Trees

Until this morning, the end of our road was marked by two huge willow trees. Every year I watch as they turn from a mass of bare, brown , spindles into a feathery green haze. Then I know spring has come.

When I got home an hour ago, I found the council had started taking them down. A few years back I discovered one or two residents who live by the trees wanted them removed because they didn't like sweeping up the fallen leaves in the autumn. Maybe this is why the council are removing them.

This might sound too sentimental - I know not everyone loves trees like I do - but this situation has saddened me. These are two beautiful trees that have grown there for well over 50 years. And simply because some people who have since moved in don't like them, the local authority has decided to kill them. To me, something is very wrong with this; and it certainly suggests that people think they are at the centre of the universe. These willows have taken decades to grow into majestic structures that will outlast all the residents in this street - but they mess up some paths for a couple of weeks a year - so down they come. Convenience over history and wonder.

Having said all of this, my depressed reaction created some questions for me personally. I still maintain it's completely stupid to cut them down - but also, how can I get so upset over trees, when I am not sure I think so deeply about the people in this area who, every day, come to the end of their lives without receiving forgiveness of sin, and so go away to judgement forever. Does that make me like Jonah? Distressed at the loss of his plant, but not so distressed over the final destruction of Nineveh.

It also alerted me to something else. Have I forgotten that this world is temporary, that I will see much more destruction before I die, and that a new earth which is also heaven awaits God's people? Wilful destruction of beauty is an ancient component of life in a fallen world. Do I look to the next world? If there is a new earth, then I assume it will be of infinite beauty, the fulfilment of the shadows of beauty we see in this present creation. Whilst this would be rather pathetic as the centre of my hope, there will be trees there. I will dwell with God in a perfect creation. Maybe I will see a seed planted, and watch a tree grow; and a thousand years later both I and the tree will still be there. And how big is a tree which grows unhindered for a thousand years? Or fifty thousand years?