The Birds and the Trees

by John Comer

Think “pine tree,” and what do you get? Cool breezes through the tall ponderosas up in the high mountains? The fragrance of the forest? A trip to your allergist, if pine pollen is one of your downfalls? Maybe none of the above. Read on.

A pair of spotted owls flying over a pine forest in eastern Arizona will think thoughts of romance. They’ll want to pick out an old pine tree, settle down in a nice little nest, and raise a family. These birds require old-growth forest to live, and that tree has “Home Sweet Home” written all over it.

“Home Sweet Home” is exactly what the timber worker thinks, too. He needs to cut down the pine forest so he can support a wife and children, and supply them with housing, food, and all the necessary and good things people need and want. To him and the business people in the little sawmill town where he lives, the pine forest represents a pay check.

The owl family and the human family both depend upon the forest for survival, but they see it from different perspectives. The ecology plot thickens.

What to do? Is the federal government correct that its forests should be closed to logging? There are those who say that thousands of square miles of forest land in question don’t even have a spotted owl population. Are we ruining human lives and whole communities to protect non-existent birds?

This little essay never had ambitions for solving this big ecological problem. Muscular lumberjacks, gigantic government bureaucracies, or even a tiny spotted owl, together or individually, make too formidable a foe to be undertaken here. The modest goal of this essay is simply to point out that decision-making is not always as clear-cut as we might wish. People see things differently and react differently, often with justification.

In theology as in ecology, all solutions are not easy. Things get complicated. Even “plain” Bible truth is sometimes evasive. Good and honest people often disagree. But perhaps God has given us an alternative for when things seem at an impasse. Do we find a principle in Philippians 3:15 which we can put to work? “And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.”

Owls and pine trees are worth saving, but Christian relationships are infinitely more important. There is no reason to give up on either.