The Old Oak and the Sparrow
by Danny C. Wash
The small sparrow found a nesting home in an oak tree.
The nest was in one of the many small holes in the old tree.
The old oak, as everyone called it, was more than 400 years old.
It began as an acorn hidden in the ground planted by a squirrel
in a forest as part of its many acorns and pecans hidden away for
the winter. As the old tree was but a small sprout and growing, the
Mayflower had just landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The tree grew
larger and was still in a dense forest when the American Revolution
occurred in 1776. The tree stood and grew in its place in a forest as the
nation expanded around it and as the dense forest was slowly cut down
for progress, until now it stands on a street in a town in a yard of a house
of a family, who cherishes the old oak tree for its great size and beauty.
The tiny sparrow is just one of many animals and birds who live in it.
In its lower limbs and branches is a tree house built by the residents of
the house for their three kids who play in the tree where the sparrow lives.
It’s upper limbs stretch to a height of over sixty feet into the sky. Life is
big and small, tall and short, long and quick. The old oak has had life in
it for over 400 years but the sparrow will only have life in it for perhaps
three short years. The world is an amazing mixture of lives lived; some
long, some short, some small, some big, but all share the same world,
created by the same God, who released different forms of life into all for His
pleasure and for His love to be expressed in His beautiful and varied creation.
