Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh (Genesis 12:6). Abram moved his camp to Hebron and settled near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. There he built another altar to the Lord (Genesis 13:18).
“Remember to turn in between the big red oak and the silver maple,” I would sometimes say to Marge as directions for turning into the right driveway to a home we often visited. She, not being a tree aficionado, would simply roll her eyes and tell me the name of the cross street and signs she used as reference points. In Abram’s time, however, it was obviously common to use trees or other natural features as reference points—especially if tents in the great outdoors were your living quarters and you were miles from a city or major settlement. Knowing the essence (names) of natural features was critical to life in his day—as it is to us today. [Oak tree photo source]
We know that naming was an important act in Old Testament times: mountains, landmarks, memorials, and especially children. But Adam had the most significant naming responsibility of all: he was asked by the Creator to name the domestic and wild animals and the birds—and the first woman. Henri Nouwen wrote an insightful commentary on this act of Adam that’s made the importance of naming stick with me. Having such a privilege, Nouwen said, meant that you needed to understand the essence (character, core, and soul) of what it was you were naming. Since we are on the far side of Babel, we don’t know what Adam’s names were, but we can be fairly certain that the lion-ness of lions and the duck-ness of ducks were assumed in whatever name was given [And was he also the only man to truly understand a woman?!]. Adam was clearly the first naturalist, but he probably didn’t use the common practice in naming species today: incorporating the name of the discoverer in the scientific name. Having the names of all birds and wild and domesticated animals end with adamii would not be helpful naming!
Scientific naming, however, still seeks to include some of the essence of the species, and that is helpful. But there is something else important in naming nature that I think we miss in our age. It’s implied in the fact that even children know the names and character of Target, Wal-Mart, and MacDonald’s (sadly, also the PR “nature” of Coors, Budweiser, and Miller Light); but they don’t know much about the essence of maple, oak, and willow. They will eagerly look up the made-up name and imaginary characteristics of the latest “Made in China” Webkinz stuffed animal on the Internet, but typically will not look up the real name and actual characteristics of the trees that grow along their streets—nor are they given a reason to want to.
C
hildren don’t care because adults don’t care. And because adults don’t care, the natural world, without which we could not live, often lacks our care and attention. If we came to understand the essence of all the natural features and living things that surround us, we would be the richer for it. And we would seek to protect what is threatened (another of Adam’s tasks). I find it significant that the common man’s understanding of nature began to decline as the Industrial Revolution began to crank up. And now as humankind is using and abusing the creation more than ever, we are understanding it less—and we distrust those who do understand it better. That’s what could aptly be called a recipe for disaster.
When you consider how significant the oaks of Moreh and Mamre were to Abram and his fellow travelers, you could also image their outrage at someone needlessly cutting them down. That oak grove of Mamre, was more than a resource. It was a cherished natural companion for years. It was important to their sense of place.
What we don’t know and understand we typically don’t care for, and what we don’t care for, we readily come to abuse. The elements of God’s natural creation are as important and significant today as they were in the days of Adam. And I believe we do still have the responsibility of knowing and understanding them: learning their names and their essence.
When we moved to our condo ten years ago, I took note of the trees that lined our drive: mostly red maples, Norway maples, Colorado spruces, red pines, and Austrian pines. This last spring I wrote one of my Ambling posts [May 24] on the reproduction and growth process of the pines near our condo. I posted photos of their cones and their new growth. Last month, I noticed that almost all the new growth on the pines had died. I discovered that they are succumbing to two different blights, and within a couple years 
the 35-year-old trees will themselves die and need to be removed. And I will miss them, just like I miss the dozens of ash trees that have died all around us: victims of the invasive emerald ash-borer.
Such is the burden of knowing and understanding—of naming what we are to care for. How many trees, wildflowers, birds, insects, rocks, clouds, crops, and domesticated animals in your area can you name? Do you know much about their essence? Do you care?
It’s interesting, and sad, that many streets are named for natural features that are no longer there. Cities too. I live in Grand Rapids (on the Grand River) which hasn’t had rapids for over a hundred years. I went to junior and senior high in Grandville, which has a ship’s wheel on its city emblem—something I could not figure out as a teen. The Grand River flows through Eaton Rapids (with miniscule “rapids”) on up and over to Grand Rapids, down through Grandville and out into Lake Michigan at Grand Haven—a meandering journey of over 260 miles. Grandville was once a key landing for cargo riverboats that had to stop there because of the rapids on the Grand.
The elms died of Dutch Elm Disease when I was a teen—as did virtually all the stately elms that lined all the Elm Streets in hundreds of towns in the upper Midwest. A few cities, like nearby East Grand Rapids, have spent thousands of dollars spraying their elms; so my grandchildren can still get a glimpse of what was common to me at their age—if grandpa is with them to point them out. I doubt that one person in fifty knows the rarity of the grand elm that stands at the corner of Plymouth Avenue and Lake Drive. [Elm tree image 
Our trees are often the key landmarks of the places we call home, and if we are attached to our place, we grieve at their loss. One such loss for me was the downing of a massive red oak that stood near the corner of Baldwin and Main Street in the little town of Jenison near my ancestral home. That oak was an awesome, healthy specimen, tall and wide-spread; and for me it was a joy, for my father as a youth often passed that tree when it was itself a youth. It was a living emblem of the history of Jenison, another riverboat landing on the Grand. [Crushed Elm Street sign photo 
The stump was still bleeding its pungent sap when, after the shock, I pulled over and got out of the car to pay my respects. I counted its vein rings: ninety-nine before I reached its heartwood and hollow core that itself was over a foot in diameter. I guessed that it was 20 to 40 years old when my father was born in 1902. His own father passed the young tree hundreds of times in buggy, wagon, and sleigh—just as my wife and I with our children passed it hundreds of times by automobile before it was so rudely killed—for a parking lot that’s virtually never full! It could have been spared and would have made a landscape treasure for the store. I wonder if the sawyer felt any sense of grief. The corporate developers certainly didn’t. [Felled oak photo 
My love for trees is one reason I like the specific mention of the “oaks of Mamre” in Genesis. They obviously were cherished trees to have become a landmark name. Perhaps Abraham camped there because of their shade. They may have been way-point markers for generations—a rest area on the ancient grand caravan highway. The loss of the old Jenison oak was in part my motivation for writing RBC’s Discovery Series booklet
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