This service is dedicated to the UU Principle:
"Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."
"When is the best time to plant a tree?"
Message by Marshall Damgaard, guest speaker
—March 25, 2001
During Children's Time, our kids heard their own version
of the morning's message. The sermon text follows below.
Last year, I planted trees every month of the year except for January, February, and December. I planted trees and watered trees and fertilized trees almost every weekend at my parents' farm in northeastern South Dakota. The farm is up in the Couteau, the Glacial Lakes region, east of Aberdeen and west of Sisseton.
Some of these trees are little guys, less than a foot tall. Some of them were giant trees up to 16 feet tall and weighing hundreds of pounds. I planted hundreds of trees. Of course, if you are going to plant hundreds of trees, you need hundreds of holes. I dug most of those holes myself, with my shovel. There are machines that make holes, but by the time you get the ready, pour in the gas, drive them around, monkey with them, and then put them away, I am faster than any of the machines. No machine on earth can compete against a maniac.
My nephew Austin and his friends helped me dig holes one weekend. They are huge, strong high school football players, with muscles like cannon balls. I challenged them to a hole-digging contest. I gave them old, dull shovels and the worst places to dig-full of rocks and tree roots. I used my shiny, sharp new shovel, and I dug in the easy places. I won the contest. This shows you that old age and treachery will always defeat youth and skill.
After I plant these trees, I protect them by putting plastic tree guards around the trunks. Then I put chickenwire, four feet tall, all the way around each tree. I need to do this because deer and rabbits like trees as much as I do. Sometimes, Roi the Norwegian elkhound, helps me dig holes. Actually, he is more of a supervisor than a worker. He sits on the dirt mounds and gazes down into the holes. He catches lots of those pesky rabbits, too, but only in his dreams.
One of the best aspects of planting trees is being able to play in the mud. Most adults will probably tell you that mud is bad thing. That's only because they've forgotten how it feels oozing between your fingers or your toes. Have you ever had your parents get mad at you because you got dirty? Well, when you plant trees, the whole idea is to get dirty.
I have planted many varieties of trees:
Black Hills spruce, which is the state tree of South Dakota.
Ohio Buckeye, which is the state tree of Ohio. The nut looks like the eye of a deer.
Spruce, the state tree of Colorado and Utah.
Austrian pine. Scotch pine. Ponderosa pine, the state tree of Montana.
Oak, the state tree of Iowa.
Cottonwood, the state tree of Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
Linden. Locust. Mountain Ash. Serviceberries. Nannyberries.
Fraser fir from the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee.
Kentucky Coffee Tree from Kentucky. Settlers made coffee out of the seeds.
Sugar maples from New England.
Black Alders from the Pacific Northwest.
Hybrid Elms from Japan. They do not get Dutch Elm Disease.
Amur Chokecherry trees from China.
Quaking Aspen. Their leaves tremble and quake in the slightest breeze.
Paper birch. They have thin white bark you can peel off like paper.
Catalpa, with leaves as big as elephants'ears.
Hackberry. This is my favorite tree, with red berries and warty bark.
Weeping willow. The leaves do not cry, but the tree's branches hang down.
Ginkgo. Ginkgo trees are living fossils. Ginkgos lived with dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. There are male ginkgo trees and female ginkgo trees. Most people do not plant some of each, because the ginkgo seed pod, when ripe, smells like rancid butter.
Fruit trees: apples, apricots, cherries, and plums.
Last autumn, one of my plum trees was covered with huge, beautiful plums. I had been waiting all summer to pick them. Then, one day in September, I went to the house to eat lunch, intending to pick the plums during the early afternoon. When I returned from lunch, I discovered that squirrel had made off with every plum on the tree. I grabbed my rifle and stormed through the woods, looking for a squirrel with purple juice on his face. I did not find him. He may have used a napkin to clean his whiskers.
Often, people ask me for advice in planting trees and flowers. They want suggestions on what to do with their back yard. So I ask them a few questions. Do you like to get muddy? They say no. Do you like to dig big holes until all your muscles ache? They say no. Do you like to water plants for hours? They say no. So then I tell them, call a cement truck and have your back yard paved.
I work for a company that sells toys for big people. We sell telephone service, cable TV service, and Internet service. People never ask me questions about telephones, TVs, or computers. Yet, whenever I'm visiting a nursery, people always come up to me and ask me questions about plants. They think that I work in the nursery. Even when I am wearing a suit coat and tie. I would rather visit nurseries than work there. You never want to turn your favorite hobby into a full-time job.
Sometimes people ask me, when is the best time to plant a tree? The correct horticultural answer is spring and autumn. When is the best time to plant a tree? There is another answer that is provided by an old Chinese proverb: "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today."
When is the best time to get your homework done for school? Today. When is the best time to help your parents on some project? Today. When is the best time to visit somebody who is sick or lonely? Today. When is the best time to say something nice about somebody? After the person is dead? No. Today.
When is the best time to tell somebody that you are sorry for something you said or did? Well, the best thing to do is to be smart enough to avoid saying something stupid in the first place. I guess I don't know anybody that smart, so the best time to say you are sorry is today. When is the best time to do something for somebody who is less fortunate than you? Today. When is the best time to be a friend? Today.
Sermon: "After we are gone, trees will remain."
Why do I like trees?
I like trees because they are bigger than we are. The coast redwoods of California grow as tall as 370 feet. A bird perched on top of the tallest coast redwood would be looking down the equivalent of a 37-story building. The giant sequoias have trunks 100 feet around. The largest of the dinosaurs, the brachiosaurus, weighed 75 tons. The largest living animal, the blue whale, weighs 150 tons. Giant sequoias weigh up to 600 tons. Starting from a seed as big as your eyelash, a giant sequoia takes 3,000 years to reach full growth.
I like trees because they are older than we are. The oldest trees on earth are the bristlecone pines. They were clinging to their California mountainsides when Moses led his people out of Egypt. The oldest bristlecone pines are over 5,000 years old.
The effect that trees have had upon human beings might go back a long time. Some scientists believe that the ancestors of human beings once lived in trees. As proof, they point to the human hand, with its opposable thumb, as well as the near-universal joint in the shoulder. If you hold your finger in front of a tiny baby, the baby will automatically close his hand around your finger, as if he is grabbing a tree branch.
I like trees because they are intertwined within the history of America. When America was a British colony, the British learned that American forests had many white pine trees over 200 feet tall. Those trees were perfect for masts on British sailing ships. The British issued a proclamation that reserved the very biggest and best trees for the exclusive use of the Royal Navy. This angered the Americans, and long before the famous Boston Tea party, agents of the Crown were attacked in American forests by local loggers disguised as Indians. On the eve of the Revolution, the Continental Congress halted the export of white pines to Britain. It is no accident that the first revolutionary flag, which was raised at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, had a picture of a white pine.
The famous American fighting ship, "Old Ironsides," was not made of iron but of oak wood. And the mighty oak wood shrugged off cannon balls. The muskets carried by the colonial soldiers in the Revolutionary War had stocks made of black walnut. Swamp cedar from the bogs of New Jersey was burned to a fine charcoal that went into gunpowder for General Washington's troops.
Those of you who have been collecting the new statehood quarters know that two states have already placed trees on their coins. South Carolina has the palmetto tree, and Connecticut carries the Charter Oak from 1788.
In the early 1800s, the Lewis & Clark expedition, sent by President Jefferson to explore the unknown reaches of the Louisiana Purchase, is credited with the discovery of 34 new species of trees.
The life of Abraham Lincoln, our most revered president, is filled with trees. Abe was born in a log cabin, and during his youth he was know as the rail-splitter. Even Lincoln's death was related to trees in a famous poem by Edwin Markham. "As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, goes down with a great shout upon the hills, and leaves a lonesome place against the sky." Theodore Roosevelt, one of my favorite presidents, is enshrined on Mount Rushmore. Teddy created the first national parks, saving millions of trees for the enjoyment of future generations.
I like trees because they are very useful to us. If you watch the trees, you do not need a calendar. In early spring, everybody wonders when the buds on the trees will venture out. And soon, apple trees and crab apple trees are exploding with blossoms. Then, later, the air is filled with cottonwood fuzz. Spring is also when the birds start building their next in the trees.
In the summer, trees provide shade for us and for our houses. They also provide windbreaks, which reduce erosion. Of course, during each summer, you need to be wary of parking your car under elm trees. It takes a lot of elbow grease to get that sticky elm sap off your car. Summer is also the time when the birds gorge themselves on ripe mulberries; then they start repainting everything in the neighborhood purple.
The first sign of autumn is the leaves turning color. In the autumn, trees provide fruit for animals and for humans. And there are few pleasures in life as great as jumping into a giant pile of leaves.
Each winter, trees give us shelter from the cold wind. They are living snow fences that keep the drifts off our sidewalks and streets. We get wood for fireplaces. Homes are filled with Christmas trees. We sing songs to trees, songs like, "Deck the halls with boughs of holly." Most Americans probably think that holly is what you get at Wal-Mart, that it is the size of a houseplant, and that it is made of plastic. Actually, holly trees, which grow in Europe, are up to 40 feet tall. Holly trees have green leaves, red berries, and pure white wood, and the colors remind us of Christmas.
I like trees because they have made many contribution to this church: wood for church pews, the rafters, the floor, the window frames, and the piano. Even paper for hymnals.
What do trees have to do with church, other than the fact that this church is made out of trees? There are many references to trees in the Christian Bible. Let's look at a few of the most famous ones.
Garden of Eden: "The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden, and there He placed the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." —Genesis 2:8-9
(The fruit that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat is not identified by name in the Book of Genesis. According to Jewish tradition, it was a pomegranate.)
Noah's Ark: "Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood...' " —Genesis 6:11-14
"Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land; but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her, and brought her into the ark to himself. So he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth."
The Ark of the Covenant: "They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide and one and a half cubits high. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it. You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it." —Exodus 25:10-15
(Acacia wood is darker and harder than oak and is avoided by wood-eating insects. It is common in the Sinai Peninsula.)
King David and his rebellious son Absalom: "Then the people went out onto the field against Israel, ad the battle took place in the forest of Eprhraim. The people of Israel were defeated there before he servants of David, and the slaughter there that day was great, 20,000 men. For the battle there was spread over the whole countryside, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. Now Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. For Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak. And his head caught fast in the oak, so he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him kept going." —2 Samuel 18:6-9
The barren fig tree: "Now, in the morning, when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. Seeing al one fig tree by the road, He came to it and found no thing on it except leaves only; and He said to it, 'No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you from you.' And at once, the fig tree withered. Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked, 'How did the fig tree wither all at once?' And Jesus answered and said to them, 'Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea, it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.' "—Matthew 21:18-22
Zaccheus climbing the sycamore tree: "He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, 'Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.' And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, 'He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.' Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.' And Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.' "
Removing the log from your eye: "Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." —Matthew 7:1-5
A tree and its fruit: "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but he bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot product bad fruit nor can a bad tree produce good fruit." —Matthew 7:15-18
There are literally hundreds of references to trees and to wood in the Bible. Matthew reports that Jesus was called "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55). In Mark, Jesus Himself is referred to as a carpenter (Mark 6:3). Jesus spent his last hours with his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, a garden or orchard on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. The name is Hebrew and means "oil press," a place for squeezing the oil from olives. In the end, Jesus was nailed to a cross of wood and crucified.
In a couple more months, it will be time for me to start planting trees again. I plan to keep planting a tremendous diversity of them. As I look out over this place of worship today, I see a wonderful diversity of human beings. There is perhaps only one thing that all of us in this church today have in common. And it explains why all of us—different as we are—are here today.
We all want to have something outside of ourselves. Something bigger and stronger and more important and more enduring than we are. Trees are all of those. So is faith. And hope. And love. And friendship. And loyalty. And beauty. And courage. And truth. And God—wherever you find Him—or Her.
When we leave here today, let's all go find something greater than ourselves. Ultimately, even if you don't think you've found what you're looking for, the journey will make you a different person.
All Souls Church — PO Box 400 — Sioux Falls, SD 57101
605-338-8652 — www.sfuu.org
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