The Beech tree.

This post will first have a quote then something written by Paul. The Beech tree will be next followed by what I didn’t know/ remember but which I found sadly interesting and in a way encouraging.

The quote is this: ‘ We cannot use the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is to use us.’ The writer concludes the paragraph in this way but only after saying that the Holy Spirit belongs to us as much as to the first disciples but like every other promise, it is given on conditions. We can talk about, read about profess to claim the Lord’s promises, yet we don’t receive the benefit. Why? We don’t surrender the soul to be guided by the Holy Spirit. We want to manage ourselves.

We can have His Spirit if we wait humbly for God, watch for His guidance and grace. It is given because of the great rich grace of Christ, and He gives as much as we are able to have the capacity to receive. EG White.

Here is Paul speaking: ‘ … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.’ Philippians 2: 12 part,13.

The Beech tree

We walked past the Beech tree but no further, the path through the grass was slippery. I took a picture of the trunk, the fresh new stinging nettles coming through the fallen leaves and a twig with both a new shoot and 2025’s three angled nut.

Fagus sylvatica

There it stands through, they say, nearly 40 days of continuous rain. It is not the amount but the number or continuity of days that make this a record of wetness.

This tree is vulnerable to drought but likes good drainage. It should thrive with hopefully a good store of water in the ground for summer.

The smooth bark is very wet now and its branches preparing for spring. May its height be held well as the ground continues to soften and may no strong winds take it. This beech so grand that it cannot be seen in total when standing next to it.

The nettles at its feet spring from 2026.

I then read a poem written by Robert Frost: ‘Beech’ it belongs to a group of poems ‘ A witness Tree’ 1943.

Here are the words and then press on his name to hear his voice read them.

Beech

Where my imaginary line

Bends square in woods,

an iron spine

And pile of real rocks

have been founded

And off this corner in the wild, Where these are driven in and piled,

One tree, by being deeply wounded,

Has been impressed as Witness Tree

And made commit to memory

My proof of being not unbounded

Thus truth’s established and borne out,

Through circumstanced with dark and doubt

Though by a world of doubt surrounded.

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Frost

Here is then what I found out about his life:

Robert Frost’s father died of tuberculosis when he was 11 years old but he found in his wife of 43 years the encouragement he needed for his poetry. They were co-valedictorians in high school and lived in England from 1912-1915 and this is where he published and was acclaimed. He then returned to the US as a recognised poet.

Their married life had much sadnesses: two of their children died in childhood, their daughter with her aunt were committed to a mental institution and his son committed suicide.

Life can be so painful. In spite of all this his work is much appreciated and in 1961 he was Poet Laureate in the USA. He died after surgery in 1965.

The maroon beech shoots with a spiny dehiscent cupule.

A past

A present

A future.

Take care,

Sandy 🙂