The coolest trees in the world: a picture of faith from creation

These are Redwoods.




Grizzly Giant, Marposa, Yosemite

I love them. This one's called the Grizzly Giant, it's the 25th biggest sequoia in the world. 64m tall and 28m around, it's 3.5 times taller than my school ,which is a substantial 5 storey building. I took this picture in Yosemite National Park, California, which was a real privilege to visit. I you're in the area, you just must go.


Of course, that's a Giant Redwood (Sequioadendron Giganteum) which are the biggest trees in the world in terms of total volume and mass. Sadly, they have rather fragile tops which tend to break off after a thousand years or so. This leaves the mantle of tallest tree to their cousins, the Coast Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens). Oddly, despite being called Sempervirens (ever-living) it generally only lives up to 1800 years, whereas the Giant Redwood often gets well over 2700 years old. Some of those trees were already 700 years old at the birth of Christ!




'Giant Tree.' No kidding.

This is Victoria and I at the foot of the unimaginatively titled 'Giant Tree' in Redwood State Park, Northern California, home of hundreds of Coast Redwoods. It was near there that they filmed the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. You don't need special effects around there, it's an alien environment already.


This tree would tower over the Grizzly Giant; it's 109m  tall! 6 times taller than my school! Wandering around Redwood Park is an awesome and eerie experience; hundreds of these massive trunks shootiog straight up into the air. The dense canopy 300 feet up keeps much of the light from getting through, so while it's quite light enough to see and trek about, there aren't many other trees about, just these humongous long lived statuesque beauties rising straight out of the ground. It's 40 metres or more until you get to the first branches, so the trucks are left to impress.

A Grove of Giant Redwoods in Mariposa, Yosemite

Giant Redwoods grow a little differently. Rather than dominating an area they grow in groves of a few trees clustered together, but like the Coast Redwood, they never grow alone. This is all down to the incredible way they are rooted.


You would expect, perhaps, that such massive trees have very deep roots shooting deep into the earth, possibly tied to the very bedrock itself. Some kind of super-root must be necessary to keep these towering trees up, surely?


Well, you're not wrong, but it's not what you'd expect. The roots of these arboreal legends go down a mere 6 feet.

SIX FEET!!!!!

Surely that's not enough to hold up these forest giants? Well, it certainly wouldn't be, but their roots, while they down go down very far, do go out! Not only that, they grasp hold of one another. Theses magnificent creations could not stand on their own, but weather the storms of this world by holding each other up, leaning on each other for support and stability.

What a picture of fellowship. I was reminded of this recently looking at Mark Chapter 6, when Jesus send out the disciples for the first time. He doesn't let them take much stuff to support themselves with, no food, no spare clothes, just a staff, however he does give them one important thing: each other. He sends them out in pairs. I take this to mean that we are to be there for one another, that God doesn't expect us to perform miracles by ourselves, that we can achieve so much more with each other than alone.
The other cool thing about Redwoods is their response to fire; they need it. They are largely impervious to fire, one of very few non-flammable woods. When the Great Fire of San Francisco caused devastation in 1906 the damage was abruptly halted when the flames reached a district made of Redwood lumber. Forest fires rarely damage Redwoods but do thin-out competing species, leaving space and nutrients for the Redwoods. Beyond this, the seeds are released from the cones by high temperatures, so any forest fire releases thousands of new seeds to help the next generation start their incredible growth.

Cool trees, and beautiful too. Go see 'em.

Dude, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wave!!

My small group from Church have just finished an amazing study series. We've been watching the DVD of 'The Reason for God' by Tim Keller. The book is great and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking into the common questions people have about Christianity, but the DVD series is a little different. We've watched a group of non-Christians putting their thoughts to each other and to Dr Keller and exploring the arguments for and agaist different aspects of Christianity: is the church full of hypocrites, how can a loving God send people to hell etc. It's really opened our eyes to the types of objections people out there in the world will have to our faith, but more that that, it has helped us work out what we really think or our own faiths. I reccomaned it to any small group leaders looking for discussion points.

Anyway, enough about that. Dr Keller seems to have a good enough reputation and enough sales without me plugging his wares. I wanted to share one of the visions of God we found useful during our discussions.

Mrs D and I were lucky enough to be in Hawaii a few years ago. We had a fabulous time there and managed to cross of one of our lifetime ambitions: we went surfing. We'd done a little before on the same trip and had managed to stand up and ride some waves in to shore, but only inside the break, on waves which had already crested. By all accounts,  riding the bigger waves outside the break is much more thrilling, but rather harder to do, so to help us make progress, we had another lesson with a local instructor, Dave.

Dave was very cool. He looked and sounded like a regular chap, he wasn't a stereotypical surfer dude, but his attitude to life was very laid back. He was one satisfied and chilled out man, and why wouldn't he be? He spent his days cycling and surfing along Hawaii's North Shore.

Dave ran us through the tips for getting up beyond the break. It seemed to come down to choosing the right wave, timing and effort. The first two he would take care of, the latter was up to us. Forewarned, we set out.

The break Dave had chosen was not too far out to sea, but it was breaking over some nasty looking shallow rocks. There were places where falling off and getting smashed down would be seriously bad news. We were going to need to be careful. Thankfully Dave knew the spots to look out for.

We hung out on our boards at the end of a small line of surfers, waiting for a wave big enough to be worth riding but small enough to not kill us. A few of the guys in the line caught some bigger waves and made it look easy; some missed waves altogether, and the odd one got chewed up by the Pacific rollers only to emerge smiling, ready for another go. We started to get both keen and anxious.

I was first to go. Dave told me to get ready, he could see the right wave coming in. I turned to look, to see what I'd be riding, but Dave told me off. "I'll time the wave, buddy, you just paddle hard when I say." He was right, I just didn't have the skill yet to know when to go. We'd seen plenty of guys in the line going to late and just slipping off the back of the wave, if I wanted to catch this one I would have to trust Dave.

Suddenly our even-tempered surf instructor bellowed at me. "Paddle!!! Go for it." He yelled; I paddled. I felt the wave build around me. Lying on the board,  I was now facing downhill and rushing towards the rocks below. There were lots of them, and they looked big and sharp. I guess Dave sensed my fear, he must have seen my paddling slow down, and he knew as well as I did what was below me. He also knew that if I really committed, I'd be up, safe and enjoying a wild ride. He tried to spur me on again...

"Come on Rob! Give it!!!!"

I gave it everything I had. I cleared the rocks, but as I cleared them and went to stand up I mistimed my move and wiped out. I went over, but for the briefest fraction of a second I was on that board and riding. I knew what Dave knew, what he wanted me to feel.

I didn't get up that day. Mrs D did, she's a natural, but even so, not every time. We spent an hour paddling hard, trusting Dave and falling in. It was exhausting and exhilarating, and for me at least, very frustrating. When we staggered onto the beach we vowed to go again.

Three days later we got up at sunrise on our fourth wedding anniversary and rented boards in Waikiki, on the South Shore. I suppose the waves were a little smaller and there were certainly fewer rocks, but that day we both made it up onto our boards. When I was finally riding a wave in to shore, staring at Honolulu rushing towards me, I knew Dave would have been proud.

Dave still comes to mind when I hear people talk about God being demanding, when I hear  confusion or anger about all those instructions in the bible, all those commandments. I remember Dave yelling at me, not in anger, not because I was breaking the surfing rules and that made him cross, but because he knew best. He knew when I needed to paddle. He knew the dangers. Most of all he knew how awesome it is to ride along on the energy of creation, and his instructions were all he had to help me feel it too. He couldn't paddle for me, I had to do it myself. Those shouted commands were for my benefit, laid out by someone I had to trust because in that moment, he knew best.  When I look at God's commandments, especially the ones I don't understand, it helps me to remember that He DOES understand, and he's telling me out of love, to help me avoid the rocks below, to help me enjoy the rush of working with Him.


There comes a time when you just have to trust.