Does this make me a tree hugger?

A practice that I have been engaging in of late is what can only be described as talking or preaching to the trees. I have this spot out behind our apartment in the woodlands where I try and get to about every other day to sit in silence and observe nature. After a period of time I move out of the silence and begin to speak to the various species of oak, ash and maple trees. We were taught during a retreat to see the connectedness to creation as something to participate in, not run from. So here I am, out in the woods having conversations with trees and even find myself preaching to them on occasion. I have found that the trees are very responsive, not in a critical manner (or even fall asleep like some folks in my congregation are known to do) but there is a way of them speaking to me that encourages my soul and they have taught me much. To any other person walking through the woods and would happen to come upon a man talking to nobody (as it seems) would deem them as insane. I assure you that I am far from it.

I cite Jesus cursing the fig tree as an example not of his authority, rather his ability to speak to creation in a way that confused even his disciples. And the fig tree listened! Take the story of Jesus calming the stormy sea as another example of his inherent connectedness to creation. I believe that Jesus was trying to show us something in those two stories.

I am becoming a believer in the reality of interspecies and nonhuman communication. Listen to how the Psalmist put it:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world (19:1-4a).

Every one of us has the capacity to hear these immortal preachers in our own tongue. Sadly, I believe in our modern world we have refused to hear the voices of creation making it all the easier to exploit them for our own gains. We live our lives as Derrick Jensen puts it in his book A Language Older than Words: that our entire culture is based on the belief that the earth is inanimate.

Creation is speaking to us. Even more today in the language of stronger hurricanes and tornadoes. In the way the earth is getting hotter. In the way our weather patterns are rapidly changing. In the way animals no longer coincide with us but attack us. Maybe we can learn something from the trees and creation. Only if we are ready to cast aside our fears of what others will think (and they will think it) then maybe we can become connected to the creation we are apart of and then want to stand up for that creation and protect it for our children and our childrens children.

Ezekiel! New motivation to ride your bike.

Floyd Landis, who grew up in a conservative Mennonite family in Dutch Country Pennsylvania, won the Tour De France in an incredible come-from-behind win to continue America's dominance in the past decade. Check out his background here.

Name Etymology

Randall - Medieval form of Randolf: From the Germanic elements rand meaning "rim (of a shield)" and wulf meaning "wolf".

Lee - From a surname derived from Old English leah "meadow".

Westfall - The name Westfall is associated with the region in the Northern Rhineland in western Germany known since medieval times as Westphalia (pronounced vest fall eeya). Westphalia is translated as western plain. Thus, anyone with its various spellings was literally people (tribe) of the western plains.

Native American medicine wheel: West aspects

Quality spiritual
Element fire
Season autumn
Sun sunset
Moon waning moon
Color red
Human young adult
Creativity experimentation
Key Word transformation
Animal phoenix (thunderbird)

Qualities linked to a wolf in Native American understanding:
Family, loyalty, strength

There you have it. This is uncanny because so much of the contents posted really do describe me. For example: My favorite animal has always been a wolf (werewolves in horror movies) and the wolf's qualities are family, loyalty and strength, all of which are very important to me. And if you look at the medicine wheel aspects for the direction west (derivative of my last name) virtually all of those qualities describe me in some way. The only differences are that I consider my element to be water, my color to be green and my animal to be a wolf. The other seven are right on. I am spiritual, autumn is my favorite season, I prefer sunsets and waning moons, I like to experiment and my life emphasis (keyword) has been transformation for some time. Like I said before, wow! Maybe we really do live up to our names.

Isolation breeds fear

An excerpt from Derrick Jensen's book A Language Older Than Words:

Isolation does strange things to a person's mind. This is true for any social
creature, human or otherwise. Monkeys taken from their mothers at birth,
placed alone in stainless-steel chambers, and deprived of contact with other
animals (human and subhuman alike, according to the researchers), develop
irreversible mental illnesses. As one of the experts in this field, Harry
Harlow, put it: "sufficiently severe and enduring social isolation reduces these
animals to a social-emotional level in which the primary social responsiveness is
fear."

If we really aren't that different from the rest of creation then I believe one of the main reasons we as a society and individuals are so afraid is that we have become more isolated than ever before. We have high-tech security systems to keep people out. We have locks on our doors to protect our stuff. We prefer to e-mail or chat with someone online rather than to be face to face. We have terror alerts to keep us on alert. We are afraid of rural settings especially the forest because of the impending danger or chance we may get lost.

I can not imagine the people who lived on this land 500 years ago ever being a culture of fear. There was too much interconnectedness with each other and with creation to live in fear. We have much to learn and much to unlearn. Our society depends on it.