Celebrating National Love a Tree Day: Why We Love Them and How to Show It

[Third Hour]

National Love a Tree Day is a time for us to celebrate the gentle, silent giants that live on our planet. They range from the smallest bush to the large redwoods that dot America’s west coast. Trees are a thing of beauty and life, giving voice to the quote by President Gordon B. Hinckley when he said, "All of beauty in the earth bears the fingerprint of the Master Creator." With that in mind, this is why we love trees and how we can show it on Love a Tree Day (or all year round): Why We Love Trees We should love trees not only because they play an important on this planet—they provide some of the valuable oxygen that allows us to breathe—but because they have also played an important role in God’s interaction with His children. Trees in the Scriptures Jerry Thompson / LDS.org Trees reach back to the creation of the world. In fact, Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a...

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[Guest]

Articles like this give me the feeling that most of the authors on MormonHub are liberal?  Maybe I'm much more conservative than the mainstream Church anymore.  I think I'll start something like Denver Snuffer.  I'll call it the "Really Conservative Church of Orthodox Latter-day Saints."

Edited May 16, 2017 by Guest

[NeuroTypical]

I will go hug a tree in Carb's name.  The Karmic Universe Energy Adjustment Force will move him three notches to the left before he even knows what hits him.

[zil]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

I will go hug a tree in Carb's name.  The Karmic Universe Energy Adjustment Force will move him three notches to the left before he even knows what hits him.

Proxy tree-hugging.

[mordorbund]

I quit hugging trees when I realized they never hugged me back.

jerks.

[Vort]

Just now, mordorbund said:

I quit hugging trees when I realized they never hugged me back.

jerks.

They just have a hard time expressing their emotions. They're quite wooden, but they're upstanding and have a strong heart.

[Guest]

Trees have carried a lot of meaning and symbolism in our theology and in my life. I love them. Some of my most peaceful, spiritual moments have been spent in the forest or quiet of my parents' yard, listening to the wind softly blowing through the trees and communing with God.

 

I think you can appreciate the beauty of God's creations (and the importance of our stewardship over the earth) without being a bleeding heart liberal. Or maybe I'm just more liberal than your average Orthodox Mormon.  I'm pretty orthodox, though.

[zil]

4 minutes ago, Eowyn said:

Trees have carried a lot of meaning and symbolism in our theology and in my life. I love them. Some of my most peaceful, spiritual moments have been spent in the forest or quiet of my parents' yard, listening to the wind softly blowing through the trees and communing with God.

I think you can appreciate the beauty of God's creations (and the importance of our stewardship over the earth) without being a bleeding heart liberal. Or maybe I'm just more liberal than your average Orthodox Mormon.  I'm pretty orthodox, though.

There is nothing in church doctrine that would oppose appreciating trees and exercising proper stewardship over them - quite the opposite.  There is nothing "liberal" about it.  Indeed, I submit it is a very "conservative" idea.  (Curse politics.)

(ETA: In other words, I agree with you.)

Edited May 17, 2017 by zil

[NeuroTypical]

Full disclosure - I've planted well over 150 trees and shrubs on my property out in the middle of nowhere.  Well over a dozen are still alive, and most are now finally taller than me.  

[anatess2]

20 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Articles like this give me the feeling that most of the authors on MormonHub are liberal?  Maybe I'm much more conservative than the mainstream Church anymore.  I think I'll start something like Denver Snuffer.  I'll call it the "Really Conservative Church of Orthodox Latter-day Saints."

3 hours ago, Eowyn said:

Trees have carried a lot of meaning and symbolism in our theology and in my life. I love them. Some of my most peaceful, spiritual moments have been spent in the forest or quiet of my parents' yard, listening to the wind softly blowing through the trees and communing with God.

 

I think you can appreciate the beauty of God's creations (and the importance of our stewardship over the earth) without being a bleeding heart liberal. Or maybe I'm just more liberal than your average Orthodox Mormon.  I'm pretty orthodox, though.

 

2 hours ago, zil said:

There is nothing in church doctrine that would oppose appreciating trees and exercising proper stewardship over them - quite the opposite.  There is nothing "liberal" about it.  Indeed, I submit it is a very "conservative" idea.  (Curse politics.)

(ETA: In other words, I agree with you.)

 

Ok, I read this article.  And like the articles I read before (which made me uninterested in reading mormonhub articles) it is not the topic nor the writing that is the problem with the article.  It is the mindset of the writer.

So, I'm going to just go ahead and give a constructive critique of this particular article.

So yes, Love A Tree has nothing liberal about it.  But, what makes this particular article "seem" liberal is the approach of the write-up.  Today's progressive liberal has this position that man is ruining the planet.  Or, as it relates to the article, we don't love trees.  The article is presenting a topic to an audience with the inherent expectation that they don't love trees... or they don't know they're supposed to love trees.  There are only 2 target audiences for that - nature-haters or children... an audience that I would think comprises a small minority of mormonhub visitors.  Most of mormonhub I would imagine would be like - Love a tree.  Well duh.

To improve on this writer's ability, I suggest that the author start from the premise that her audience love trees.  This simple change will bring a greater maturity to the write-up.  From that premise, she can still touch on the scientific stuff - the benefits of trees in nature, etc. - but her writing will reflect a validation of what the reader already knows rather than a lecture.  From this perspective, little nuggets of gold in the article - such as the name drop for Adopt a Tree - would have greater impact.

Just my 2 cents.

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Full disclosure - I've planted well over 150 trees and shrubs on my property out in the middle of nowhere.  Well over a dozen are still alive, and most are now finally taller than me.  

For both my pregnancies, I waged war against a tree.  I was 2 weeks from giving birth to my first child when I climbed up a 10-foot ladder, propped my big belly on the top, and with a chainsaw in hand, chopped off the tree that I have repeatedly asked my husband to take down.  I had the tree cut in half, the branches falling over my head when my husband saw me.  He turned white as a sheet.  So when I got pregnant with my 2nd child and I set my sights on a myrtle that I wanted cut down, my husband chopped it up - roots and all - that very afternoon.

As penance, I planted a palm tree for each of my children.  I love palm trees. 

 

 

[Sunday21]

On 2017-05-17 at 0:02 PM, anatess2 said:

For both my pregnancies, I waged war against a tree.  I was 2 weeks from giving birth to my first child when I climbed up a 10-foot ladder, propped my big belly on the top, and with a chainsaw in hand, chopped off the tree that I have repeatedly asked my husband to take down.  I had the tree cut in half, the branches falling over my head when my husband saw me.  He turned white as a sheet.  So when I got pregnant with my 2nd child and I set my sights on a myrtle that I wanted cut down, my husband chopped it up - roots and all - that very afternoon.

As penance, I planted a palm tree for each of my children.  I love palm trees. 

 

 

I have a tree that needs to be chopped down.....?

[anatess2]

13 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

I have a tree that needs to be chopped down.....?

Unfortunately, I got spayed after my 2nd child.