You know, it strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that so many of these “beginning of the sabbatical” blog posts begin the same way. As in, “Wow, what an amazing blessing, and what a wonderful company to work for that would give me an opportunity like this!” I guess it’s unfortunate because by the time any of you read me saying it, you’ll gloss over it because you’ve probably read it on every other blog, and if you’re anything like me, you tend to skim over stuff that looks familiar. All that to say: Jiminey Cricket! What an amazing blessing!
I spent the first three days of my sabbatical channeling my inner Loper out at Gold Monarch, a healing center here in Abilene. I’ve been working on a how to sum up what they do there for a good 15 minutes now, and I just can’t. They’re amazing. They help people who are hurting. They help people who have given up hope find hope and find healing that seems otherwise impossible. I love them, I believe in them, and I have personally benefited from them. Just google “Gold Monarch Healing Center” and it’ll be the first thing that pops up (well, it is for me anyway). Or just click here.
The center sits on about 20 acres or so here in Abilene and is covered with beautiful mature mesquite bushes trees – it’s really quite beautiful. I happen to love to tend to trees, and so I had asked David & Amy Black who are the center’s directors and spiritual parents to me & my wife, if I could come out and tend to the trees for a couple days. The initial plan was to prune branches that were too low to drive a lawnmower underneath (it takes a long time to mow 20 acres) in order to make it easier to maintain the property, but what ended up happening was somewhat “prophetic” if you will.
A couple years ago, the prior owner of the property had planted several oak trees in the middle of the mature mesquites. Why one would do that is beyond me, but the problem was that the mesquites were choking out the oak trees. So I ended up spending three days pruning the mesquite trees in order to make room for the oak trees to grow.
It’s contemplative and physical work, as the problem is that you have these beautiful mesquite trees that you don’t want to just cut down and destroy, but you also have these young and vulnerable oaks that need to be given space, and are a higher priority than the mesquites. So the contemplative part is, how can you minimize the damage and pruning of the mesquites while ensuring that the oaks end up with what they need? Sometimes you have to just cut an entire mesquite down, which is unfortunate. Sometimes you can only save half of an existing tree, which leaves the tree with a large and painful wound, but the tree is still living. The best is when you can make minor cuts to several trees to give the oak what it needs.
The physical portion is cutting down trees, chopping them into firewood, and stacking and disposing of the branches (this is a beautifully manicured estate we’re talking about, brush piles just won’t do). One word: “iLoveChainsaws”.
So the prophetic portion is this: in many ways I feel like I’ve been in a season of pruning as well. The challenge has been (and continues to be) defining priorities in life and making the wisest and least disruptive changes to ensure that (a) the highest priority things in life are placed ahead of lower priority things (even when they’re newer and less mature), (b) we’re respecting and valuing the good things that have already grown in our lives, and (c) that the end result is beautiful.
Sometimes newer and more important things require the removal of valued and beautiful things in life, and when that happens it hurts and can leave a long-lasting scar on the landscape. It’s unfortunate, but it’s better to remove the mesquite than to lose the oak. Other times you don’t have to remove the mesquite, but you have to cut it back pretty heavily. It hurts the tree, but the tree doesn’t have to die, and hopefully it will recover from the pruning and flourish in a new and less obtrusive direction. The best is when you can use wisdom to discern how to make minor cuts here and there. That’s zen. Wonderful when it happens, but it’s just not always possible.
And as far as preparing, well we’ve also been getting ready to leave town for three weeks! Hooray road trips! More to come.