En-Tree #9

Remember when you were a kid... think back... what's something you learned about trees? Counting the rings to see how old it was?

I thought this was the coolest thing when I was a kid. Anytime we would go and split wood or cut down a dead tree, my first thought was counting the rings... okay, so my first thought was probably, "I hope PawPaw has enough Mountain Dew in his giant cup to share with me!" But, definitely counting the rings was second.

There are professionals who can bore out a cylinder of wood from a live tree to count the rings and not kill the tree. Most of us would count the rings after the tree was cut down in some way and we would count the stump rings. For the purposes of this blog en-tree, we're gonna focus on counting the rings after the tree is dead.

When looking at the rings you can see the years that there was a lot or a little growth. A lot of this is due to the amount of water that the tree got in that year; i.e. If there was a drought, the rings are closer together, representing less growth.

You can literally see the hard times and good times, after the tree is gone. You can tell when the tree had to fight, when the tree got to bask in great things, when the tree had an average life. You can celebrate the life that this tree had, looking back through it's years.

One of the best sermons I ever heard was at a funeral. The speaker said that you can't help the birth date and the death date... the only thing you have any control over is the dash in between them. He then asked the question, "What will you do with your dash?"

What will people look back on your life, after you're gone, and see? Just years going by? Hard times? Good times? Times you had to fight? Years of growth?

After the tree is cut down, after it's life is over, when you are counting the rings... the tree leaves something behind: firewood, lumber, a mess, etc.

What's going to be your legacy? What will you leave behind?

"...they say you can't be killed."
"I wouldn't be bothering with the shield, then would I?"
"...he's the biggest man I've ever seen... I wouldn't want to fight him."
"That is why no one will remember your name."
--Achilles and a messenger boy, Troy