In 1964, Donald Currey killed the oldest tree ever. To this day, there has still never been an older tree discovered. The tree was a Great Basin bristlecone pine, and Currey didn’t mean to kill it. It was an accident, and one he didn’t really understand the ramifications of until he started counting rings.
Basically, Currey got his tree corer stuck in the tree. So stuck that it wouldn’t come out. An unwitting park ranger helped him cut the tree down to remove the instrument, and later Currey began to count the rings. Eventually, he realized that the tree he had just felled was almost 5,000 years old – the oldest tree ever recorded.
I found the above story in Smithsonian magazine after reading about it in a book by Andrew Peterson, The God of the Garden. Just imagine, that tree now named Prometheus, was pushing leaves and adding rings when the Civil and Revolutionary Wars were raging on this continent. It was there when Columbus landed in 1492, and it was keeping watch over the Great Basin National Park when Moses led the Jewish nation out of Egypt!
I love trees because they keep the air on; trees can live without man, but man will die without trees. There are countless trees mentioned in the Bible. From the very beginning, God planted a garden with trees for beauty and food! The Tree of Life is in the first and last books of the Bible. Revelation talks about the Tree of Life bearing different fruit each month for the healing of the nations. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait to see and taste that fruit!
God created words, and language. He created trees. He then chose to give us the ability to take a thought out of our minds and write it down. An invisible, intangible thing becomes visible and tangible that can be passed through generations. We close that loop with paper that comes from a tree. How incredible is that circle!
Have I told you lately how much I love books and magazines? I love print! Please feel free to point and laugh. It’s ok—I know I’m goofy!
As always, may you find joy in the simple things. This is Marlin with Plain Values magazine. Learn more about our work, and subscribe, at www.plainvalues.com.
Trees