Friday, October 24, 2008

I found an acorn today.

I hold an oak tree in my hands. So small, so fragile. I could crush it, and it would never be an oak tree. So easily I could crush an oak tree.
There's something special about acorns. Maybe they're only special to me, because I'm not used to them. But as I've been walking under the oak trees on my way to class this year, I can't help but look up and wonder. They're so tall! I want to climb them, and build a house up there, and not come down until dark, or maybe stay up there all night. You can't do that with a pine tree. And now their leaves are turning color and falling, and I can see the birds nests in their branches. There's at least one nest in every tree; some have as many as three or four. I want to climb up and look, and see if there are still any egg shells left in their nests. Of course, all the eggs turned into birds long ago, but bits will still be left.
I wonder if acorns leave bits behind when they turn into oak trees.

Random philosophy isn't really my thing, but it seems almost magical to me. I can hold an oak tree. That's amazing. Any one of them is easily ten, twelve times my height.
But they all started out as a seed.
I can't really get my brain to wrap around that. As much science as I've jammed into my head, I still can't fathom how something so huge could have started out as something so tiny. This thing is literally smaller than my thumb, and if I plant it, if I let it grow, it'll turn huge. I know it'll take years and years to do it, but it'll grow. A little brown nub that I could easily crush will turn into something, that if it fell, could easily crush me.
And I'm ranting. I admit it, I don't have a story to post today. And I really don't know how to express myself about this kind of stuff. But I am just amazed that God could pack an oak tree into an acorn, and I thought you all should know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"As much science as I've jammed into my head, I still can't fathom..." -A.J. 2008

Maybe you just jammed too much science in you head, and now there's no more room.

Anyhow, quite an intriguing thought. Never really saw it that way before.

Anonymous said...

A treehouse would be fun to have! When you become rich and famous you need to plant a bunch of trees and build a whole fort between them, like Robinson Crusoe!