james and the tiny peach

I know next to nothing about gardening. I avoided the activity like the plague until very recently; to me there was nothing more unappealing than dirty, dusty hands, sneezing, and sweat.

As I’ve grown I guess I’ve realized I’m more like my parents than I thought. Our shared interests not only encompass gardening now, I also enjoy antiquing. Sometimes I am shocked by my own growth and progression into things that I once so adamantly rejected.

My parents are incredible servants and full of knowledge and wisdom. This is actually something I have always known, unlike a lot of teenagers/adolescents/young adults, but as I grow older I see this truth in ever increasing richness and through a diversity of examples.

This weekend they once again gave up their free time to come up to Waco and work on my (their) house. We painted my room, fixed (paid a professional to fix) electrical issues, and my dad tended to the mass chaos surrounding our peach trees. As I stood bracing a particularly unruly tree branch so he could stake it and help it bear the load of this years’ potential harvest; I began to learn.

I learn by doing. My study guides are full of flow charts, outlines, and pictures that help me visualize the processes and facts I am trying to commit to memory and ingrain in my being. As I stood there with tired arms I began to ask my dad questions about how to care for these trees so that I might have the chance to harvest some good, edible fruit. He demonstrated that I would need to prune the extra growth. The idea of pruning has always been a perplexing one for me. Why would you cut off something that is growing and thriving? Why would you sever and remove what has made significant progress at being a part of this plant?

To these unspoken thoughts my dad responded with the teaching that you have to cut off the excess so that the energy can reach the fruit. We must cut off the things that may be good and pretty, or sometimes gnarled and ugly, because ultimately they are unhelpful and are choking potential life…life that can be used to encourage nourishment and growth beyond the tree itself.

But that hurts. I don’t know if plants feel. They can’t tell us, but I liken the raw wound on the tree with its exposed sap to some of our wounds, both literal and emotional. They sting. We trust that they will heal, even amidst fear that they won’t. We know it won’t look quite the same in that spot. Nothing may ever grow there again.

My arms are legitimately fatigued at this point. But I am learning. I’m getting more comfortable with this idea of pruning. Then, my dad instructed me to pull off some of the fruit if I find it is growing in clusters. It isn’t just the extraneous growth that we must be wary of…but some of the fruit itself. So I followed his instruction and removed a cluster of baby peaches and tossed them in the compost pile. Sometimes we follow instruction even when we question its validity.

Upon further reflection I see now that the point is the same. If these three baby peaches are competing for energy none of them will be able to grow to their fullest potential. So we remove two, and pray that the third isn’t eaten by a squirrel before we get to taste the product of our pruning.

There are a lot of applications here. Gardening themes are used throughout the Bible and I am enjoying this time of tactile discovery as biblical truths are brought to life in my own backyard. Much like my peach tree, there are things in my life that are extraneous. For me I would say worry falls most often in this category. God is pruning that from me.

For me, the clusters of peaches that are now rotting in my compost pile are the most intriguing. They represent my life when I am spread too thin; when I am reaching for breadth of impact instead of depth. When I am dreaming of far off places and future impact instead of appreciating the opportunity I have to root deeply here in Waco now. At times I am called to be obedient and remove, or accept the removal of, these things from my focus and life even when I don’t understand why.

What I find to be the most beautiful part of this whole process is that even those peaches that are rotting in my compost pile serve a purpose. They will become food for a whole new crop of potential produce that will inhabit my yard this fall.

Just because our fruit doesn’t end up the way we anticipate, with its juice dripping down our chins, doesn’t mean it is unimportant. It still matters. It is a part of the bigger story.

 

 

 *after my Dad read this post he amended his statement that two of the three peaches in the cluster should go…perhaps taking only one away is sufficient. I guess it all depends on the circumstances and what we discern as the best choice at the time.