Glory be to God for dappled things
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
(By Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Prayer: Spirit of God, you make all things new, causing seeds to grow, buds to blossom, fruit to ripen. Sow within us the seeds of repentance and humility, to live gently within the community of creation, and to bring forth the fruit of your Kingdom of justice and peace.

A quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel:

“Just to be is a blessing,
Just to live is holy.”
taken from Joyce Rupp’s book “The Cup of our Life” P126

All powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and
forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognise that we are profoundly united with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle for justice, love and peace.                                      (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’)
 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
An article in New Scientist magazine 1 May 2021 carries the title “The Wisdom of the Woods”. It explores the work of Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at British Columbia University. In 1997, she found out “that forest trees and plants share and trade food via their fungal networks that connect their roots. …. What was then a challenge to orthodox ideas is today widely accepted.” Since then, work done by herself and colleagues indicates that “the wood wide web is like a brain and can communicate information throughout the entire forest, that trees recognise their offspring and nurture them and that lessons learned from past experiences can be transmitted from old trees to young ones. The article explains there is an intelligence at work in the forest and that mature “mother” trees are “hubs of communication, protection and sentience.” The Mother Tree Project was begun in 2016 to research how forests manage to recover after logging work. Suzanne wants people to learn about the forest as, “a connected, nurturing, healing place.”
                                                Adapted from an interview with Rowan Hooper for New Scientist 1 May 2021
For those interested in fiction, the article refers to the novel “The Overstory” by Richard Powers which is based on the work done by Suzanne Simard and her colleagues.