On September 27, Jessica Gray and Solomon Bellows enacted the famous Shel Silverstein story, "The Giving Tree" in Sunday worship at First Unitarian.

The original story is about a lifelong relationship between a boy and a tree. The boy plays with the tree, eats its apples. He enjoys its shade, uses its wood and eventually, cuts it down. As the story ends, he is sitting on the stump of its trunk; he is now an old man. It is a story about lifelong friendship, self-sacrifice and gratitude.

It is important to the story that the tree is given the voice of a female, and so the reader cannot help but think of motherhood in the tale.

Over time, this story has come to disturb many people. Some saw the relationship between the boy and the tree as exploitative. By asking for the wood of the tree, the boy seems to ask for too much. By giving of herself unto death, the tree appears to be co-dependent.

And so the story was revised. In the new version, the version which Jessica and Solomon enacted, the tree refuses the boy's request for her trunk, teaching him a lesson about respecting other's boundaries and survival. The story is made more ethical and moral. It is hoped that it makes the story better.

Not everyone agrees. A faithful member (OK, it was Jay Lavelle) writes: I thought it was interesting that everyone seemed to overlook what was obvious to me -- the idea that everything is a gift and [we are] learning to be grateful.  Everyone fixates on whether the tree is co-dependent or not and misses that the boy learns gratitude.

Jay hears the story as a parable about gratitude. The Tree is a symbol of the source of everything we receive; it is the Creation itself. Shel Silverstein portrayed the Universe as a Tree, and gave that Tree all the qualities of a Person, perhaps even a Mother.   And if the Tree is a Mother, then the Boy's behavior and attitudes are appalling: what son cavalierly asks his Mother to sacrifice her life for his use?

But, the Creation, the Universe, is not a person. True, humans have often imagined the Universe or the Creation as a person, but it is not really.   Indeed, "God" can be seen as a way to personify the Creation as the Ultimate person.

Because the Creation is not a person, the relationship between people and the Creation is not the same as relationships between people; it is judged by different ethics and morals. After all, if we really thought of trees as people, a wooden chair would be horrifying.

The Creation, the Universe, is more than human and cannot be adequately symbolized as human. Yes, many of the world's religion picture the Universe as a personalized God, but we should not take that too literally. Because when we do, we end up applying to the Divine Person the morals and ethics we need in dealing with other people. Given death, we conclude that God must be cruel and unjust. And if the God and the Creation are unjust, it is the divine order to submit to injustice by those more powerful than us.

I am tempted to say that the Universe IS unjust; but really, it is beyond "just" and "unjust." Those are terms that describe the ethics of human relationships. It would be like saying the Universe is "rude" or "sexy".  It's all that and much more.   It's even beyond life and death, which seem ultimate to us.

Gratitude is an appropriate response to the Universe, but not a conditional gratitude which lasts only as long as good fortune. Unconditional gratitude, akin more to awe, than thanks is called for. The Universe gives us life, and every good thing, but it also will inevitably take all of them away, and us, too. It is a wonder, mostly impersonal and implacable and inhospitable, but yet it has made room for us to eat apples and be shaded by a lifelong tree friend. To be conscious of all of this is good fortune enough.

As Annie Dillard says: "we are here to abet creation and to witness to it, to notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house."

Thanks again to Jessica and Solomon for their thought-provoking story and to Jay for being provoked, and provoking me into thought, as well.

Tom Schade