and to the wisdom they offer.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

The Wisdom of Our Elders

This is the sermon I preached on June 14th, 2015 at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist in Charlottesville, Virginia.  You can listen to the podcast.

Thinking about Alex’s ordination this afternoon has had me in something of a nostalgic mood for my own.  I watched the video of it the other night and was reminded of the charge given to me by my friend, mentor, and minister, the Rev. Ed Lane.  Now … Ed could easily have looked and sounded at home in a colonial Unitarian or Universalist church, and would be an easy casting choice for a movie company looking for a Captain Ahab.  Wonderful man.  Great minister.  And O what a voice!  On that afternoon twenty years ago, he ascended to the pulpit and said that he had been in the parish ministry for forty-eight years – with a twinkle in his eye he noted that that was a year longer than the preacher of the day had been alive.  Then looked directly at me to say:

“My first bit of advice to you, Erik, is this:  don’t try to be an old curmudgeon until you are one.”

I have tried to live my life by that advice.

I’ll admit that in general sermons are kind of difficult for me to write and to preach.  I often step up here and look out at a room of people whose collective wisdom astonishes me, and I think of the hubris it takes to say a word.  So many know so much more than me.  And none have lived any less; learned any less about what it means to be alive.  And as I sit before my blank piece of digital paper my mind often goes blank as well, thinking how challenging a task it is to try to mine my little life for a glimpse of wisdom when what I really want to do is sit down and listen to you.  Many of you do not realize this, of course, and will probably even want to disagree with me, but you have lived such lives!

This sermon, in particular, has been difficult knwoing that this is a topic that Arthur has thought about for a long, long time.  He has a real passion for it – elders and wisdom.  In fact, he even wrote a draft of a sermon for this morning, something I hope you’ll all stop by the church’s blog to read.  It’s worth it.  Go to thetalkoftjmc (all one word) at blogspot.com.  Look for it on Tuesday.

I think if I had to boil Arthur’s sermon down to one sentence it would be this –  “We treat elders as objects when they are our greatest untapped resource.”  This is key to understanding not only his sermon, but, I think, perhaps Arthur himself.  So let me say that again, “We treat elders as objects when they are our greatest untapped resource.”

Think about that.  Really think about that.  In the dominant culture of the United States it is thought that once you have reached your euphemistically called “golden years” you’ve really done just about all that you’re going to do.  We measure meaning by how productive one is, and one’s productive years are assumed to be long gone as our hair color, or the hair itself, begins to go.  So we treat elders, as Arthur says, as objects because the culture’s focus has turned to trying to satisfy the physical needs of old age.  Geezerhood, as several of you call it, is a time for you to settle back from all the hard work of your earlier years and to now receive – by which we mean receive help with a seemingly ever-increasing list of ailments and afflictions.  (You know, they say that the short term memory is the first thing to go … and so is the short term memory.)

That may be what the prevailing culture says, but I meet every other week or so with our incredible Active Minds group – the group of “over 65” folk who meet in the church parlor on Thursdays at 1:00 to talk about … well … to talk about all sorts of things.  Let me tell you, there absolutely are some active minds in that crowd and our conversations can become quite … wide-ranging in scope.  No mere objects in that room.  Or in this.

Would those of you who are over 65, and willing to do this sort of thing, please rise in body or spirit?  (This is something Arthur thought we should do today, and I agree.)  Now, will those of you still sitting look at those who are standing and ask yourself what you see … who you see.  And now will those of you who are standing look at those who are sitting … who do you see, and how do you think you’re seen?  (Thanks.  Y’all can sit.)

Arthur told me that he experiences our community as counter-cultural.  Most of us younger folks (and even those who see people like me as old) actually recognize the importance of the elders in our midst; recognize the gifts they have to offer; recognize the lessons one learns over the course of a lifetime and the perspective the long view offers.  (And perhaps that’s a pretty good definition of wisdom – lessons learned over a lifetime seen through a long-view perspective.)

Yet even here the ageist bias can rear its ugly head.  I remember meeting with the Active Minds group early on in my ministry because a group of church leaders was worried that perhaps we weren’t doing enough to support the church’s elders and that we were not providing real opportunities for their meaningful involvement in church life.  I was sent to ask the group what it thought – always a good idea when you’re thinking of doing something for someone – and the almost universal response was:  we’re okay.  They said, essentially, we were “meaningfully involved” for years and now we’re happy to leave all that hectic activity to the younger folks.  Yet with all the passion of someone who’s not really listening I kept trying, “but … but … but … you have so much to offer!”  Their response was, pretty much, to gently pat my hand and say, “that’s nice dear.”

I still wonder if we could be doing something differently.  I do wonder if there’s some way to tap what Arthur calls, “our greatest untapped resource.”  He’s thinking nationally, perhaps, but it’s certainly true at the local level to.  And yet within the last couple of weeks at an Active Minds meeting part of the conversation is how hard it is to even try to keep up with the announcements of all that’s going on here, much less overcome the myriad of obstacles to getting “meaningfully” involved.  It’s something to keep thinking about.

And part of what makes me want to keep thinking about it is an international project that always inspires me when I think of it.  It’s called, quite simply and quite appropriately for this morning’s sermon: “The Elders.”  Let me quote from their website:

The concept originates from a conversation between the entrepreneur Richard Branson and the musician Peter Gabriel. The idea they discussed was simple: many communities look to their elders for guidance, or to help resolve disputes. In an increasingly interdependent world - a ‘global village’ - could a small, dedicated group of individuals use their collective experience and influence to help tackle some of the most pressing problems facing the world today?

Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel took their idea of a group of ‘global elders’ to Nelson Mandela, who agreed to support it. With the help of Graça Machel [former Minister of Education and Culture in Mozambique] and Desmond Tutu [who needs no introduction], Mandela set about bringing The Elders together and formally launched the group in Johannesburg, July 2007.

And what a group they are.  In addition to the aforementioned Mandela, Machel, and Tutu, the Elders consists of:

• Former President of Finland and Nobel Peace Laureate  Martti Ahtisaari;
• Former member of the Indian Parliament and founder of India’s first women’s bank (sometimes called the “gentle revolutionary”), Ela Bhatt;
• Former UN Secretary-General, Nobel Peace Laureate and current Chair of The Elders, Kofi Annan;
• Former Algerian freedom fighter, Foreign Minister, conflict mediator and UN diploma, Lahkdar Brahimi;
• First woman Prime Minister of Norway and current Deputy Chair of The Elders, Gro Harlem Brundtland;
• Former President of Brazil, Fernando Cardoso;
• Former President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo
• Former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter;
• Pioneering lawyer, pro-democracy campaigner, and a leading activist in Pakistan's women's movement, Hina Jilani; and
• First woman President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

 Hardly a group of mere objects.  Hardly people put out to pasture.  Most definitely a powerful, global resource.  We don’t hear about their work much, but they are out there, all over the place, doing all sorts of great things.  (Google them.  You’ll be amazed.)  None hold political office now, yet they each have the experience, the connections, and the earned respect that lets them be in those places where we need … well … where we need the wisdom of an elder.  We don’t hear much about their work, which is a shame and probably a result of the prevailing culture of dismissiveness toward elders … even elders such as these.

Given the history of so many societies having councils of elders as an important and integrated part of their culture and practices, one can only wonder why this one group hasn’t spawned offspring everywhere.  Ageism is a prevalent aspect of modern societies through the globe; it’s not just here. 

And that may bring us right back around to the point that I think both Arthur and I want to make today, a point that perhaps can go without saying and which therefore may all the more need to be said:

Our inherent worth and dignity is not limited to the time of life when our hearing was good; usefulness and productivity are not synonyms; just because someone has lived a long life doesn’t mean that there isn’t life left to live.  The wisdom I see when I look around this room – and I would dare say especially looking at the white and greying hair in this room – is astounding to me. When I walked around schmoozing during our recent Elder’s Dinner I was truly in awe.  And you who were there, being looked at in awe by me and by the others who were serving, probably had no idea that you could engender such feelings.  But you did.  You do.

So … non-elders … when you look at those who are, wherever and whenever you encounter them, remember to open your eyes, your ears, your heart to their wisdom and the contributions they are still making and have still to make.  And you … elders … I encourage you to take the chance and the opportunity to share who you are and what you are.  The rest of us need what only you can offer.

Pas tecum,

RevWik