Dear Friends,
Last Sunday was a fresh spring day – the first we’ve had
this year so far. I took a long walk through the neighborhood and watched homeowners
rake, prune, and create piles of winter debris along the roads. One way to look
at the devastation of this particular winter is to say it was nature’s way of
pruning away weak or dead parts of still-healthy plants. Nature-watchers say
that pruned trees and greenery fare much better than those left unattended.
People also need to be pruned, although we don’t always want
to admit it. The story of Paul’s pruning is told in Acts 9. Yet even after he
had well and truly been pruned, the community of believers was still suspicious
of him. They remembered well how Saul had persecuted their brothers and sisters
in faith. But trustworthy Barnabas introduced Paul to the community, which grafted
him onto the vine, and the graft took.
One of the results people associate with being pruned – trimmed
back – is a certain soppy meekness – a diminishment of zest or feistiness. But
Paul was never meek – neither before nor after his conversion, so we, too, can
take courage that we will be ourselves, and even better, after we are trimmed
back.
Pruning is a means to an end – to increase the yield or to bear
more and better fruit and an indispensable element of growth. Connectedness is
another. It may seem obvious but is worth underscoring: every tendril, every offshoot grows if, and
only if, it is connected with the original plant or is grafted onto another.
But we know individuals and groups that separate themselves from that which
sustains them. Couples split, children walk away from their families,
individuals leave the church of their earlier years and choose to be isolated from
worshipping communities. These things happen and separation may be the right
thing to do. But not always. It takes discerning with the Holy Spirit‘s wisdom
to know what to do with the separations we consider as necessary for life.
Connected to Christ and the believing community doesn’t mean
we lose our individuality with all its grandeur and funny little quirks. On the
vine that is Christ, the branches do not all look alike or act alike.
I know a man named Ben who had a horrendous life as a youth.
Abuse and neglect drove him into crime – serious crime that resulted in years
of incarceration. Upon release, Ben went back to his own city to reconnect with
family and friends, but people he knew were fearful that he would fall back
into old ways. They wouldn’t trust him. Providentially, Ben came across AA which
accepted him unconditionally. With lots of encouragement, now years later, Ben
has found himself part of a community that accepts him for all he has become.
He, in turn, is reaching out to others to help them connect.
What we say we believe about the vine and the branches
becomes real as we accept people not of our own choosing who are pruned by
God’s grace and are ready to be connected to us in faith and life.
~Sister Joan Sobala
