What a dying tree taught me about youth, wisdom, and love
A couple of years back, I read a story to my four children on a long car ride from Florida to Michigan. When I ordered a Canterbury Classics book of short stories by various authors, I thought I was getting some cute, wholesome Christmas tales, something we could read as a family that might even hold Siafa’s attention.
Hans Christian Andersen, The Fir Tree.
If you know it, then you know.
My kids’ reaction said it all: “What the actual heck, Mom!”
It was basically murder.
When you personify a tree and then watch it slowly die… though not explicit, the sap is on your hands. Andersen pulls you through the life of a hopeful tree, one misguided by assumption and expectation. Maybe it’s my Western, American brain, but I found the story deeply unsettling. I wanted the tree to get a second chance, not to suffer for its naivety.
The Fir Tree was punished, I thought, for ignorance, for not knowing what was to come once the axe fell. But who among us doesn’t glorify the unknown, the unexperienced? We romanticize the first boyfriend, the wedding day, the birth of a baby. Our first job, our dream vacation. Even what we’d say if we ever met Idris Elba or Michael Ealy or Jesse Williams… (I digress.)
The point is, we all create false versions of what life will be like. But should we lose our limbs because of it? Maybe Andersen’s lesson is this: listen to wisdom while you’re young, before your time turns to dust.
Andersen’s lesson was harsh. His tree suffered while children danced joyfully around it in abundance. I felt pity more than empathy for the Fir Tree. Because for so many people on earth, you only get one shot, one chance to rise above the ashes of a dying world, to make something of your lot.
But when you’re young, you think you know best.
So you ignore the voice of wisdom: like Rehoboam, who listened to his friends instead of the elders. Do you remember him in 1 Kings? His father Solomon had died, and now he was ruler of the twelve tribes. The people came asking him to lighten their load. The elders advised, “If you will be a servant to these people today and serve them… they will be your servants forever.” (1 Kings 12:7)
But Rehoboam ignored them.
He chose the counsel of his friends instead, and the result was the loss of ten tribes. The great divide of Israel.
So much is on the line in our youth. We’re told, “Oh, make your mistakes while you’re young!” But the Fir Tree’s mistake, ignorance, cost him his life. I wonder if Andersen meant to teach us something different: that perhaps we should guide our youth toward wisdom rather than indulgence.
Maybe, instead of encouraging the kindling of ordo amoris … the disordered love that Augustine wrote about, we should teach the satisfaction found in beauty rightly loved. Augustine learned through his lust, pride, and rebellion that the soul can only be healed by ordering love toward its true source.
Like the sun and the air tried to teach the Fir Tree, he didn’t realize the worth of what surrounded him until it was gone. He traded the living beauty of the forest for the splendor of lit candles… candles that ultimately burned him.
Like Augustine, the Fir Tree was guilty of loving the wrong thing, in the wrong way, for far too long.
And that, it seems, is a lesson that still burns.
If this post spoke to you…
Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
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