V or U Crotch

We just had to have an old hickory tree removed. The base of the trunk is over three feet in diameter. We really did not want to cut the tree down. However, it had a tight crotch which over the years had allowed water to penetrate and with freezing and thawing had begun to split. Eventually, it would have split and fallen on our house. This picture illustrates a tight crotch tree and how the tight V leads to deterioration. Our tree was in the form of a Y with the single trunk splitting into two trunks.

There is another type of crotch which is much stronger than the tight V crotch. It is one where the crotch is more U shaped. The wider U crotch allows more wood to develop between to two upper trunks.

Here are pictures of a cross-section of the healthy upper trunks and of the problem from the point of the crotch down about six feet into the single trunk.

 

I just read the white paper produced by the PCUSA Office of Theology and Worship entitled Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, andMarriage. The paper points to the adoption of an authoritative interpretation and a proposed amendment to the PCUSA Constitution which would allow members and those in ordered ministry to hold diametrically opposed options on the issue of same gender marriage. Those opposed to and those in favor of same gender marriage may both faithfully remain in and function within the PCUSA.

It seems to me we run the danger of growing into a tight crotch tree like the one we just took down in our yard. The upper trunks were strong and healthy. However, from the tight crotch down about six feet the single trunk was seriously deteriorated, hollowed out, with the remaining lower three feet of the trunk still relatively solid. Will we see the PCUSA develop with a V tight crotch with two healthy branches above or with a U crotch with more wood to hold the upper sections together?

Early in the white paper the writers briefly refer to forbearance. If we can exercise enough   forbearance it is possible a strong U crotch may develop. If there is little or no forbearance then the danger of a V crotch developing weakening the singular trunk from the inside. The future of the PCUSA tree depends on our mutual exercise of forbearance.