Grey Alder
The grey alder, small, short-lived, and shrub-like, grows along river banks and among damp spaces.
In swampy zones, they can create nearly impenetrable thickets known as Alder Swamps. These ecosystems create homes for beavers and many species of birds and plants, and a plethora of invertebrates. The spring leaf buds are reddish-brown, as are the wispy catkins. The green leaves form a broad blade with a symmetrical pattern. They propagate by spreading and catching pollen from each tree’s male and female catkins.
Alders have a stubborn talent for sending up suckers from stumps and roots. The grey alder earns an alternative name, speckled alder, due to the presence of tiny breathing bumps on its grey bark. The speckles serve as tubes between the open air and the tree’s inner spheres to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, as in leaves.
What do you love about this particular creature?
What do they reveal to you about God and our faith?
The grey alder breathes through leaves and bark, drinks from water still and flowing. A community of speckled alders will fill a realm friendly to its needs and create a world, friendly too to a host of other creatures. God’s grace comes near to us with the tenacity and abundance of this humble tree.
That grace approaches us, surrounds us, if we allow, with the Baptismal spirit, steadfast love, urging us to hospitality to the presence of others, some needy, many generous. That hidden power nurses us, joining the roots of Christ’s love with the wellspring of our own emergence as lovers with God.m where life can thrive and blossom, where justice and mercy create the balance and healing this fragile earth is longing to embrace.
Author - The Rev. Norman MacLeod
Norman MacLeod, a retired priest, sees his ministry more and more as connecting with the created presence of Christ as found in our more-than-human neighbors. He lives by Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and recalls with gratitude hours and days spent along the Grey Alder-lined banks of the Ottauquechee River by Mission Farm, Killington, Vermont.
O Creator God, you are known by your loving embrace of the undeserving and those who suffer: Grant us sight of your justice and conviction to love all creatures; through Jesus Christ the Wisdom of Creation, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
Creation Collect (Proper 21 Year C) from Season of Creation, A Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes