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Dear Siblings in Christ,

In the third week of October, while most of you were going about your days, I quietly slipped away to Princeton Theological Seminary’s Farminary. It’s a place where the soil and the Spirit meet, where you learn about God’s creation with dirt under your fingernails. My time there was part of a pilgrimage I started back in February with Flagler College’s The Playground: Sabbath, Creation, and Communion Cohort. Now, as I move into the next part of this journey, I’ll be leading a handful of class sessions, hoping to pass along some of what God has been teaching me through this experience.

I must confess that I was less than enthusiastic about traveling. In fact, one item on our packing list was “good cheer.” Half-jokingly, I turned to Jacob and asked, “What the hell is this cheer they are asking us to bring?” I even shared that same sentiment with my colleagues when we gathered on our first evening together. I wasn’t particularly thrilled about getting on a plane, being away from home, or stepping out of my usual routine. Little did I know that my journey would begin with an unexpected lesson in humanity.

When I arrived at O’Hare, I left my phone in the rideshare car. Gone. After almost thirty years of carrying a cell phone, I finally lost one. Panic set in. Frustration. Anxiety. How would I reach our church staff? How would I talk to Jacob and Ace? What about my plane tickets, directions, all those little details we now trust to these tiny screens? It hit me just how much of my life, of all our lives, gets wrapped up in something so small.

But right there, amid my worry and frustration, something beautiful started to show up: people's kindness.

First, an airline ticket agent kindly lent me her phone so I could try calling the rideshare driver and my missing phone. Neither attempt worked, but her willingness to help a complete stranger meant something. Then the Associate Director of The Playground grant program reached me through my iPad while I was still at Newark Airport. Instead of making me wait for the scheduled van, she encouraged me to take a taxi to the hotel and relax. That simple act of consideration relieved some of my stress, although my tendency toward motion sickness as a passenger made the taxi ride its own adventure.

When I arrived at the hotel, a colleague greeted me with a huge hug; little did she know how much I needed it. Then I frantically tried to find a replacement phone. Eventually, I connected with a wonderful woman over the telephone who made it her personal mission to find one for me. She was working out of Omaha, Nebraska! Despite phones apparently selling like hotcakes, she managed to locate one and secure it for me. The following day, during our first break, the Assistant Program Director graciously took me to pick it up.

Finally, some relief! I could communicate again, access my information, and feel somewhat connected to the world I had temporarily lost. To finish, a current student at the Farminary drove me to the mall to get a case and screen protector; she also waited for me and said I didn't need to pay for a car share.

What stayed with me wasn’t the phone. It was the people. Strangers and friends who didn’t have to help, but did. They saw someone in need and chose compassion. No one asked what I believed, where I was from, or if I deserved their help. They just saw a fellow human being and responded with the kind of love that reminds me of Jesus.

I won’t share much more about the pilgrimage itself, as we'll have opportunities to do that later. However, as we enter November, a month when many of us gather around tables to give thanks, I want to reflect on one experience.

One of our assignments at the Farminary was to make a friend. Not a human friend. Not an animal friend. A tree friend.

Yes, you read that correctly. We were invited to find a tree, spend time with it, observe it, and develop a relationship with it beyond simply identifying it as part of the landscape.

During our reflections, one colleague shared that they found the exercise difficult because they couldn’t humanize the tree. That observation stayed with me. It made me think about how easily we do the opposite with people. We dehumanize others, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without even realizing it, because doing so makes it easier to dismiss their suffering, ridicule their experiences, justify their oppression, or simply look the other way.

I shared with the cohort how the failure to recognize one another’s humanity has contributed to some of history’s most horrific atrocities. We see it in the Holocaust, when our Jewish siblings were systematically dehumanized and murdered. We see it in the suffering and destruction inflicted upon Palestinians, including what many human rights organizations and scholars have identified as genocide. We see it in the history of Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, whose lives, cultures, and lands were treated as obstacles to colonial expansion.

And that brings me to Thanksgiving.

For many, Thanksgiving is a cherished holiday filled with family gatherings, delicious food, laughter, and gratitude. There is nothing inherently wrong with gathering around a table to give thanks. Yet, the history we have often been taught about Thanksgiving leaves out the suffering, displacement, and violence experienced by Indigenous peoples. For many Indigenous communities, Thanksgiving is also a time of mourning, remembrance, and truth-telling.

Even the land upon which our church building stands has a history that began long before Christ Church existed. The Potawatomi, along with the Odawa (Ottawa) and Ojibwe (Chippewa), formed the Council of Three Fires, a longstanding alliance of Indigenous nations whose ancestral homelands include this region. Their histories remind us that the land we occupy was never empty, nor was it simply waiting for someone else to claim ownership.

Colonization was made easier by portraying Indigenous peoples as less civilized, less worthy, or somehow less human. Once a person or community is stripped of its humanity in the eyes of others, it becomes easier to rationalize taking their land, suppressing their culture, separating their families, and even taking their lives.

And before we distance ourselves from such history by saying, “Well, that was a long time ago,” we ought to consider how dehumanization continues today. How often do we reduce someone to their immigration status, religion, nationality, race, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or economic circumstances? How often do we speak about entire groups of people as though they were problems to solve rather than human beings to love?

As followers of Christ, we are called to recognize each other's sacred worth. We cannot proclaim that every person is created in God’s image while simultaneously deciding that some lives deserve less dignity, compassion, or protection than others.

So, what does all of this have to do with making a tree friend?

For me, making a tree friend was an invitation to look deeper. To stop seeing things, or people, as just background, and to remember that everything God has made has a story, a place in creation, a history I may never know.

I did make a tree friend. I found myself sitting beside her as a silent companion. She was tall, stretching upward, and even supported a string of lights at the Farminary. As I sat there observing her, I noticed scars along her midsection. They looked old, and I wondered how they had gotten there. Had someone deliberately damaged her? Had something happened years ago that left those marks? What had she endured throughout her life?

And then my thoughts went somewhere unexpected. Did she still carry that trauma? Had she somehow healed from it? Were those scars simply part of her story now?

Of course, I couldn’t know her story. Trees don’t carry wounds the way we do, and I wasn’t expecting answers. Maybe that’s the lesson. I don’t have to know everything to honor her life. I don’t have to understand every scar to see what she’s been through. She doesn’t have to be human for me to recognize she’s part of God’s creation, worthy of care and respect.

We sat together in silence. I listened to the wind in the branches, the water by her roots, and the geese, who had plenty to say. No big revelation, no miracle, no tidy theological answer. Just presence.

There was simply presence.

As November arrives, I invite you to look around at people and at creation. The next time you pass a tree, a plant, or someone whose story is nothing like yours, pause. Don’t just see the surface. Remember there are stories and scars you may never know, but God knows them all.

When you gather at your Thanksgiving table, give thanks, absolutely. But also remember those whose stories have been silenced, whose humanity has been ignored, whose pain has been pushed aside. Let our gratitude stretch beyond the meal and become a promise that everyone deserves a place at the table, just as Christ welcomes us.

Maybe that’s the biggest lesson I carried home from the Farminary. Humanity isn’t just something we have; it’s something we’re called to see in each other, the way Jesus sees us. It shows up in how we respond, listen, care, and refuse to let anyone be treated as less than a child of God.

I began my pilgrimage wondering where to find this so-called “good cheer.” I lost my phone, experienced more anxiety than I care to admit, and spent time sitting beside a tree listening to some very talkative geese.

Somewhere along the way, I found something better than good cheer. I found kindness. I found compassion. And I remembered that sometimes God’s deepest lessons come when we slow down and notice the life He’s placed all around us.

May we be a church that sees the humanity in every person, remembers the scars of our history, and offers strangers the same compassion Jesus has shown us.

With gratitude and blessings,
Rev. Gilbert Martinez