The Parable of the Peach Tree
The Parable of the Peach Tree
(With sincere apologies to Hugh B. Brown)
Earlier today I was in my back yard, inspecting my peach tree. It hasn't produced very well the last few years. It was getting enough attention, water and nourishment - but when harvest time came, there were only a few peaches to bring us joy. So this week, I was particularly delighted to find branches LOADED with tiny fruit - more than I think I've ever seen on any peach tree I ever owned! Joyful day!
But having had some experience in peaches, I knew what came next. I got my ladders and went to work on that peach tree, and I thinned and thinned, and thinned some more, until there was nothing left but a fraction of the original peachlets. It's a painful process for me, knowing that each little sphere I pluck is a potentially beautiful, golden orb of deliciousness. But it has to be this way.
And as I looked at the remaining fruit, I yielded to an impulse, which I often have, to talk with inanimate things and have them talk to me. It’s a ridiculous habit. It’s one I can’t overcome.
As I looked at this little now almost barren tree, there seemed to be a tear on each branch, and I said, “What’s the matter, peach tree? What are you crying about?”
And I thought I heard that peach tree speak. It seemed to say, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I had started hundreds and hundreds of baby peaches, maybe thousands, my best crop ever - and now you have decimated my production. And all the other fruit trees will look upon me with contempt and pity. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here.”
I thought I heard that from the peach tree. I thought it so much that I answered it.
I said, “Look, little peach tree, I *am* the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will end up with a thousand tiny tasteless peaches. But someday this fall, when you are laden with large, sweet, juicy fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for thinning me, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”
I #GiveThanks for the anticipation of a fruitful harvest to come - there is not much in the world that compares to a sweet, juicy, ripe Utah peach! But even more, I give thanks to know that there is a Master Gardener in my life who occasionally thins and prunes me, even though I don't know all the reasons, to make sure that I have a more fruitful and productive future.
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See "God is the Gardener," President Hugh B. Brown, BYU Graduation, May 31, 1968
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