by This post was originally published by CCDA Org Member Kinship Plot as part of their Lenten devotional series. We hope that these words encourage you as you reflect on the earth and our relationship to it.
In our increasingly mobile world, trees offer a beautiful model of stability. Rooted in one place, trees are a stabilizing force for the whole ecosystem, including human beings and our temptation to link mobility with freedom and progress.
Trees are stabilizers for the soil, with roots reaching down and out to bind the soil together and prevent runoff and erosion. The canopy of leaves filters rainfall so it falls more gently and slowly on the soil, and the roots provide channels for the water to seep into the depths.
Trees are stabilizers for the atmosphere, absorbing carbon dioxide and pollutants, storing carbon, releasing oxygen, and improving air quality. Through their rootedness and leafy abundance, trees fight forces that threaten to destabilize our finely-tuned atmosphere.
And that ecosystem includes us humans.
Trees and Humanity
Trees help to stabilize us relationally by inviting us to interact with them and the other creatures they host, noticing the beauty of small changes and gestures. They also stabilize us emotionally if we are willing to stand before them, walk among them, and pay attention.
Beyond these ordinary ways that trees stabilize, they also show us the goodness of stability itself, of remaining rooted in one place and receiving its physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational gifts. The Benedictine Christian tradition embraces stability as a core value and a portal into fullness of life.
Contrary to popular wisdom that mobility creates greater freedom, Benedictines believe that rootedness is the precondition for true freedom and flourishing. Trees would agree.
As professor Norman Wirzba writes in his book This Sacred Life: “Rootedness makes possible the relationships that build fertility, fecundity, and diversity.”
It is fitting, therefore, that when the Hebrew prophet Isaiah declares a word of hope for a grieving people, he describes their transformation as growing out of ashes into “oaks of righteousness” who display divine splendor and contain divine stability (Isaiah 61:3).
Like towering oaks, strength comes by remaining rooted in good soil and growing through the continuous exchange of gifts offered by a particular place, its inhabitants, and the God who sustains them.
Reflection Questions
- What aspect of trees’ stabilizing force strikes you?
- How do you need more stability?
- What can you glean from the stability of trees?
Looking to connect with others who are pursuing reconciliation and kinship with the whole community of God’s creation? Check out CCDA’s Ecological Discipleship Network.
