The Black Walnut Tree

Whenever I visit our son in Lafayette, I also reconnect with the gigantic old black walnut tree that stands in the yard just outside the window of the room where I sleep.  The very long branches of this veteran-of-a-tree seem to reach up imploringly toward the heavens with a posture of worship and praise.  Black-crusted fruits (hull-covered nuts) still fall hopefully to the ground every fall as a promise of new life. 

Its rough bark and gnarled, scarred trunk - where whole limbs have been severed -  stand as evidence that all living things are marked in due time by the rigors of age, but also that such experience yields something more than a mature physical presence: character. Despite a few shabby features, the black walnut seems stately not only in posture and visage, but also in its very LIFE.

Several years ago there was casual mention made that the tree should come down; that it could obliterate the comparatively small house in the event of a bad wind.  However, such a crushing fall doesn’t seem a serious threat, so the idea was overruled.  It would be no small thing to take the life of such a senior citizen of this picturesque valley.

I identify with the walnut tree in a variety of ways, particularly in regard to rootedness and longevity.  But perhaps especially at night I’m magnetized as it stands in the soft glow of the outdoor security light with stars twinkling through its outstretched branches that reach for the sky.  It has grown in a specific geographical place, changed during a defined chronological duration due to seasons of growth and dormancy (as well as life-altering storms), and is no longer the same tree it once was.  It knows to reach higher....reach every HIGHER.  I can say the same.