My meeting has an old Oak Tree standing at the front of the meeting house.  How old I can't tell you.  but I can tell you someone wrote an article about this same "Old oak Tree" about one hundred and sixty years ago.  There's even a picture of the oak tree with the article (which we keep posted on our bulletin board) showing the "Old oak Tree" which shows a good healthy oak tree that you would think was a hundred years old.  Massive trunk.  Robust branches.

Today the "Old oak Tree" isn't as healthy.  I keep praying that it doesn't die on our watch (although if God took it home with a bolt of lightning or a storm I personally would be able to handle it).  We spend more on the oak tree than we contribute to our yearly meeting (Not something I am proud of). 

Now an oak tree doesn't bear fruit for us but does drop Acorns for posterity and squirrel purposes.  It's main benefit though is its strength.  As a hardwood it finds itself being used for sturdy furniture and many other products where strength is important.  However, this oak tree is past it's prime.  Its inside is hollow.  it's branches hardly strong enough to hold new growth.  It's roots striving for nutrients to feed its massive trunk and fight off the decay of age and the pests which surround it while looking to drain away its last ounces of life for their own survival and growth.  In it's last attempt for immortality, even in its present weakened condition it sends out acorns hoping that by doing so its seed will continue unabated until Peace reigns and all creation is one with its Creator.

Unfortunately this "Old oak Tree" hasn't been successful in that endeavor, at least until now, for my meeting likes things to be in order and up to recently that meant grass and mowing - a dangerous combination for our tree's hopes for immortality.  But last year we decided to make the area around the tree a wild flower garden - no more mowing - and this year as we marvel at the beauty that greeted us this spring we recognize the possibility of watching new oak trees spring up.  Like our own lives we recognize that sometimes there has to be a little disorder or messiness if we want new growth, new life.  When our "Old oak Tree" succumbs to its inevitable fate, I pray we use every piece of it to provide nourishment for its seed so that it can be one with the next oak tree to find its place there, One tree growing from the best of what once was, until it fulfills its own destiny, whatever that might be: firewood to warm a frozen soul, a chair to hold an aging soul, or an "Old oak Tree" for souls to gather around and dream of what it has seen during its lifetime.