I spent last week walking among the trees. Finn, our four-year-old golden retriever and I spent our days hiking portions of the Superior Hiking Trail, mostly spur trails like Oberg Mountain, Lake Agnes, Section 13 with its incredible views. I love the tree shadows of blue against the snow that sun creates this time of year. The words of John 3:16 echoed in my head, “For God so loves the world”. There is so much to love on this earth.
Also last week the warm days and cold nights meant it was maple sugar time. Lots of folks were posting about tapping their maple trees. It is so amazing to think about the trees, how the sap flows up to awaken the buds that need the sugar to grow and then later the leaves will create the nutrients the roots and the rest of the tree need to live. An ongoing rhythm of dependence. A reminder to each of us of our dependence on the cycles of life.
As I walked among the trees I thought of Phil Cook, a scientist and environmentalist. Phil worked tirelessly to teach us about global warming, long before most others were talking about it, working passionately until his death. Phil also tapped maple trees on his land outside of Two Harbors, Minnesota. He wrote a beautiful essay entitled, “If the land could speak”, He writes as if he is the land, “On clear star filled April nights long after the little saw whet owl’s loud beeping has stopped and the amorous snipe has finished his symphonic sky dance, the only sound is the rush of water in the stream at the base of the hill, My sugar maker stokes the wood fire under the syrup pan. Steam rises form the boiling sap and out of the sugar house with the music of Vivaldi’s four seasons — soil passed through the maple trees to the sugar maker , now enters to the global atmosphere from where it came before. As the steam clouds cast moon shadows on the last of winter’s snow, I feel the season reawakening of my biological rhythms. Soon the trees will be growing again.”
Phil dedicated this piece to his wife Elsie on their 35th wedding anniversary. I read it at his son’s Dave’s wedding three years ago. The wedding was out on their wooded land where the maples were beginning to awaken again. Throughout the wedding Dave held his infant son, Phil. Yes, God so loves this world. The rhythm of life continues in love, each bud nourished from our roots. Yes, the trees are growing again.
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