Dear Friends in Christ,

This week, I’ve been thinking about trees.

Outside the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford, there was this magnificent old almond tree with great, gnarly boughs that stretched over a corner of the churchyard and the street. It flowered spectacularly in spring, and in the autumn, it rained down beautiful auburn and orange leaves to the pavement below. Enormous steel posts and saddles kept it aloft after more than a century of lean.

Shortly after I left that city for home, the tree came down in an enormous storm. It was uprooted and then chopped down. When I briefly visited that autumn of 2019, I was crestfallen to see its absence. It had been there probably 150 years. In old daguerreotypes of the street, you can see the sapling from which it grew.

I think the death of great trees is so hard for human beings because it is a reminder of our own mortality. I think of the great royal oaks that stand for hundreds of years—there’s one in Richmond Park, London that was probably planted around 1350.

These magnificent things have stood since long before we were born, and they’re meant to stand long after we’re gone. It’s hard to see them come down in our lifetimes. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.

On this campus, we will be losing some trees in the coming year. One in the Perry Garden has been dead for some time already. Two others have grown so close to a wall they are threatening the structural foundation of St Anne’s and the adjoining cloister.

And early this week, a water main burst under the roots of the enormous eucalyptus on the south wall of the Murphey Gallery. That tree, too, is probably strangling the pipes. It rains down debris onto the roof, and its tendrils are beginning to undermine the wall itself.

Some losses are needful, but they can still be hard to bear. After all, what greater symbol is there of the majesty of God’s creation than a beautiful tree?

We will, of course, plant new trees. And this year we’re hoping to align those plantings with memorial gifts for the Solemnity of All Souls. Trees which, God willing, will outlast us all, as a remembrance of those who came before.

The next time I was in Oxford wasn’t until after the Pandemic, and when I walked down the High Street and passed the University Church, there was a new almond tree. Not yet gnarled by age, not yet supported by steel beams, but still casting its shade over the street. God willing it will adorn that beautiful Church for another century or two. And when it comes down, the Wardens will come out and plant a new one.

Yours, Faithfully,

—Fr Matthew