These days in northeast USA are dry and very hot,, so I look especially at the trees. Peter Wolhleben in”The Hidden Life Of Trees,(, Vancouver,Ca 2016} writes that he began his career as a forester working for a German commercial firm harvesting lumber. Then he switched over to managing a natural forest in Germany. His whole approach to trees changed. 

He began seeing trees, not from a human perspective — dollars and cents or how they fit around your homes or on your street—but from their place in the forest before we humans decided what they’re good for.

He finds that trees communicate with one another, among other things. They have a language all their own.They struggle and strategize and unite to form a glorious whole. Trees are parents helping their kids and kids helping their parents; well trees help the sick. Trees respond to the universe of air, water, and soil. They respond to a drought.

We humans can learn from them. Just go out your back door and see, Wolhleben says. So I’m watching the trees these hot days. The new trees we planted,, the red oak and the American elm. The evergreens around our Mary Garden. The big oaks that have watched over us for years. They’re holding on these dry, hot days. So should we.

That’s what Jesus does in today’s gospel. He brings. before us the example of trees:

By their fruits you will know them.
Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Just so, every good tree bears good fruit,
and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,
nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down
and thrown into the fire.
So by their fruits you will know them.”