Trees and Trinity

Did you know trees talk to each other?

It’s true – in recent years, ecologists such as Suzanne Simard have revolutionized the way we think about forests. Trees may look like separate, individual beings above ground, but it turns out that below the forest floor, trees’ roots are intimately connected in lifegiving relationship with one another, sharing carbon, water, phosphorus, and even advice about survival. It’s not visible to us, but it’s happening all the time.

Simard has conducted thousands of fascinating experiments to understand the relationships between trees. If, above ground, she covers a young sapling with a tarp and blocks its access to photosynthesis, below ground, the strong old trees nearby, called Mother trees, will hear about it via the root network, and will then send nutrients over to the sapling to help it survive. So, trees are not only chatty, but they are generous and loving – sacrificing their own nutrients for the sake of the more vulnerable.

It seems that trees (and probably all of the natural world) know innately what we humans are still struggling to figure out: that life is about RELATIONSHIP. Trees know that our connections to each other matter and our connections to our source of life matter. They know that relationship is not only the thing that makes life beautiful, but it’s what makes life possible.

This coming Sunday, June 15, 2025 is our annual observance of Trinity Sunday. This is the only date on our liturgical calendar that is solely dedicated to a doctrine of the church. But don’t be scared off of coming to church, because all that means is that Trinity Sunday is simply a day we set aside to ponder and honor the nature of God. That seems like a worthy endeavor, right?

God’s foundational nature, like the talking trees, is to be in relationship. God’s very self is a community. Episcopalians are not unitarians, who say God is one and only one, but neither are we polytheists, who say that God is many. We are trinitarians. We say that God is both one and three: One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We refer to the first person of the Trinity most often as Father, not because our Creator is male—clearly God transcends gender. We say Father most often simply because that’s the language Jesus used. But the names we use are not nearly as important as the relationships between the three persons of the Trinity. We believe that God’s very nature is to be in community. Together, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit make up a community of the One God.

On Trinity Sunday, we peel back the moss and topsoil and explore the beautiful mystery of God that is underneath—the messy, intertwined roots of relationship that are hidden from plain view, but are the very source of our survival. The Trinity is not just some doctrine for theologians to argue about and us to scratch our heads over. The Trinity is actually our marching orders. Because God’s nature is relationship, we, the church, are about relationship too. Everything we do flows from that. Prayer is about relationship. Fellowship is about relationship. Service and outreach are about relationship. Sacrament is about relationship—with God and relationship with one another.

Our own amazing Lay Preacher Jerry Landry will be sharing a sermon with us to help us go deeper into the wonderful mystery of the Trinity. And if you needed even more of a reason to come to church this Sunday, it is also Father’s Day and the Sunday before Juneteenth, when we remember that none of us are free until all of us are free – another important way of thinking about relationship.

As we navigate these disconcerting days in our nation’s current context, it is ultimately relationship that will give us the best hope of surviving and thriving together. Our task as the church is always relationship: to forge them where they are lacking, to nurture them where they are tender, to repair them when they are fractured, and to celebrate them where they are growing, nourishing one another via the hidden root system that connect us to the source of life: One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s what the Trinity is all about. See you Sunday!

Yours in Christ,

Carmen