There were four tall trees by our home.
As winter settles in, they look like great lungs in the sky.
I loved them dearly.
Then a man came.
He was all alone. He was driving a van with no markings. He had a chainsaw.
He climbed right to the top of the first tree, and cut the top third of it off. No hesitation, no preparation, no estimation. It fell to the earth with a terrible crash.
Then he cut off all its other branches.
Someone went to speak to him. What he was doing was dangerous, surely. No safety equipment, no signs to warn passing pedestrians. Branches hanging from power lines.
The man with the chainsaw was aggressive, angry. He seemed disturbed, sad. He shouted and growled.
Someone called the council – they suggested sending an email. Someone called the electric people – they came to take a branch that had fallen on the line. Someone called the police – they were too busy.
The sad man kept cutting the trees.
One day he started cutting early, long before dawn. He climbed up high in the dark and the rain. I called the police again, and this time they came. But when the police arrived he had gone.
So the police left, and he came back.
The people in our building stayed inside. “If this is happening, then maybe it’s for a good reason?” “The trees must be kept in check, he must have the authority.” “Surely he knows what he’s doing, that’s why he doesn’t have a helmet”
I went out to speak to the man, gently. He wouldn’t tell me his name, or where he was from. He said I should speak to the man in the big house.
So I went to speak to the man in the house. I was kind to him, and he was kind to me. He had asked the man to cut the trees, because the branches might fall on cars.
He agreed that the man with the chainsaw was cutting the trees too much. He worried it would spoil ‘the look of the area’, and was sorry for what he had done. So he asked the man with the chainsaw to stop.
Now there is one tall tree by our flat.
Its leaves are coming through now.
I love it dearly.
At the moment, all around the world, we are cutting down trees to protect machines.
Without meaning to, we are choosing death over life.
Even if we love them, even if we feel sad when they are gone, we don’t value these trees, either in our modern cultures, our markets or laws.
We believe that the people cutting down the trees must have a good reason to, so we don’t intervene.
And if we do intervene we do so trusting that authorities will do the right thing, and shrug when they do not.
We need those trees, without them we will die.
To help keep the trees alive, sometimes all it takes is a little courage and kindness.
So have a little heart for our friends the trees. Have a little heart for yourself.