In early March 2013, as the first snow of the year was falling, over a hundred young people with some adults gathered in the wild area of the Tearmann Community Garden, Baltinglass to plant 300 Native Irish Trees.  As we were planting in the soft wet soil one young student, who was wearing new white sneakers, looked down in disgust and said ‘look at the muck on my new boots’.  I looked and appreciated his concern and then reflected that what was on all our boots was the source of all growth – soil.  I shared my thoughts with him and he reflected on them but he was still wondering how he would restore the whiteness of his boots.

On further reflection on this simple experience a line in the Gospels came to mind: ‘Lord that I may see’.  My prayer that day was that we may see that the ‘presence of the Incarnate Word shines at the heart of all creation’  (Teilhard de Chardin). Is every tree we planted that day a ‘burning Bush’?  Are we invited to take off our shoes because everywhere we stand is holy ground?  Ecology/Cosmology/Theology is a unit or each is retarded.  We are a microcosm of the macrocosm. All created life is part of us.  We have inner ecology and outer ecology and our journey is to integrate all and be re-rooted in Divine Mysterious Ground as Christ did in His incarnation.

As we were planting, some of the names of the trees evaded us as their leaves were still in their buds so we had to guide the planters to observe and get to know their tree.  We decided we could name them later. ‘I knew them all by eyesight long before I knew their names.  We were in love long before we were introduced’ (Patrick Kavanagh in Collected Poems)

The trees are now safely embedded in the soil and as we take time to stand and be still we realise that this area of less than an acre is a sanctuary for so much of endangered life.  One oak tree provides a habitat for 284 other species.  There is still plenty of space in between the trees for grasses, dandelions, daisies and all varieties of wild flowers.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness?  Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

There cannot be humans on the planet without the Natural World. Thomas Berry in The Great Work says ‘Democracy must give way to Biocracy.’ Ecuador has taken this to heart and has created constitutional protection – the first country to do so – for the rights of the Natural World.  ‘Nature has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structures, functions and its processes in evolution’  (Ecuador Constitution).

Nature teaches.  Our planting will have a lesson for us at every season as it goes through its cycles of birth, life, decay, death and rebirth.  In a forest there is an incomprehensible order that to the mind looks like chaos but it has a hidden harmony and order that is sacred in which everything has its place and purpose. New life grows out of rotting and decaying matter which grows and flourishes and then becomes the humus for the next phase of new life. Jesus says in John 12:24 ‘… a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground and dies; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest’.  When we look at evolution we see life giving itself for more life – the Cross leading to Resurrection.  William Blake says the Universe is a sacrificial event.

What is that saying to us at this phase of Religious Life and Church today and to all the other institutions that appear to be dying?

Our dying can give vibrancy to communities that embrace all life with Mercy and Compassion so that we can treasure the outcast and be able to know that sun, moon, earth, sea and all are sisters and brothers.

The next time you see ‘muck’ on your boots remember this little poem:

From air and soil
From bees and sun,
From others’ toil
Our bread is won

And when we bite,
The soil, the air,
The bees and light,
Are still all there

So we must think
Each day afresh
How food and drink
Became our flesh.

And then we’ll see the air, the sun, the earth, the bee and we, all one

Mary Carmody rsm
South Central Province