We’ve Hit the Roots

By Amelia MacDougall-Fleming

Amelia is a Grade 8 student at Marshview Middle School in Sackville, NB. She shared this reflection as part of the Earth Sunday service at Sackville United Church. Amelia is also a member of the SPY (Spiritual Practices for Youth)  Group.

When I was younger my sisters and I would play under a big pine tree in our backyard. At the bottom of the tree there was this big branch that would droop down and create a sort of wall and form a room under the tree.

Almost everyday we would go to this ‘’secret hideout’’.

One day, one of my sisters suggested we build a well in our fort. So we got our hands dirty and began to dig a hole at the base of the tree where we planned on putting a bucket filled with water and rocks, our well.

After a little while of digging we hit the roots of the tree. We realized that in order to dig a hole big enough we would need to get past the trees roots and that meant hurting the tree. We agreed that even though we wanted the well, the tree was more important.

In Christian teachings, as well as many other faiths, we learn about putting the needs of others before our own and doing things for the greater good. I like to think of the earth’s current situation like that old tree. We as people have been on this earth, God’s earth, for a long time. We began to ask too much from the earth; dig a well in it and now we’ve hit the roots. Its time we start to fill in the hole to this well.

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