Orchard
Tree stretched herself in the sunshine. As a junior tree she was
doing her most favorite thing—sprouting new shoots. She relished
the admiration of Other Trees around her who were jealous of her
ability to produce shoots so quickly.
Orchard Tree was fairly
quivering with the anticipation of her first fruit-bearing
experience. She felt pregnant with potentiality and elated with her creativity. She smiled with pride as she looked over her woody main
stem trunk bristling with new shoots going every which way.
Suddenly
she heard footsteps approaching. Master Gardener stood before her
appraising her upstart, grand production of new shoots.
“Wild
growth,” He concluded, “detouring mainline Life and potential
fruit. Useless, spurious shoots.”
He
took up His nipper-clippers and carefully, not haphazardly, started
lopping off certain of her wild shoots, her prized and puffy
self-efforts.
Orchard
Tree cried in agony to see her precious creativity treated
so shamefully. Nursing her wounded ego, she tearfully watched her
wild shoots fall and shrivel and die, dismayed to see them go.
“Ouch!
What did I do to deserve such rough treatment? Why are you destroying
my healthy shoots? They would have become good branches!” she
objected.
Tenderly,
Master Gardener explained, “If I allowed you to pursue your wild
and wayward way, you would end up with a tangled mass of unruly
shoots producing meager fruit. Pruning is for good, already
flourishing growth, so that more
and then much
fruit can be produced. When wild shoots are removed, your strength
and vigor thus conserved, Life can surge through main-branch buds.”
Even as she tearfully mourned the loss of her
zealous creativity, Orchard Tree understood. “Master Gardener, so let it be. I submit to
Your elective surgery on me!”
From
the RESOURCE BOOK
The
Gospel of John, chapter 15.
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