We just took 4 days on our 7-days-off camp-hosting to take our pop-up up the Jemez Mountains close to us here at Lake Abiquiu. We were about 9700 in elevation and snuggled into a beautiful area surrounded by a myriad of trees, bushes, and mule deer…with a morning visit from several cows and their calves who are roaming the area for spring/summer grasses. As Al and I hiked through the forest going up-Up-UP I couldn’t help but notice the diversity of the trees! Ponderosa pines, Douglas Fir, Mountain Spruce, Sub-alpine fir, and Limber Pines. Inter-laced in this conifer forest were Aspens—some blooming already with bright green leaves, and the Gamble Oaks whose brown leaves were still hanging on until warmer days where the new leaves will push the dead leaves to the ground to fertilize the area for new growth in the next year. All this made me think of we humans who, lately, can’t seem to get along very well. Whether it is religion, the color of your skin, the status of your wealth, the political party your claim, etc., we have chosen hard sides and adopted a type of deadly racism that divides instead of creating a community that can work together. I’m thinking the trees could teach us something, what do you think? Perhaps Isaiah had it right when he penned this verse from chapter 55:12, taken from The Voice translation:

For you will go out in joy, be led home in peace.
And as you go the land itself will break out in cheers;
The mountains and the hills will erupt in song,
and the trees of the field will clap their hands!