Trees as Kin

Our August worship theme invited us to reflect on our relationship with trees as kin.

We read Mark 8:22-26, a story of Jesus healing a blind man. When his sight was restored, he was asked what he saw, and the first response was that he saw people who looked like trees. In her comments on the text, Henriette Thompson said: "It’s interesting to think that the first thing the sight-recovering man sees is: 'people who look like trees walking around.' 
 
It sounds humorous even… But what if seeing people as trees was not just something to be corrected, but another way of seeing? 
 
Our bodies resemble trees – we have a trunk, we have limbs and we have appendages (hands, feet, head) at the end of these limbs. Our respiratory and neural systems have roots, stems, and branches that are shaped like tree canopies. Think of a physiology drawing of human lungs with their arteries, veins and capillaries."


During our Wandering & Wondering time we were invited to de-center humans as we reflected on these two questions:

• Who will I be for the trees?
• What does kinship with trees require of me?

This worship theme was inspired by ​Geez, Communing with Trees, Summer 2020, issue no. 57