Trees: How the Tall Sentinels of Hope Help Us

How a Walk in the Forest Saved My Life

(Gwen took this photo of me hiking in the Joyce Kilmer Forest on 10/16/24.)

Wendell Berry said of trees that they are “apostles of the living light.” They are indeed. He continues describing them this way:

“Tier after Tier a timbered choir,

Stout beams unfolding weightless grace.”

How Berry finds the words this way, I still do not know. But, I’m learning as I read such poetic phrasing, to pull out of my own heart what I am sensing.

Gwen and I came to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, as I wrote earlier, to celebrate our 44th Anniversary but also to recover—from the toil of Hurricane Helene and the devastating effects of her wrath all around us and in us. It’s been exactly what the Doctor ordered for us. Thank you, God!

I wrote a poem that I want to share. It is an Ode to Joyce Kilmer. It was Kilmer’s poem, “Trees” that so moved millions of people that an entire old wood and old world forest is now dedicated to his memory and protected because of the glory of trees.

I know, I know—how can I be speaking about trees when the nation is in turmoil and hatred is sown in every media outlet. I speak of trees because they bring such peace to a world spinning out of control and set on a course for what maybe annihilation and the promised Apocalypse.

Trees help us find something that we need to really live and to really live well. I’m convinced of it. Perhaps, you should try it out—go as soon as possible into some forest; some stand of trees and take your place among the tall timbered choir and see if you don’t immediately feel the stress falling off you like their shedding leaves in the fall. Let it be an experiment—just try it and notice what happens.

I titled my poem: “Trees—An Ode to Joyce Kilmer.” It’s a poem of tribute. It’s a poem of gratitude to a man who lived at the beginning of the 20th century; who died being killed by a sniper’s bullet in France and whose legacy is a living legacy—an old wood forest with trees that are 20 feet in circumference and stand over 100 feet tall.

In such places one’s theology is deconstructed. I say this because of what I read recently by my friend, Brian McLaren. He wrote,

“Most theology in recent centuries, especially white Christian theology, has been the work of avid indoorsmen, scholars who typically work in square boxes called offices or classrooms or sanctuaries, surrounded by square books and, more recently, square screens, under square roofs in square buildings surrounded by other square buildings, laid out in square city blocks that stretch as far as the eye can see. If practitioners of this civilized indoor theology look out at the world, it is through square windows or in brief moments between the time they exit one square door and enter another. But those outdoor times are generally brief…

There is nothing inherently wrong about civilized, indoor theology. Except this: theology that arises in human-made, human-controlled architecture — of walls and mirrors, of doors and locks, of ninety-degree angles and monochrome painted surfaces, of thermostats and plumbing, of politics and prisons, of wars, racism, greed, and fear — will surely reflect the prejudices and limited imaginations of its makers.

….More and more of us are imagining a wild theology that arises under the stars and planets, along a thundering river or meandering stream, admiring a flock of pelicans or weaver finches, watching a lion stalk a wildebeest, gazing at a spider spinning her web, observing a single tree bud form, swell, burst, and bloom. We imagine a wild theology that doesn’t limit itself to Plato and Aquinas but also consults the wisdom of rainbow trout and sea turtles, seasons and tides. We imagine a wild theology whose horizons are measured not by thousands of years and miles but by billions of light years.

“In all likelihood, wild theology is the mother of civilized theology,” he concludes. “And in all likelihood, civilized theology is in the process of killing its mother and acting as if she never existed.”

So, I take words like this seriously and I think we all should. I so often say, “Everything needs to be re-thought” and in these days of my own life, I am re-thinking so very much.

We must unlearn if we want to make room in our hearts for what we do not know yet!

Trees are my “go-to” place to think this way. And Joyce Kilmer did us all such a favor in helping us begin to remember the Eden we have so long ago forgotten.

It is in this forest, as we sauntered ever so slowly, that I felt the endorphins release in my body and sensed a peace within that I needed—so needed in the first place when I wanted to come here. I found the peace I was looking for—I found the peace of trees.

In this day where so much feels so fragile and precarious, I need some “wild theology” to sense—a theology that is more right brain than left and more experienced than taught.

I know that “wild theology” might frighten some of us. But our tame creedal, indoor theology hasn’t gotten us very far has it?

It was a perfect place to write my poem, a poem which I will now share with you here.

When the lumberjacks in the 1930’s where harvesting trees here in Western North Carolina, they came upon this specific and ideal grove of old wood trees—a stand so beautiful, that they told the owner of the paper mill, “Don’t cut this grove. It’s too beautiful to destroy.” And so, it still stands for what I will call, a “holy land.” You. must come and come soon because of the noise outside and the gift you will be given inside.

Here is my poem. I’d love to know what line seems to pull a thread within you—a thread just ready to be pulled.