2008

Nine hundred years before Christopher Columbus landed the Santa Maria on the Bahamas Archipelago, an acorn germinated and became the Angel Oak.  This tree is believed to be almost 1500 years old, one of the oldest living organisms east of the Mississippi.  It grows on John’s Island near downtown Charleston, South Carolina.

To walk beneath this awesome tree is to enter God’s living room.  It is a space scented by the crisp brown leaves that carpet the ground.  It is to bask in the yellow green glow of light filtered by a million leaves.  It is to ponder just how much life is lived inside the arms of this created living thing.  One can try to follow the fractal patterns of the branches down to the twig and leaf, but it cannot be done.  This Angel Oak never stops growing in an eternal push into the heavens that has spanned 56 generations.  Rooted in the earth with arms reaching the heavens, it is like a bridge from God to mankind, and we could use a merciful bridge.