Last week I went to the beautiful Kew Gardens in London and at one point I found myself listening to a tale given by one of their guides that, though actually about the growth of trees and their interaction with soil, did have a lot to say about our human growth and navigation of life.
We were filled in on what happened after the ‘great storm’ of October ’87 when Britain awoke to some pretty serious damage. 500 million trees were destroyed across the country with Kew losing nearly 700.
But one tree in particular, Turner’s Oak, provides a nugget of Wednesday Wisdom this morning. Planted back in the 18th century, this guy was well loved, and worn out by all the visitors who’d found shade and shelter under his branches (yes, lets personify the tree!) So after the epic storm, Kew staff went tentatively to check out how he was doing, only to discover that he’d been granted a whole new lease of life.
Having been uprooted in the gales and then thumped back down again, this special woody plant had managed to find more room, water and air for its roots; the soil, after all that compacting from human pressure above, had finally been zhuzh’ed-up. As a result, the Oak grew better post storm than it ever had done in the calmer years leading up to it.
And it’s here I saw the thread of connection between the tree and us lot - because I reckon storms, though dreaded, are often the making of us. And becoming stronger when you have the right, as it were, to break down is an amazing thing indeed.
Now as we head towards Easter and remember its story of resurrection, one that as former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams put it, jolts us ‘out of the rut of what is usual and predictable’ and into ‘a new world where anything is possible’ - a smattering of the Turner’s Oak approach wouldn’t go amiss either; using life’s hiccups, whether great or small, as chance to re-root and seek out better connection with those people and things that emanate light and nourishment.
Thanks to Turner and his weathering of that ‘great storm’, tree surgeons (the greatest job title of all time) have developed a whole new method for treating trees. As the American pastor, Joel Osteen once said: “There are some things you can only learn in a storm”.