Confessions of an Evangelical Tree Hugger

By Matthew Sleeth, Sierra Club Books. Posted December 26, 2008.

It took us a thousand years to prove this biblical truth: that trees are, indeed, the breath of life. The transfer of life-giving gas from tree to human is not intuitive. Only in relatively recent human history was it discovered that oxygen comes not from rocks but from trees and photosynthesis.

God is not subtle about his feeling for trees. “I love the tall cedars,” saith the Lord. Abraham plants an oak. The symbol of Christ’s birthday is a conifer. We decorate them and sing, “O Christmas tree.” Essays are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. The kingdom of heaven is “like a tree,” Jesus said. So, yes, call me a tree hugger. So was my Lord.

The prayer service is over; dinner dishes are washed, dried, and put away. We take a last look around for the breadbasket and food containers that go back to our house, make one last trip to the composting toilets, and get into our hybrid car, quietly crunching gravel under tire. Crickets call to each other, and we say our good-byes. At the bottom of the driveway, I decide to follow the global positioning system rather than retrace our path. The robotic voice tells me to turn left, not right, at the blue mailbox. Despite the lessons of the evening, I put my confidence in satellites and microchips instead of evening stars and friends.

The GPS takes us on the shortest path, which includes crossing the Kentucky River on the Valley View ferry. What the GPS does not know is that the ferry man is gone for the night and will not return till morning. We have no map—just a computer showing this impassable way. I fall back on the stars. We need to head toward the nebula in Orion’s belt, and then turn left at some point. On a dark single-lane road, I stop the car three-quarters of a mile past the last farmhouse to get my bearings.

We all step out and are at once baptized in the beauty of the place. Heaven will have no far-off highways roaring like oceans. It will be quiet, like these fields. The one on the left is cut and raked and ready for bailing. The hay on the right is waist high. Over both levitate the intermittently glowing abdomens of fireflies. Their luminescence joins up with the quiet, gentle chorus of the stars. The music of the spheres is a symphony, and the soloist tonight is the half-lit face of Sister Moon. She faces her brother the sun from a sidereal vantage point and hums a lullaby into the deep blue, star-filled heavens.

How strong is this faith and Bible I cling to? They have taken the families we visited from talk to action. They have planted a seed in my heart, to make me ache for nights filled with the peace of wild things in hedgerows, to make me long for the thousands of similar fields that have been plowed and planted with houses.

The fence in front of me wears a sign. It is too dim to read, but I imagine what it would say if Jesus owned this farm: Trespass gently. If your stomach is empty, come and share the harvest. If your spirit is hungry, come and pray.

C. S. Lewis, beloved creator of the Narnia series of books, says that if you know you are going down the wrong path, the shortest way to get back on track is to turn around and retrace your steps. We pile into the Prius, keeping the windows down so that we can smell the freshly cut hay as long as possible. Conversation dwindles, and fireflies continue to flicker behind the closed eyelids of my passengers.

We arrive home near midnight, saying a prayer of thanks before going our separate ways: Thank you for fields and fireflies and friendship. Thank you for faulty computers and the flawless beauty of your creation. Thank you for detours.

Sometimes we must lose ourselves in order to find our way.

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Matthew Sleeth, MD, is the executive director of Blessed Earth. His essay appears in Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation, recently published by Sierra Club Books. For more information, visit Sierra Club Books.

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