Last week I saw a bumper sticker that read “Trees Are The Answer”. I honestly found that to be a very profound statement. It struck me odd, as that I thought I was the only one who thought that the answer to many of our glaring problems are the trees. We find that we faced today with so many challenges and problems globally that if we think about them we get overwhelmed, at least I do.

Much has been written about trees – essays, poems, songs – so I don’t think I can add much. But I don’t think I have ever run across anything that highlights the relationship that we actually have with trees. Trees actually breath, that is they absorb carbon dioxide and release, as a waste product, oxygen. Funny – we breath in oxygen and release carbon dioxide as a waste. We need their waste and they ours. The only trouble is that we seem to be drowning in carbon dioxide and killing off the trees at the same time via chainsaw.

In my last post, I wrote of balance; that Divine balance that was put in place by our Creator. Maybe that balance goes beyond mere economics. Maybe it has a farther reaching implication. Maybe it means that everything has a balance point and if we tip it too far we will destroy ourselves.

There is an interesting tradtion of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that says “If the Last Day comes upon you and you are planting a tree, continue planting it“. That is don’t let anything sway you from doing whatever good thing that you are doing irrespective of the tribulation at hand. But what I find so intriuging is that the Prophet, peace be upon him, used the act of planting a tree, which indicates to me that trees will be important to us even up to the very last day.

Maybe its to simple an answer to our global problems, but then again…