The world’s oldest tree resides at 10,000 feet of elevation in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of California’s White Mountains. It’s named Methuselah, after the biblical figure who was said to have lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27). The Methuselah tree has lived much, much longer. It’s thought to be more than 4,800 years old.

On June 22, 2024, my dad and I hiked a four-and-a-half-mile loop trail through the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest from which we were told we would be able to see Methuselah. The catch is that Methuselah is intentionally left unmarked, its exact location left undisclosed for its protection. In September of 2008 an arsonist set fire to the visitor center at the trailhead and destroyed other nearby trees. Thankfully Methuselah survived.

As we hiked, we tried to guess which one was Methuselah. We considered the size of each tree and the number of twists and bends in the gnarled trunks and branches. We also considered the slope of the mountainside and the proximity of the trees to gullies which we imagined might provide protection from the wind or extra water during rainstorms. In the end, though, we had no way of knowing which tree was the patriarch, and we left wondering which of our favorite candidates could have been the one.

Back at the trailhead, I spotted a sign with the heading “Secrets of Old Age.” The text on it contrasted the bristlecone pines that grow on flat terrain with those that grow on steep or rugged hillsides:

Ancient bristlecone pines have a special look: spiked dead tops, bare wood on limbs and trunks, distorted polished limbs and exposed roots, thin strips of bark growing up the tree. Yet the trees growing [close to this sign] have a different look. These bristlecones are in a sheltered location, normally thought of as ‘good’ growing conditions. They are tall, full and upright. But these youngsters just don’t live as long as the ancients. Their wood is softer, making them more susceptible to invasion and disease. Look at the hillside in front of you. These bristlecones are growing on a ‘poor’ site - perfect conditions for old-age trees! The slope is steep, exposed, and the soil is very dry. Yet this is where we find the old majestic, weathered trees.

Lesson one from crooked trees: hard things can strengthen us. Enduring adversity, it seems, is the secret to old age for a bristlecone pine tree. This is a helpful lesson from nature for those of us who spend so much of our lives seeking comfort, only to find ourselves over-reliant on external factors for our happiness. Being less attached to external comforts may make us more resilient. As the saints of old knew, voluntarily foregoing certain pleasures strengthens a person’s character and capacity for self-discipline.

But today I’m interested in a deeper lesson from these crooked trees. The challenging conditions in which the oldest trees grow also give bristlecones their unique shapes and textures. None of these trees are identical. Each is as different as a fingerprint or snowflake, completely unique. Looking at them, I hear Molly Tuttle’s song “Crooked Tree” in my mind. In the song, Tuttle celebrates the gift of her uniqueness and individuality, comparing herself to a crooked tree:

People say I'm different and my way of life seems strange
I took the road less traveled, twists and turns along the way
But like the crooked tree
I'm growing stronger day by day as the clouds roll by

A river never wonders why it flows around the bend
A mountain doesn't question how it rose up from the land
So who am I to wish I wasn't just the way I am? Who am I?

Oh, can't you see a crooked tree won't fit into the mill machine?
They're left to grow wild and free
Oh, I'd rather be a crooked tree

I first heard this song when Tuttle played it live at the RockyGrass festival in Lyons, CO, in July of 2023. Before performing it, she shared about her own experience of living with alopecia and having to wear wigs to cover her baldness. Then to emphasize the meaning of the song, she removed her wig to play the song, showing the cheering crowd that she was unafraid to be the person she was uniquely created to be, even if it struck others as strange.

Though Molly Tuttle doesn’t use the language of faith to express this insight, her lyrics remind me of what Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote decades ago in his book New Seeds of Contemplation:

“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. It 'consents,' so to speak, to His creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore the tree imitates God by being a tree. The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him. If it tried to be something it was never intended to be, it would be less like God and therefore it would give him less glory” (p. 31)

Merton, of course, applies the lesson to us: We also imitate God and give God glory be being fully ourselves. Holiness, for Merton, has little to do with pious religiosity and everything to do with being the unique person God made you to be: “For me sanctity consists in being myself and for you sanctity consists in being your self. . . . For me to be a saint means to be myself” (New Seeds p. 33).

That makes being a saint sound easy, at least if you’re a tree. But as humans who are social creatures, we consciously face pressures to conform every day to the expectations of others. Those social pressures are one kind of “mill machine,” to use Tuttle’s image, stripping away our uniqueness and creating uniformity. Resisting that pressure takes courage and vulnerability, even to the point of being brave enough to take off your wig in front of thousands of people.

And this leads me to the book I’m currently reading: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. Through an imagined dialogue between a philosopher and a young disciple, the book explores the psychological theories of Alfred Adler. The argument is too rich for me to fairly summarize here, but for the purpose of this post, the book teaches that most of our emotional problems come from caring too much what other people think of us. When we fear being disliked by others, we chase after affirmation, affection, and recognition. That appetite for acceptance is like an internal mill machine, shaping us to become people we were never intended to be.

Thus the philosopher in the book says “Freedom is being disliked by other people . . . Unless one is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the cost that one might never be recognized, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of living” (pp. 144-145). This doesn’t mean that one actively seeks to be disliked. It’s not a license to be rude or harmful to others. But it does mean that one has to give up the illusion that one can control what others think or feel and practice being brave enough to be oneself.

I’m going to try to remember this each day when I look at the sticker from the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest that I stuck on the water bottle I use each day. It features a painting of an old bristlecone with a thick, twisted trunk and small patches of needles set against a backdrop of the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. May the gnarled branches I see on it give me the same courage to be disliked, to embrace discomfort, to become a saint.