The Peripatetic Preacher and His Redwood Tree

I have been setting up a new office space on the second floor landing of our Garage Mahal home. My desk, an IKEA model put together by yours truly, the incompetent handy man, faces directly onto the roof of the main house of our property. But, magnificently, that roof is made wonderfully tiny, nay insignificant, by the stunning redwood tree that graces the front of our place, just off the street apparently named after its three redwoods that tower over this short avenue. Redwood Ave itself is a mere four blocks long, from Zanja street to Mindinao road, but I have a complete view of one of these trees. How lucky can a person get?

This tree is nothing less than exquisite. I would guess it to be about 70 feet tall with a beautifully classic shape, rising to a great “Christmas tree” top. I can imagine a giant angel figure up there, trumpeting out the good news of the birth of Jesus, but I would not want to be the one who placed the angel there—it is a long way up! Its trunk is some five feet around with that red, gnarled look that the Giant Redwoods of California have made so famous. I am not quite sure just which species of redwood mine is. It is evergreen, producing large cones of five inches or more along with oodles of brown needles at this fall of the year. I have never seen it watered beyond the quite rare rain we get in this part of southern California, but it appears completely healthy and robust. In the short time I have been here—now 17 months—this tree has become an old and trusted friend.

I have visited the giant redwoods that California uniquely presents in profusion, both the Old Grove in Redwood National Park, and the amazing drive through the Redwood National Forest near the northern California coast. Those trees are surely among the wonders of our earth, many of them standing over 350 feet having lived for more than three thousand years. It is awe-inspiring to imagine that some of these trees began to grow and live while David, the king of Israel, was establishing his tiny kingdom in that far-away desert land. And they were alive when his son, Solomon, built the temple in Jerusalem, using some of the mighty Cedars of Lebanon as main supports for his building. Yet, those cedars had nothing on the giant redwoods of California.

My redwood is not one of those; if Los Angeles still exists in whatever form some 2000 years from now, a resident then will not witness my tree topping 350 feet. To be sure, it is a redwood but not the giant variety. It is frankly unimaginable that my tree would some day be six times its current height; that would be the stuff of nightmares rather than a dream of nature.

As I gaze at the redwood, I also see many palm trees fronting its view. These palms come in many guises. We have two in our front yard of the more stubby variety with long looping branches, but across the street and further down the several roads of our neighborhood I see those very tall, slim palms with branches at least 50 feet off the ground. In fact, one across our street and a bit to the south of my redwood is perhaps 45 feet tall with its trunk engirdled with vegetation, making its slim stem appear much larger than it is. And in the farther distance I can see even taller palms that sway quite charmingly in the afternoon ocean breeze that wafts in from the Pacific about 1 1⁄2 miles away. None of these palms produce dates or coconuts, though a few offer orange colored flower-like pods in season. The horticultural irony of my window’s view is that neither my redwood or the palms I see flower, while nearly every other plant in the area explodes with colors, white, red, yellow, purple, orange practically year round. Little wonder that so many people choose to live in this natural paradise, unfortunately fouling the air and clogging the roads. Both unpleasant facts I am willing to withstand in order to see my redwood, its accompanying palm friends, and their nearby myriad flowering plants.

Still, my redwood tops them all, not only in height but in splendor. Today, its green-clad fascination, set sharply against a cobalt-blue sky—yes, even LA has such skies on occasion—protects and guards the mystery of its straight trunk, its increasingly narrowed branches, and its silently forming seed cones. I can genuinely say that I love this tree, a potent sentinel of our street. I do not love it for what it can do for me, though I feel a kind of calm in its presence. I love it, because it is a gift, and as such is intrinsically valuable to a world ever in need of signs of beauty and wonder. I could live here without it, I suppose, but how much the poorer would I be if its shining bulk did not grace my world? So I give thanks for the redwood that fills my eyes and reminds me that the creation of God is not for me alone. I like to think that God on occasion gazes down at my redwood, smiles and says, Now, that’s good!” My redwood teaches me that there is such a thing as love for something, not because of what it can offer you, but just because it is and is beautiful and grand and stands up straight in a world too often marked by crookedness and bending with whatever way the wind blows. While the tall and slender palms bend and sway, my redwood barely ripples in its topmost branches, and its powerful trunk bends not at all. May I and all others with eyes to see witness what the redwood speaks to the world!

(images from Wikimedia Commons)