Lessons of a Giant Sequoia
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Maybe this year’s most faithful work isn’t checking every box, but planting one small seed and trusting the quiet, unseen growth.
O peace, bless this mad place:
Silence, love this growth.
O silence, golden zero
Unsetting sun
Love winter when the plant says nothing.
— Jan Richardson
Isaiah 55.12-13
So you’ll go out in joy,
you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thorn bushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God.
Food for Thought
I am a compulsive list-maker. My day begins with a to-do list and ends when I’ve checked off—or eliminated—every item on it. I rely on my lists. I’m a committee of one, micromanaging each day.
Especially for a list-maker, the new year is an opportunity for a fresh start, a reset. This year, though, something else seems more important than my annual scramble for achievement. Like most of us, I’m burdened by stress, worry, a nagging feeling of hopelessness, change that seems to be going in the wrong direction. My daily earworm is a voice urging me to reach for the opposite. It’s the voice of Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, poet, spiritual leader, and mystic, who wrote, “Love winter when the plant says nothing.”
Says nothing. It seems, well, unproductive.
Of course, we all know what's taking place underground. Inside those brown, bare limbs is anything but unproductive. Growth, resilience, and a plan for rebirth are stirring in those roots and limbs, and that is what I am yearning for in 2026, what I want for my family, my community, my friends, my country.
In October, on a trip west, I saw my first giant sequoia tree, native to the land now called California but suitable for soil in almost any place in the world.
This largest of all trees—with a circumference as big around as my living room or maybe even my entire house—grows from a seed just millimeters larger than the tiniest mustard seed. From one small sequoia cone, 200 seeds are released, and, yet, maybe only one, or two if we are lucky, will take root and grow to adult size.
Once that sapling takes hold, there’s no stopping it. Through fire, drought, lightning, and even human intrusion, it grows, thick and massive and sturdy and as enduring as time itself. Fifteen people can stand, holding hands, their arms outstretched, and still not touch fingers on the other side of the trunk. A single tree in the Yosemite forest might be 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years old. Just imagine: the General Sherman tree, the largest and oldest in Yosemite, was alive when Jesus walked in Galilee, was alive when this country was home only to indigenous people, was alive when the Declaration of Independence was written, was alive during the Great Depression. The General Sherman tree has seen it all.
To see a great sequoia, to put my palm on its ancient bark, is to know deep within me, what Isaiah calls the “living and lasting evidence of God.” We doubting humans always seek proof, and we look for it in signs and symbols. Yet few earthly wonders offer more certainty of a God than the giant sequoia.
The giant sequoia doesn’t “say nothing.” It says be patient. It says that from the smallest thing a great thing can come. It says it’s not easy out there for the short or the long haul. It says trust in something greater than you can understand, greater than you can wrap your arms around, and let God and nature do the work.
Maybe, being humans and not trees, we can’t help the January compulsion to plant a whole new year of seeds in the earth of our lives, as if we are in control. Maybe in February, being humans, we can’t help but bemoan our failures, our resolutions already fallen on hard ground, lost to more busyness, more bad news, to-do lists, stress, impossible expectations.
I brought home from California two giant sequoia cones, each the size of a walnut. When they dry and their petals open up, I’ll have around 400 sequoia seeds. If I plant one seed in my yard, and if it survives, what an absolute gift to my descendants in 5026 to wrap their arms around the giant thing I set in the ground.
I think that might be what January really asks us to do: plant one little seed, be it a sunflower or a giant sequoia. Let uncertainty linger through the dormant months and trust, no matter what, in the created world that we are a part of, knowing our hopes and dreams are also tiny seeds cultivating beyond our human gardens. Instead of putting our faith in what we can’t control, let’s be like the giant sequoia, trusting in the promise of nature, of life—even our own—and of a God who endures, who takes care of the small and the large far better than we humans ever will.
Invite people to bring a seed—literal or symbolic—and share a brief story of what they’re quietly hoping to grow this year. End by planting the seeds together (in a garden, pots, or envelopes to take home), naming the practice as an act of shared trust rather than individual achievement.
This year try making a list of things you aren’t going to rush or fix this season. Invite yourself into a moment of silence, poetry (like Merton), or a short walk among trees, and close by naming one small, patient commitment you plan to tend over time.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God of Deep Roots and Quiet Seasons,
Teach us to trust the work you are doing beneath the surface of our lives. Help us plant small seeds of hope and patience, and rest in your care.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
Where in your life are you being invited to "love winter" and trust growth you cannot yet see?
What is one small seed -- patience, hope, or act of care -- you feel called to plant this year?
How might our community shift if we valued patience and endurance as much as productivity and achievement?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Invite the kiddos to share one memory or story from the past year that stands out to them, and Ask your kiddos to name something that looks quiet or still in winter but is actually getting ready to grow.
Prompt them to think about one small, kind, or hopeful thing they could “plant” this year at home, at school, or with friends.
Make a list together of what it might look like or feel like to practice being patient and caring with one another, even when things take a long time.
Meet This WEek’s Writer...
Barbara Presnell is a writer and teacher of writing who lives in Lexington, NC. Her latest book is Otherwise, I’m Fine: A Memoir, a family journey of forgiveness and healing. Her work in prose and poetry focuses on the Southern experience in all its beauty and struggle .More than anything, she loves to be outside, digging in dirt or walking her pup. Or maybe more than anything, she loves being with her family, which includes a wonderful mix of fun and funny, imaginative, generous, and connected kin. Read more of her poetry and prose at www.barbarapresnell.com.
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