We are privileged to live on land that was once a farm. We live in an old forest that grows in straight lines. Tall Norway fir and white pine trees grow along the front of the property and from the front to the back yard. One can imagine that these might have been the trees left as windrows when the land was cleared.
Looking up into those trees, one is awed by their grandeur. Birds from hawks to sparrows perch there and squirrels and chipmunks exercise on them daily. Midsummer is the time when the cones begin to ripen and squirrels spend their days shooting fir cones down on us. I think they get extra points for hitting the sun foom roof, and last summer they managed to break a glass patio table top with one aimed particularly well.
When you look at those trees, they are not perfect. Never pruned, they have grown as space allowed. The lower branches have died and were trimmed off, but now they are so tall, there are many dead branches among the live ones.
Those dead branches do not affect the ‘treeness’ of these beauties. The birds and squirrels don’t think of the dead branches as problems -- just extra assists to get where they’re going.
We often want to improve on nature, by removing any imperfection, forgetting that trees are already whole, even as they change and age.
God doesn’t have the smallness of mind of humans when it comes to trees or when it comes to us. Ezekiel 31.4-9
The waters nourished it,
the deep made it grow tall,
making its rivers flow
around the place where it was planted,
sending forth its streams
to all the trees of the field.
So it towered high
above all the trees of the field;
its boughs grew large
and its branches long,
from abundant water in its shoots.
All the birds of the air
made their nests in its boughs;
under its branches all the animals of the field
gave birth to their young;
and in its shade
all great nations lived.
It was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down
to abundant water.
As long as we look at ourselves through human eyes, we risk missing the wholeness that God sees. When we root ourselves in God’s love, we too will be beautiful in our greatness!
