Can Christian Theology Let the Trees Do the Talking?
In 1958, an eighty-seven-year-old Stoney Indian by the name of Walking Buffalo spoke to an audience in London, England. The question before him that day was something like: “Why, in the end, could white Americans and native Americans not get along?” He gave this extraordinary answer: We were lawless people, but we were on pretty good terms with the Great Spirit, creator and ruler of all. You whites assumed we were savages. You didn’t understand our prayers.… We saw the Great Spirit’s work in almost everything: sun, moon, trees, wind, and mountains. Sometimes we approached Him through these things. Did you know that the trees talk? Well, they do. They talk to each other, and they’ll talk to you if you listen. Trouble is, white people don’t listen. They never learned to listen to Indians, so I don’t suppose they’ll listen to other voices in nature. But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.1 Our purpose in
