“It’s because the trees are healthy…”

Dad and I were getting ready for the family to move down from Missouri a couple of summers ago. We were camping in the empty house while we painted and cleaned; there were always little things needed — paint brushes, nails, every kind of screwdriver — and we often made trips to town to get them.

It was on one of those drives that we were talking about trees; I was pointing out how huge they get here and how much I like them.

“They get so big because they’re healthy,” Dad said. “The climate here isn’t harsh. They have everything they need to grow, so they do.”

I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s true. Climate matters. The same tree can almost become a different thing depending on where it grows. Like when Iiris and I were in Iceland and someone pointed out the little scrubby, brushy, brown things along the path. They told us that they were björk, the same species as the birch trees that grow in Europe, it’s just that in Iceland they’re battered by the weather and have to survive in volcanic soil, so they’re much smaller and darker.

The obvious comparison is that people grow like that, like trees — nature and nurture, etc. But it’s also curious to think of all of us as climates, as a kind of space in and around which other things grow.

Because we really do bring life to the things around us, to the environments of our homes and workplaces and to the people in our families and communities. And the more we’re involved the more effect we have on them.

So what kind of climate are they up against? Too much rain, too much sun, too much of anything? Not enough of something? Are they dealing with harshness, are they trying to just survive, or do they have enough to be healthy?

Maybe just like God put man in the garden to tend it; God puts us into our worlds to make them come alive.

They have everything they need to grow, so they do.