Gridled Root

By Reverend Doug Kraft, January, 2010

The tree began to slowly fall over. An arborist diagnosed it as a “girdled root.” Sycamores are supposed to have four main roots running in four directions. In our poor tree, three of the roots wound around the fourth: they either withered or all grew in the same direction. As the tree got heavier, rather than providing stability, the one root provided a fulcrum to help the tree pivot gracefully toward the earth.

“What can we do?” I asked.

“We can plant a 250 pound block of concrete in the ground,” he said. “Steel bars between it and the tree should hold it up. For a while. Probably.”

“Let’s just put it out of its misery,” I said.

We planted another sycamore in the same place. It flourished, shooting up over ten feet a year.

Erika, my wife, found an article explaining that when you plant a new tree over an old, the new sends out roots through the path of the old. This allows the new to grow fast and strong since the ground is partially broken for it and it is fed by what the old left behind.

Our new sycamore has four main roots (believe me, we checked). It is different from its predecessor. But it clearly was nourished by what went before.

§§§

The same could be said about religious tradition.

The Unitarian historian, Earl Morse Wilbur, declared freedom, reason and tolerance to be the defining qualities of our tradition. Several centuries ago they were the crowning achievement of liberal religion – our upper branches, if you will.

The world has changed vastly since Unitarianism and Universalism first took root. Air travel, telephones, television and the Internet bring a vastly larger human population into contact and conflict in unprecedented ways. Today, freedom, reason and tolerance may be less of a shading canopy and more of a girdled root.

At the end of the 21^st century, historians may look back at Unitarian Universalism as a minor religious movement that wound around past ideals so tightly that it fell over and disappeared.

Or they may look back and see a new tree. The ideal of freedom may have evolved from a self-centered “I’ll do my own thing” to a coupling of freedom and responsibility. Reason may have evolved from “truth is found in thought alone” to “truth without love is not truthful and love without truth is not loving.” Mere tolerance may have grown up into relishing the richness of diversity. And amongst these three roots others may have grown: an embrace of interconnectness, welcoming multiple forms of intelligence, etc.

These will only be the roots, not the tree. The tree itself will be less naïve and more stable, flexible and diverse. It will place high value on fluidity and competence. And more.

§§§

Our new sycamore has grown 40 feet in four years. The arborist says it could easily reach 75 or 80 feet. It clearly benefited from the old, even though it has a shape and branching system quite different than I had imagined. It provides protection from the summer heat.

And I think it’s beautiful.

Happy New Year,

Doug