Summary: During my time in seminary, I had the good fortune to be a chaplain in a national park through an interdenominational ministry known as A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. Not all Christian Ministry in the National Parks host sites are places of great natural beauty. They are battlefields and monuments as well as forests, seashores, swamps and canyons. The National Parks system is full of sites that help us understand our unique American heritage. Whenever I am near a National Parks site, I visit. Not only do I visit to once again be awed by the wonder of creation, I visit to learn about the history of this nation. I visit to expand my worldview. And I visit to support this vital resource we are lucky enough to have and I visit to remind myself to pray and work toward the hope of maintaining this resource for future generations. Recently, I was attending a conference in San Francisco with my clergy community of practice and several of us decided to visit the area of Redwood Creek, which was preserved by William and Elizabeth Kent. Over 100 years ago, this area had yet to be logged as it was not easy to access. So, in 1905, the Kents purchased over 600 acres and preserved nearly 260 acres as Muir Woods. Muir Woods is a pristine example of an old-growth coastal redwood forest. Redwood trees are very unique. Most reproduce as part of a family circle, but occasionally seeds that fall on fresh mineral soil will germinate. Those lone, isolated trees never grow as tall as the trees in a family group. And they will only grow in soil that has been exposed by flooding, fire, or wind. It is only out of destruction that a lone redwood can be born. Redwood seeds are small; their cones are only an inch long and it would take 100,000 seeds to weigh a pound. But one tiny seed from one tiny cone is enough to grow the tallest species of tree in the United States.
