Blog Posts - trish hermanson

This Tree Could Become a Person

9/29/2022

I thought I’d heard everything when I learned that a city near me has declared that dog owners should be called dog “guardians” so that their pets aren’t offended by the idea of being someone’s property. Then I read that a newly planted tree in Pittsburg may achieve the legal status of personhood.
     Whaaat?
     Through a complicated legal arrangement, a black gum tree may own the land on which it is planted, may become legally autonomous, and may become its own owner. Then it could be granted personhood with all the legal rights of a person, according to Terra0, a German group seeking this status for the tree.
     Terra0 is exploring ways to protect ecosystems through established laws regarding personhood. Its goal is the protection of nonhuman species through their own rights and rules.
     The Pittsburgh black gum tree could be the legal precedent showing that nonhuman species can gain the autonomy and protection of personhood. While this tree establishes its legal system and its root system, the Carnegie Museum of Art cares for it - perhaps like the dog “guardians” in the city near me.
  This makes my head spin. I’m all for protecting plants and animals, especially the most fragile. But while we’re considering how to protect nonhuman species, shouldn’t we prioritize the protection of the most fragile humans among us - those still in the womb?
*****
   Photo: Tom Little of Terra0.

My Love/Hate Relationship with This Tree

8/18/2022

I loved this tree until I hated it.
     This Russian olive sprang up from a seed that blew in, and as it grew, I basked in the scent of its yellow flowers in the springtime and sheltered in the shade of its silvery leaves in the summer. Then it morphed into a monster - branches scraping our roof, seeds littering our driveway, thorns bloodying my arms when I tried to trim it. An invasive species!
     We needed drastic means to stop it. A chainsaw collapsed the giant onto our driveway, and a grinder reduced it to wood chips.
     I wonder whether I sometimes welcome other small seeds of invasive species into my life that grow into something I’ll regret. Like little judgements I make against others. When I judge others, I bask in the scent of feeling superior to them - I’m not like them! But this attitude keeps me from listening and admitting when I’m wrong. Or what about when I shelter in the shade of partisanship, gaining a sense of purpose by being part of a group? Do I unthinkingly accept the party line, embracing all the beliefs? Do my views harden like tree bark so I’m unable to recognize when something’s wrong? Or what about when I think “my truth” - basically my opinion - is THE truth? Do I close my mind to reality?
I wonder what Russian olives I'm welcoming in my life that I’ll eventually have to take a chain saw to.

Searching for Normal

6/15/2022

     When I tossed in laundry recently I remembered humorist Erma Bombeck saying that the only place you find “normal” is a setting on the dryer. That’s surely been true for us the past few years. A daughter miscarried. A granddaughter died after a seizure. I fractured a bone in my foot. A daughter and I stared cancer in the face. Three other members in my extended family fought cancer. Then recently, Duane’s sister and mother died from a violent car crash.
     Grief upon grief.
     Bombeck is correct that it’s more normal for stuff to go wrong than right. Beauty withers, health deteriorates, things fall apart. I think it’s because everything is broken through our alienation from God, who established how the world is meant to work. He has given us this innate sense that life isn’t supposed to be the way it is. We want things to go right, for justice to prevail, for the good guys to win. These desires are echoes of the Garden of Eden, where brokenness didn’t exist. Not until God ushers in his second Eden will we experience fully the peace, justice, and beauty we long for.
In the meantime (which can get pretty mean), we sometimes slog through days that fall way short of the good things God intended. I ache from our recent losses, but not without hope. A new world is coming when all will be made right. And during my grieving, your kindness toward me has given me Echoes of Eden. Thank you.

Finding Light in a Dark Forest of Grief

5/21/2022

Duane’s mother and sister died recently from a violent collision. I know they are renewed in heaven now, but I’m as stripped as barren trees in a forest of grief. I couldn’t even turn to God. So I mumbled phrases from an old prayer, and this is what happened:
     “Our Father,” I whispered, and realized how amazing that God meets me intimately as my PAPA.
     “Who art in heaven.” My heart calmed with the PERSPECTIVE that even though I’m discombobulated, God’s still seated on heaven’s throne.
     “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What a reminder that somehow in God’s grand scheme, there is PURPOSE in this pain and PRIORITY in my actions.
     “Give us this day our daily bread.”He grants PROVISION to sustain me through this confusion.
     “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” I’m bound to mess up during this fragile time, yet God bestows PARDON, a clean slate, to the extent that I also forgive others.
     “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” I won’t understand until heaven why God didn’t spare Duane’s mother and sister, yet I cling to his promise of ultimate PROTECTION.
     “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” Even when I’m in the dark, I can PRAISE him.
     Papa. Perspective. Purpose and Priority. Provision. Pardon. Protection. Praise. What a gift these truths are as I journey through this forest of grief.

The Question that Hit Like a Cold Rain

3/15/2022

The question hit others like a cold rain, while it washed over me like a warm shower.
     We were sitting at a table talking about what true Christianity is when our facilitator asked, “How might your life be different if you believed that you have God’s full and undivided attention?” Two people said it rattled them to realize that God knew their every move. Not me. I felt warm all over because I recalled a particular day walking to school with my daddy when I was in kindergarten.    Daddy was principal at the school, so we walked together, my little hand reaching up high, buried in his. When we arrived at school, he went inside to his administrative office, while I stayed outside on the playground. But that day I tripped and fell, bloodying my knee. With no hesitancy, I ran inside, ran past the secretary who served as gatekeeper for administrators, broke into Daddy’s office, and jumped onto his lap in tears. He reached into his desk, pulled out a box of Band-Aids, patched me up, and hugged me.
     “That’s how God is,” I told my discussion partners at the table. “God is like my father, except he’s not far away in some remote office. He stays with me on life’s playground, and when I fall down, he patches me up.”
     They gasped at that thought, so different from their dread of a distant, brooding God.
  So how do you feel about God giving you his full and undivided attention?