West Franklin Ramblings: Freedom circumscribed

    First, before considering the recent national holiday, a few quick notes from around town.
    The Freedom Rock location has been determined. It will be located just east of the cannon at the Coulter trailhead of the Rolling Prairie Trail. The current account holds $2,800 for the work to go ahead, and more fundraising efforts will be forthcoming.
    The last of the three vintage lamp posts was set to arrive last week. If this third delivery proves everything is finally in satisfactory condition, their installation is imminent! Watch for signs of jubilation from West Franklin!
    Cathy Carlson has recently begun T-shirt sales promoting the Rolling Prairie Trail. Shirts are $15 each, and all proceeds will go to Coulter Betterment Committee (CBC). Contact her for details on how you might procure one for yourself!
    Please continue to pray for our friend and community member, Shirley Knudsen.
    All Coulter folk are invited to attend the next CBC meeting at the Coulter Library on Monday, July 20, at 6 p.m. There is so much we can achieve together as a community. Let’s do so!
    Also, Coulter is very pleased to have a recent new appointee. Just a couple months ago, Lon Allan was appointed as Coulter’s forester by our city council.
    What does that mean exactly? It means that he, as a former conservation director from Cherokee County, is final counsel in decisions submitted to city council regarding tree care, removal and reforestation for our community. And as an active member of our CBC, we are doubly blessed.
    Certain trees have been assessed and slated for removal in due time. In the meantime, CBC has been researching various tree programs currently offered.
    Part of our long-term plan in the battle to minimize the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) epidemic in our state is to plant new and diverse trees within city limits right away. Then when EAB hits our current mature treasured canopies, we hope to have new growth well under way as we begin necessary removal of affected ash. A grant for a selection of diverse fall plantings has been submitted, and now we await the decisions and outcome. Cross your fingers for us!
    As I consider Lon’s appointment and the weekend’s Fourth of July celebration, I recall a particularly inspiring documentary I came upon over a year ago, and most recently rediscovered. The documentary was shown on the PBS Nature program and was entitled “What Plants Talk About.”
    I viewed in awe as current scientific technologies have allowed us to discover far more about plant life then ever before. For instance, trees, plants and even fungi have greater abilities and connections than supposed.
    Beneath the surface of the soil lies an entire network of communications made possible by thin threads created by fungi, called mycelium. Those connections are comparable to the world wide network, enabling connective responses that trigger the release of nutrients or toxins as needed, even directed as such. Amazing, indeed! I recommend you obtain this documentary on the Internet and be inspired yourself.
    But to suit this column, I must draw from other bits of this video.
    I loved learning that a mass of trees becomes its own community via this fungi/mycelium. This connection between tree roots underground is uniquely referred to as “the wood wide web.”
    Scientists have witnessed a hierarchy of trees, with a Mother Tree watching over younger trees. And as needed, the wood wide web sends nutrients, often first to the youngest  near the Mother Tree to protect the tree community as a whole.
    The dominant message here for me is that no tree – within a timber, forest or cluster – is viewed alone as an individual. Rather, it is foremost considered part of a community by its neighboring trees! To mess with one “individual tree” is to impact the group as a whole.
    The older I become, the more I am convinced about that same interconnectedness of all living things and creatures as never before. And that leads me to the belief that God sees us the same way. That His intentions are for us to discover this interconnectedness, discover His understanding of community, and discover the sacredness of all life He created, not just the existence of homosapians.
    Forgive me if I digress into my faith background for a bit, if you will. For I read in Colossians 1:15-17, “For by him were all things created.....and by him all things consist.” And then I ask, is this “something which connects” all of life – what scientists now refer to as “the God Particle” – that very same connective tissue? I become excited by such thoughts!
    But back again to trees and talk of community. As I recall a favorite Psalm, I am reminded again about God’s passion for interconnectedness and community. Here is how that Psalm both begins and ends.
    “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity....There,  (within that unity) the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more.”
    As I thread all this that I am learning together, I sense that that which urges us into connection is God Himself. And that as we focus on the many freedoms we have in our nation to create vast communities, there is one prevailing reminder to us regarding the grand quest for “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
    To me this reminder is found once again from the Bible, in the book of Galations 5:13-14. “For brethren, you have been called to liberty; only use not your liberty for an occasion to serve your flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  
    You see, in this example of a community of trees, I saw mutual care, nurture, growth. I saw an example of what our nation claims to desire. From hymns pleading for our good to be crowned with brotherhood to prayers uttered in churches and state legislatures in the grave wake of national tragedies and grief, I still hear the angelic words, “Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.”
    I still believe that is possible in this, our land of the free and the home of the brave.
    I hope all of you had a Happy Fourth, and may God bless America.