If you know the cottonwood, it’s a messy tree. In late spring it lets loose a snowfall of “cotton”-encased seeds that clog window screens, collect on your driveway, and find their way indoors onto carpets. In late summer the cottonwood starts dropping twigs for you to pick up from your lawn. When the leaves on most other trees remain green and attached, the leaves of the cottonwood start piling up on the ground, brown and brittle. By mid-autumn, when other trees give a show of color, the branches of the cottonwood are likely to be bare.
If you know the cottonwood, it’s a glorious tree. How it catches the morning sun on throngs of shaking green shields! The softest breeze sets its leaves quivering and gives it voice, a mannerly shhh. On a walk in cottonwood country, you’re likely to hear this tree before you see it.
Glory be to God for the cottonwood! Glory be to God for all beautiful, quirky, defective beings who, with messy habits or bad posture or squeaky voice, give praise to
their Maker who gave them life!