On Monday the 4th of August, at 2300, a small group of people from the village I live in met to plant an oak tree to "remember the start of the 1st world war in 1914". This was the day and time the British ultimatum to the Germans ran out, and we tragically joined that tragic war (which had actually been going on for a day or two).
Planting oaks is a rather English obsession. We do it all the time, and have done for a long while. The senses stir at the sight of an isolated oak with its unmistakable profile. The oak is one of those cultural symbols beloved of us – whatever sort of English woman or man we might be. If you don't understand that, then, in Andy Stables's sense, you lack a certain cultural literacy. You also lack, I'd say, a certain sustainability literacy – dodgy concept though that might be.
To plant an oak in 2014 is an act of hope, and, if this weren't a secular oak, an act of some faith. How will it fare as the climate shifts and the land (probably) warms? Actually, it might just fare better than we shall.
This oak is secular because it was planted with no order of service or clerical blessing; no prayers were said, no pious hopes for peace were expressed; no priest was present to lend a spurious gravitas. This was in stark contract to what was on offer on TV at the same time when a ridiculously literal * 'lights going out' service was broadcast from Westminster Abbey. I was relieved to stop watching this as the cant was both considerable and suffocating, particularly as none of the many bishops, cardinals, right reverends, and most venerables on show had anything remotely worthwhile to say about war or peace. To a man, they lacked the grounding, solidity and gravitas of the oak.
In contrast, those of us who planted the tree, shared stories of our grandfathers' experiences in the war, and that sense of hope. It was low key, and really rather wonderful.
Note
* The service was based on British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey's remark' just as war was engaged, that "the lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." This was obviously a metaphorical assertion.
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