I remember once reading a book in which a small child expressed astonishment by exclaiming, 'Christ on a bike!'

I was torn - whether to laugh hysterically at the picture this conjured up, or to throw down this blasphemy in disgust. In the end I only snorted tea up one nostril and frowned heavily with the opposite eyebrow.

I remembered that book when I saw the 'Jesus in a tree' article in FirstCoastNews ('the site of your life', apparently), which seemed almost as disrespectfully funny. We may not be permitted to see God etc, but never mind all that. Jesus has apparently seen fit to show his face in a tree in Memphis, Tennessee:

Then I wondered if Jesus made a habit of this kind of thing, even though it looks kind of painful to have your face all squashed up like that. And it seems that he does! None other than the BBC reports that Jesus appeared in a Hawthorn tree-trunk in Burgess Hill, Sussex, in 2005. He doesn't look quite as squished, but it does look like someone's poked an eye out:

But Jesus doesn't limit himself to the outside of tree trunks: according to the Telegraph, he also appeared as a 'sap stain' in a tree section made by a Pennsylvania furniture-maker in April 2008. This was clearly during Jesus' 'interpretive dance' phase.

Then there's a bunch of fuss over Jesus' WHOLE BODY, clutching a lamb, in a tree in a cemetary in Illinois. I can't see it myself - I think the tree may be channelling Mae West - but who am I to say?

And as the Creator of all wood, our Lord doesn't limit himself to deciduous hardwoods, either. In Margate, Florida, he was seen in a palm tree:

Is it me? I see a capuchin monkey, but I'm so not going to say that out loud. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or tree-hugger.

There's a rather excitable video of residents in an Arlington neighbourhood trying to get over seeing Jesus in a tree. The blog where I found the video rather amusingly says, "Well, I thought the second coming would be a little more impressive, but I guess it's true that the Lord works in mysterious ways."

 As for me, if that's Our Lord then I just wish he looked a little less... run over.

Then he popped up in Rochester, upstate New York:

And then I got bored. It just goes to show: Lo, he is with us always. And everywhere.