Would you turn in your Bibles, please, to the book of Genesis,

the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 2, as we begin a very short series leading up to Christmas Eve,

this Sunday, next Sunday, and then Christmas Eve itself.

Now there's a Marvel comic story that has become a movie or movies called Guardians of the Galaxy in which the nemesis named Drax, Drax the Destroyer, uses a phrase. The phrase he uses is dumb as a tree. He's as

dumb as a tree. He's referring, of course, to the notable character in that series called

Groot, who is indeed a tree. But he uses the phrase phrase dumb as a tree. Well, if you know anything about

trees, they're far from dumb. In fact, they're smarter than you might think. Trees can communicate

with other trees. They use a network known as a mycorrhizal network.

And a mycorrhizal networks enables trees to share both resources and data with other trees.

They can, for example, through this mycorrhizal network,

share water, nutrients, and send distress signals to other trees

about drought, about disease, and about insect infestation.

I didn't know trees could do that.

So they're pretty smart.

Then, once the tree is dead,

scientists will often cut them open

and read the rings of the trees,

which can predict climate change

as they look at the patterns of the rings in the trees.

There are, currently on planet Earth, 60 plus 60,000 species of trees across the globe.

And those trees bring enormous benefits to humanity.

They provide medicine, including two-thirds of all anti-cancer drugs, come from trees.

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