Good morning…
“Good vines require cutting and more cutting,” says Sr. Judith Sutera, a Benedictine nun and vinedresser. “A mile of runners won’t give you one more grape, so get rid of the branches that do not bear fruit. Do you want to keep everything? Then expect nothing. Cut. And then cut some more.”
By nature, I am a keeper, not a cutter. I am a hoarder, not a hacker. I gather, I savor, I treasure this and that. Soulful symbols. Faithful friends. Meaningful memories. Now and forever, I gather, I savor, and I treasure everything. I hate the thought of cutting. Cutting hurts. Cutting severs. Cutting stops the growth of one adored thing before any new growth is in sight.
When we look inside with our inner eye, all of our branches look basically the same. Brown-barked. Intertwined. Miles of light green runners scattering in all directions. How can we know which branches are finished producing and which branches are teeming with the power of hidden potential? We cannot know. We absolutely cannot see the difference between finished and fruitful. We must surrender to the vision of Vinedresser. Jesus says: “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit]” (John 15:1-2, AMP).
I look back over a lifetime of pruning. The first boy who held my hand broke my heart. Four years of infertility were marred by four miscarriages. The death of my dream life in 2003, meant done and gone, finished, final. A twenty-something-year flourishing friendship was cut off with one phone call, leaving me with an abrupt “no” when I was envisioning an abundant “yes.” Loss, loss, loss and more loss. Loss of hair with my friend’s cancer treatment. Sudden loss of several loved ones to accident, suicide, overdose. Loss of each of my beloved life phases, one right after another. Loss of jobs and homes, security and confidence. When something is senselessly severed, abruptly cut off, how do I trust that our Re-creator is mysteriously at work, quietly redeeming everything.
In each of us there is dead wood. In all of us there is forever fruit. Only our Father can see beneath our bundle of brown bark to the mysterious marrow of life flowing in our innermost being. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting (John 15:16a, AMP).
In painful times of loss, will we begin to trust God’s eternal growth plan? Branches done bearing are gradually taken away. In us, every branch that continues to bear fruit our LORD tends, repeatedly pruning to bear more lasting fruit, even richer and finer fruit, forever and ever and ever. Amen.
…Sue…
