The Witness Tree

Behold....

The 
Witness Tree

They grow old before us and yet are we silent to what they say, blind to what they have seen?  The witness trees have seen life before we were born and will go on after we die.  They have seen years unfold, events rush forward, heard conversations that are silent.  Yet, do we take time to revere them and stand in their company? 

Prof Radford Wine came up with this intriguing concept with several DVD's about the civil war--at Antietam and Gettysburg.  Go and stand there at the bridge, the spreading sycamore that has been their since the bloodiest battle is still there--go to the trees at Gettysburg and learn about Picket's charge, a death march in futility.  The trees have seen and heard it all.

Perhaps that's a way of recapturing our lineage in time.  The witness trees connect us to a past that lives in them and still breathes through their lives.  You stand there just as the soldiers did...and stand with them and hear their muted cries.

It is a challenge for us in our spiritual lives to see ourselves as more than just an individual but as part of a family tree with branches of people that go back in time.  Even more so, to know that these trees shall remain as witnesses to our lives and the stories we write even now.

For Christians, there is this sense that we date our true stories from the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is our witness that extends through all time.  Though he himself hung on a tree, a witness to his life, all lives are connected to him and find their ultimate Story in his.

Go ahead.  Drop what you are doing.  God for a walk among the trees....