The gift of nature
Trees should be for life, not just for Christmas, says Giles Fraser
Alamy
- Giles Fraser
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It’s that clickety-clack rhythm of the train bouncing over the rail joints that lulls passengers into a state of meditative calm. Safe and cosy in one’s carriage, the world passes by at what seems like the most leisurely of paces. I’m obviously not talking the jam-packed commuter ordeal of the 8.17am to Paddington.
Slow trains are the favoured means of transport for the naturally romantic. And a slow train through the Swiss Alps for Christmas has to be up there with the great train routes through the Rocky Mountains or the Siberian outback. Trains and Christmas are a perfect combination. If I can get a break from carol services, I’ll be on the sofa, with a mulled wine, watching this journey unfold.
But vicars can sometimes be secret Scrooges. By mid-December we’ve often overdosed on Christmas and by Boxing Day can’t face another carol. So, the challenge is to keep the romance going, especially when you have small children, as I do. Here in Kew in south-west London, where I’m parish priest, we have the perfect tonic: the Royal Botanic Gardens. There, whatever the weather, cobwebs are blown away and gusts of new life are breathed into my lungs. This is the nearest I get to being out in nature.
Spiritually, we are restored by the colour green. Here, it’s not all about you. Trees that were planted long before my grandmother was born tower majestically overhead. In the Gardens, I’m taken out of myself and put back together. In the gentle magic of this place, the great rhythms of life, death and rebirth are played out on an epic scale. The altar in my church was made from one of the magnificent trees that came down in a storm. In church, we echo back to the creator and the holy mysteries of creation. That’s how I would put it. Those of another faith, or none at all, might use different words, but would no doubt recognise some common denominator: that nature, in all its diverse and wondrous glory, is this fundamentally life-giving, life-sustaining foundational reality to which we are compelled to return for joy and peace.
Every year in church we have a difference of views over the Christmas tree. I’m all for something huge with the wow factor, others have a more modest tree in mind. But I also feel there’s something not right about the way we dump all these trees by the side of the road when Christmas is over. And thinking about that train chugging through the Alps, surrounded by those glorious snow-covered trees, makes me hanker for something a little more sustainable. Perhaps the answer would be to grow our own tree next year.
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Yes, that feels better. The Sunday school can plant it and watch it grow. There is already too much waste at Christmas – let’s not make these trees another part of our throwaway culture. They are too beautiful for that.
Authors
Giles Fraser
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