16th + Market

Today was a great morning.  I got to sip coffee and eat breakfast across the table from my handsome husband.  Lately, however, it’s been quiet in the Larsen home, which has been more like a bunk for passersby.  Perhaps the most available companions at the moment are our nudgy, little dog and the humming AC wall unit that fights the sweltering, inland heat.  Common areas seem only common to a person at a time, due to demanding schedules that seldom overlap.  Things have been a little crazy since we are still in the thick of wedding season, and Tyler is at the tail end of his sub-internship in the ICU with tests to study for and personal statements to revise. Applications for his residency in medicine are due in a handful of days, which lures a cloud of uncertainty to loom somewhere between the back and front of our minds.  Days seem to teeter between excitement and anxiousness, diligence and distraction, contentment and inordinate want.  I can’t help but to feel increasingly divided, and at the core of who I am, weary.

***

There is a pomegranate tree in the backyard that must have been here for ages.  Back in spring, the tree was speckled with hundreds of bright red flowers.  Since then, we have been excitedly anticipating autumn, when the fruit should be ready to harvest.  However, we had no idea even how to care for a tree, so instead we just observed.  In the midst of this crazy drought, we hadn’t even thought to water it.  We gleamed as the fruit began to grow and cringed as the squirrels and leaf footed bugs beat us to the immature fruit.  For the last few weeks or so, I noticed a great amount of fruit dropping to the ground, and began to grow disheartened.  I thought for sure the squirrels and bugs had got the best of it, because the pomegranate skins were barely red, but continued to fall.

Earlier this week, I caught our little dog rolling around a fruit that had fallen to the level of concrete below the tree.  Though larger than a softball, the skin seemed green in appearance with only speckles of the red I associate pomegranates with.  A closer look to the flesh revealed that despite the greenish skin, the arils were a deep burgundy and were plump!  It hit me then that maybe the pomegranates were falling, not because they were diseased or half eaten, but because they were ripe!  Because the tree is so tall compared to me, I began to notice that many of the skins were only green from my vantage point, but the portions that reached the sun blushed red.  On my tip toes, I reached to snip off a few that were various shades and bring into the kitchen.  Much to my delight, the green, the pink, and the red fruit alike all had sweet, juicy seeds inside.  Over the past couple days, I collected buckets full of fruit, overwhelmed with the abundance.

***

Through all this I am continuing to learn from this old fruit tree.

I am reminded that there will be thieves that may threaten, and we must take initiative to guard against them.  Sometimes that means pruning away all of the old to make way for new growth.  We could have prevented those nasty, leaf footed bugs by doing just that, which would expose the source of those ugly things before they have time to mature.  Conversely, a succumbed fear of these thieves (trust me, I was legitimately afraid) will allow them to blind our eyes to the fruit ripening around us and also rob us of our joy.

I am reminded that fruit may not always come in the time that we had planned, and it may not always look how we expect it to look.

I am reminded that seeing fruit is not something we are entitled to, which makes its gift all the more sweet when we do.  Sometimes we sow, sometimes we water, sometimes we enter into the labor of another and are blessed to see the harvest.

I am reminded that time is required for a tree to reach fruition, entire seasons in fact, that will be comprised of mild days and stormy gales alike.  There will be light and momentary affliction.  Through the drought, the life source of a mature tree is different than the green herb, which is quick to sprout and quick to fade.  Instead, its roots are so deeply established, the tree drinks from a source not even accessible to us on the surface.

My cup overflows.

Psalm 23: 5

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.  For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Do not fret because of evildoers,
Be not envious toward wrongdoers.
For they will wither quickly like the grass
And fade like the green herb.
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.

Psalm 37:1-6

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

John 7:38

 

Taste and see,

L