… it is a lovely day at the end of April and the weather is just right, not too hot too hurt my neck eczema and not too cold to need a jacket, truly beautiful day and I can see the cooking apple tree from my kitchen window as I do the washing up. What a sight! It is flowering, it’s got little pink and white flowers on the backdrop of green leaves. From where I am, it is stunning, we might even get some apples this year. The tree yields fruit haphazardly, whenever it feels like, skip a year, skip 2 years and then fruits, we have learnt not to expect anything, when there is fruit, there is fruit and when there is none, there is none.
The fruits are not worth the trouble anyway, they come out all diseased and just litter the garden. We have to go through the trouble of packing and disposing of them. The tree is very sick, it is a surprise that anything grows on the branch. The trunk looks worn, the bark is brittle and falling off the tree. The leaves have reduced and some of the branches have fallen off. We have called in the tree surgeon and the arboriculturist and they have given us the very sad news, our tree is dead, not dying but dead and it can’t be saved or nursed back to health. Heart wrenching news for a tree lover. Though from where I stand today, the tree does not look dead, it looks very much alive with its beautiful pink and white flowers.
The question that comes to my mind as I stare at the tree is “how many things in our lives are flowering from a distance but on close examinations are dead? ” a very difficult question to ask but even more difficult to answer. Death is not something we like to talk or think about. The sceptic will argue that we are all dying anyway, from the day we are born, we grow towards this inevitable fact. Maybe for now we leave that morbid thought, but address a more practical and probably positive aspects of this thought. What are those things that are spent that we need to give a burial in order to allow newness of life? The scriptures says that unless a seed drops to the ground and die, it can not bring forth multitude of seeds of life. Some relationships are dead, though from a distance have the pink and white flowers, but on close examination the bark is brittle, the trunk and roots are rotten, it is truly over. Some businesses are over, some projects are over, some thoughts and beliefs are over. We have to look from afar and we have to look close up and if the close up is not well, then it might not just be well.
Not every dying trees die, some can be nurse back to health, some can’t. Not all struggling situations we find ourselves in, are over, but some are over. ‘How do we know the difference?’ You ask. If we need to call the surgeons in, then that is what we have to do, if we are not in a position to tell. Who are the surgeons? It all depend on the nature of the issue, but there must always be someone, and if there is no one, then we must make time, to assess, commune with our maker and get directions.
Flowering is not always a signal that all is well.
Beautiful Ivory 