Talking to trees

I've always been nervous of these tree hugging types. I remember living in Port Shepstone when our national church was building retirement homes for ministers up the road from where we lived. Never mnd the problem of ministers not being able to afford the homes. They rented one out to a retired minister and the others to what are now termed "randoms". And when the Moderator consecrated them (an interesting thing to do) he used a service for consecrating churches (in the absence of another obvious service in the book). Who knows whether it improved the singing in the showers of the four homes.
The point is that when the land was cleared a local American lady of Buddhist persuasion objected to the trees being cut down (they were exotic if I recall). She wrote to the local paper and intimated that she would ordain the trees so as to preserve their sanctity (and prevent them from being turned into something else). She must have thought that ordained people and thus trees would be safer (which I have discovered over 25 years of ordained ministry is not necessarily true).
So I've been nervous of tree loving souls who elevate trees beyond their actual position in the order of things. Here's the irony. My mother used to sing "I talk to the trees" when we children did not listen to her. (The song continues - "and they don't listen to me..."). Well I now stop and engage trees most nights. Yes I have succumbed. I am the ordained one and they don't answer back when I say hello. Mind you neither do the sparrows I greet (clearly I have no direct line dating back to St Francis of Assisi).
I walk the dog you see. I talk to her all the time. She doesn't say much as she is too busy reading messages left - you guessed it - on trees. So our fast walk (intended to exhaust her and get me fitter and looking less like a tree in girth terms) grinds to a halt when her nose discerns a message at the base of a tree. Which happens often as the trees (exotic I suspect) are fairly evenly spaced in the street. So I have taken to look up at the trees and question them on what they have seen in their lives. I mean, like parishioners, they are here when you arrive, and unless some other "random" chops them down and incurs the wrath of the city council, the trees are there when you leave. As are many parishioners.
Which is exactly my experience in every church I have served in. Key people watch the pastor come and eventually go. It's a kind of life tenure. The same applies to headmasters of course!
Well I have started engaging trees in this peculiar fashion - something like the old milk train that used to stop at every station. There are trees that are very very old. There is a particular tree called Tane Mahuta for example that is estimated at 1200 years old and is 51 metres high (and 14 metres wide!). Agathis australis - the Kauri of course. These relatives of my humble street trees clearly have a story to tell!
Well I will persist in my new conversations. My dog does listen at times - and is improving in her stop-start ways. But she can't help stopping at these trees. So I stop now as well. And look up. They may not listen. Neither do some people. But I do give them a chance!
Stop. Look up. It sounds like a great sermon title.