4 am Thoughts

Parable of the Oak

A mighty oak stands in the meadow. Seasons pass and each autumn the seeds fall. Sometimes they ripen and slip from their stems to fall on the fertile leaf compost below the spreading branches. Other times thunderous winds carry the seeds out and away where they fall on uncertain ground.

Winter passes and spring comes and with it nourishing rains. The seeds sprout. They send out their tiny roots to burrow into the soil and find nutrients. A stalk begins as a sliver reaching for the mother of all life, the sun.

The sprouts under the tree have a rich home. The massive trunk protects them from wind and the worst of the storms but they do not thrive. The mighty oak has leached the ground of it goodness. Each year it sends its roots deeper and farther out in search of its own food. The dense leaf canopy shields the seedlings from rain and sun. Seedlings become saplings but they wither and die.

The seeds that have flown from their home on the wind have fallen by chance; on rock, in water, or with some luck, on ground. Some will not survive, will shrivel and die with no place for a root to grow. Some will become food for birds or small meadow creatures and will travel even farther. Some will sprout. They will send their tendril of a root into the good earth; they will reach their slender spike to the glory of the sun. As the seedling becomes a sapling, the rains and wind will test its fiber and find it strong enough.