The photograph is quite astounding. A man is standing in a tract of redwood forest. The tree he is next to has got to be at least ten feet thick. Only in the distance can one see the tops of any trees. The man is miniscule compared to the enormous tree in the photo. The story accompanying it is also wonderfully astounding.
The Save the Redwoods League bought a 523-acre property and then transferred it to the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a consortium of ten tribes working to protect coastal lands and ancient forests. Home to several endangered species, this land is now protected in perpetuity.
It doesn’t matter whether any of us will ever actually see this land. Simply knowing that this magnificent area of God’s creation will not be destroyed by companies only seeking to profit off the trees is enough. Like the cedars of Lebanon, much of the primeval forest has been destroyed. Even the Roman Emperor Hadrian understood the need to protect natural beauty.
Prayer for the Day
Reaching to the sky, the trees beckon us to praise your creation,
Forest animal and bird alike find shelter under your branches;
Towering above even the mist of fog, they stand firm in the wind,
And the music of the rustling branches sings to us.
Grant, O bountiful Creator, that we are blessed by beauty
And in return strive to preserve what you have given us.
In the name of the One who walked among us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
What can the redwoods tell us about ourselves? Well, I think they can tell us something about human time. The flickering transitory quality of human time and the brevity of human life – the necessity to love.
- Richard Preston, nature writer
I didn’t need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity. I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.
- Annie Lamott, American writer
The trees of the Lord drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon t God planted.
Where the birds build their nests; the stork whose home is the cypresses.
The high mountains for the gazelles; the crags a shelter for badgers.
God made the moon for the fixed seasons, -- the sun, God appointed its setting.
Psalm 104: 16-19 (Trans. Robert Alter) Tc’ih-Leh-Dun
(Sacred place of Sinkyone people)