When the doorbell rang, I opened it to a man and a young woman (a student, it turned out), dressed in the uniform of the Forest Service.
“We’d like to measure your trees,” the man said.
He was talking about the two huge live oaks in the front yard — actually sand live oaks, as he informed us. They are listed as champion oaks, the largest of their kind in the area, which is why the Forest Service wanted to measure them.
He also told us that the state’s Champion Live Oak (the live oak is a larger tree than its relative, the sand live oak) is located in a field outside La Crosse, not far from Gainesville. It is called the Cellon Oak after its former owner. Its trunk is 30 feet in circumference.
Sister Annette, Sister Elizabeth, and I decided that we wanted to view this giant for ourselves, so one day last week we set out northward toward La Crosse.
Live oaks (and also the sand live oaks in our yard) are wind-resistant, and tend to do well in hurricanes. They may lose branches, but usually remain standing – unlike laurel oaks, many of which crashed into roofs or smashed cars or landed across roads during the hurricanes of 2004.
As I lean against the massive trunk, I am reminded of the sturdy love of God – and also of George and Ira Gershwin’s song:
In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble,
They’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.
In time even a colossus like the Cellon Oak will reach the end of its lifespan. The sand live oaks which shade our yard and our house will die. God’s love for us, on the other hand, is here to stay.
My love, however, is more flimsy. It is inclined to give way long before the Rockies or the Cellon Oak. In fact, it is probably more like the laurel oak when faced with a strong wind.
Another song comes to mind. Here is the third verse of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.- Robert Robinson, 1758
Bind my heart to you, O God. Fill it with the love with which your Son Jesus loved you, for that is a love both pure enough and strong enough to steady my own changeable affection.