Arbor Day Service First Unitarian Church in Omaha Sunday, April 14, 2013 Gather the Grandmothers and let them speak their wisdom to us. “You are like a tree.” they said. “From a fertile seed you sprouted in the protected forest. You found your own way guided by light and curiosity. You have grown. Strength comes from your years and tenderness from your spring buds. Nourishment comes from your roots and power from your leaves. You will bloom and fruit and shed and sometimes break. And you will have winter silence before the cycle begins again.” Then the Grandmothers giggled with joy. “There is more to your life than the harvest of your fruits and sap.” they chidingly said. “You will also serve.” -- Nathan Krämer, 2013
Litany of Trees Today we celebrate Arbor Day. We have two Arboretums that we celebrate. First, we celebrate the collections of trees from the botanical world that grace the grounds around this historic structure. These trees cover only a short range of history; ranging from saplings to 60-70 year old trees. This is unlike the great forests of the Giant Sequoia of California or the old Spruces of Sweden or the Olive trees of Lebanon. These are our trees. The ones we are close to; the ones we know. We look forward to the explosion of blossoms from the three Flowering Bradford Pears outside the east windows in the next few weeks. And later this fall, the birds will look forward to the dried fruit that will hang from its branches. In the middle of June the Catalpa trees on the east side will bloom. This year, I predict, they will bloom on the 15th. . . . or maybe the 19th.. . . . . or it could be as early as the 12th. They will bloom when they are ready. They will bloom with creamy white blossoms, shaped like a little orchid with pairs of yellow hairy tufts, guiding the pollen laden bees inward -- past the Rostellum and into the Stigma. This is tree ecstasy. This is tree sex. This is holy consummation. Mid-summer, the Catalpa’s heart-shaped leaves, as big as dinner plates, will hang down providing deep shade.
Yes, these are the leaves, I believe, that our puritan Adam and Eve would have hidden behind if they were from eastern Nebraska. In the fall they leave behind long slender bean pods. Today we make mention of only a few of those trees; those that drape a dramatic shade of blossoms in our east windows. Those grand old Catalpas that speak of a long life. The three new Crimson Spire Oaks than now grow along Harney Street. We celebrate each of you today. We also name, in celebration, the Black Locus, the Oaks of many varieties, the Yews by the steps the Red Bud hiding behind the front sign, the Pines and Spruce on the west, the Crab Apple and the Callery Pear. Today, with empty branches and pregnant buds, not all our trees tell us their true names. But we will know them better next year. We will watch them more closely this year. I spoke of two Arboretums. The other is this church; a group of people in loving convent with each other. An interdependent web. A diverse collection of old sages, and new spouts and many others sometimes unnoticed. like “seeing the forest for the trees.�
People who flower dramatically and bring fragrance and people who provide protection and shelter. People with soft gentle fronds, and prickly needles and sappy humor, and weeping branches, those infested with cancers, and those with broken limbs and broken hearts, and those mistreated, or planted too deep or need extra care. We have trees with swings tied from their branches. We have trees than flex like Willows, and those that are imperishable like Teak. We have trees with no trespassing signs nailed to their trunks. We have trees with heart-shapes carved into their barks that say “AB + NK I ♥ U”. We are a collection of fruit and nuts; of hollows and burls. Within our arboretum we have trees that give their wood for fuel or crafted into instruments and furniture and vessels and tools; even weapons. We celebrate our trees in this church. We nurture their growth. Sometimes, we prune, carefully, with love and sometimes with sorrow. We respect those in our arboretum. We tolerate, -- no, we accept our differences (sometimes with humor), embrace our diversity (with profound love), yet cling to our unity and interdependence. We celebrate our trees. -- Nathan Krämer, 2013
Offertory & Blessing of the Seeds Hand to hand, we pass a plate to collect our gifts that support every part of this ministry. For these monitory gifts, and the gifts of time and talent that are shared and given freely to this church, we are all thankful. In addition, as part of our Arbor Day service, we pass the seeds of trees from hand to hand. We pass the pod of a Honey Locust; its fern like leaves filter and dapple the light. We pass an acorn of a might oak tree. Its branches like the arms of a hundred ancestors. We pass the seed ball of a Sweet Gum Tree. Its spines remind us to be careful and compassionate. We pass a Pine Cone; noting that for some species, the seeds are released only after a cleansing fire. As we pass these seeds from hand to hand, you may choose to utter a prayer, to bestow a blessing, to admire the beauty, or recall a memory. -- Nathan Kr채mer, 2013
Trees We Did Not Plant A few years ago, my friends and I held a memorial service for my friend Frank. To me, Frank was a professor; a teacher of chemistry and math who became my friend and my buddy. He was a creative thinker of “what if” questions. A man who pondered the growth rings in cross cut lumber and the direction of spiraling tendrils on a grape vine -- Clockwise or counter-clockwise. What value were his questions, his ponderings, and his thoughts? At his service we sang Stephen Foster’s song, “Beautiful Dreamer” and read from John Niehardt and told jokes and stories. Frank’s nephew told a story that not even his close friends knew about. He told about the year after Frank retried. Frank had purchased a plot of land in New Hampshire and he purchased bundles of bare-root seedling trees. At age 73 years, he flew to New Hampshire to meet his nephew and together they planted a grove of trees. 4 acres of (Prunus pensylvanica) -- Pin Cherry Trees. (I should also mention that Frank loved cherry pie.) When finished, he deeded the land to the New Hampshire Nature Conservancy. The trees are held in trust for 80 years at which time; they will be harvested and sold to local furniture craftsmen; and the money to be used to replant the grove again. For years we questioned the value of Frank’s dreams. It will be years more before these living trees are grown, and are harvested, and the wood is dried and worked with skillful art to serve a generation not yet born. This man was a Beautiful Dreamer. His ashes are in the ground. His spirit is now in the hearts of his friends and family and in the cherry tree grove in New Hampshire, and some day in a desk, or table, or chair. -- Nathan Krämer, 2013
WORDS & LESSONS ABOUT TREES From the Scottish novelist and poet, Robert Louis Stevenson: "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." A Proverb from the ancient Greeks: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” From the Poem on Marriage from “The Prophet” by Lebanese-American artist and poet, Kahlil Gibran: “And stand together, yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.” From the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore: “Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heavens.” From Canada, Vermont, New Hampshire, parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and maybe even Michigan: “Pure Maple Syrup” From naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, soldier, founder of the short-lived Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party of 1912, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, Vice-President of the United States and then President, Teddy Roosevelt: “To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, -- we must have trees.” From poet, transcendentalist, and Unitarian Minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson “In the woods we return to reason and faith.” From Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Holy Man Black Elk: “It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then That it may leaf And bloom And fill with singing birds! Hear me, that the people may once again Find the good road And the shielding tree.”
From American Architect and Unitarian Frank Lloyd Wright: “The Best Friend on Earth of Man is the Tree: When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the Earth.” From Scottish-born American Naturalist, author and early advocate of preservation of wilderness, John Muhr: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” From Nebraska Author Willa Cather, in her book “My Antonia” “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made them so precious.” From the founder of Arbor Day, J. Sterling Morton: “The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful and the ennobling in man.”
BENEDICTION Unlike trees, we come and go from this forest; and when we leave, we carry with us some of its fragrance; some of its fruit; some of its fuel; some of its shelter. We carry with us some of its peace. -- Nathan Krämer, 2013