That morning, pressing the roots of the little Ginkgo into the soil of our church, I thought about prayer.
Not the prayer spoken of in books — with its methods and disciplines. Prayer like breathing: quietly, regularly, often without thinking. Those few words murmured at dawn, that silent pause before a difficult decision, that sigh that becomes a confidence addressed to God.
The Ginkgo biloba is an extraordinary tree. It is called a ‘living fossil’ because it existed long before us, and will likely be there long after. In Hiroshima, in 1945, when the bomb razed everything, a Ginkgo survived. Today it still grows there. Not despite the destruction — after it.
How does it resist? Through its roots. Deep, tenacious, stretched toward underground waters no one sees.
That is what prayer does in us. It does not protect us from the storm. It roots us deeply enough that the storm cannot tear us away. It connects us to a source that neither drought nor fire can dry up.
“He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
Jeremiah 17:8 (ESV)
Jeremiah says it with simple beauty: the man who entrusts his life to God is like a tree planted by the waters. His foliage stays green even when the heat comes.