Ecology for Colossians

Christians grow when they are rooted in Christ and connected through an ecosystem of communication, nourishment and sacrifice.

Over a century ago, Joyce Kilmer wrote a poem called “Trees.”

You may have learned it as a child.

“I think that I shall never see,” he wrote, “A poem lovely as a tree … A tree that looks at God all day / And lifts her leafy arms to pray.”

Picture that: A tree in prayer.

Kilmer’s tree would understand the words of Paul to the Colossians: Live your lives in Jesus Christ, “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7).

Kilmer was known for poetry that celebrated nature as well as Christian faith. He was probably the leading Catholic American poet of his generation. But then, in World War I, his life was cut short by a sniper’s bullet when he was serving in the United States Army. He was awarded the French War Cross for his bravery, and a section of forest in North Carolina was named after him.

Joyce Kilmer loved trees, and he gave us a ...