Fruitful – When?

I am not going to attempt to unpack the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree [Mark 11:11-25] though too often it has been used to say that we should be fruitful in all seasons. Well just is daft.

The trees in this picture are coming to the end of their fruitful season. There berries are being eaten by birds and other wildlife, their seeds falling to the ground either to be stored by squirrels or to maybe grow into new trees. They will soon lie fallow with no leaves and nothing much going on that we can see. Though as we all know a lot goes on with both ourselves and wildlife when it looks as if we’re sleeping. Then the spring will come and leaves will slowly appear and soon the trees will be covered in leaves and flowers or catkins or something that attracts the pollinators. They are still not fruitful. It is a very short period in a tree’s life cycle when it is fruitful.

So if The Creator of The Universe made the natural world like that why on earth do we, in our busy 21st Century minds, think we should be fruitful 24-7-365? Surely The Creator intends for us to have fruitful periods and fallow periods, periods of rest and periods of growth? Isn’t that what being “natural” looks like? And I don’t know about you but I would like to look as natural as possible.

But to be natural we need to be like the trees and plants and animals and be in touch with our bodies and what they are asking of us. And because we are human beings too we need to be in touch with our hearts and be able to hear what they are saying without all the dross of “shoulds” and “oughts” of upbringing and culture.

So let us all be brave and be restful when we should be, bursting with new growth when we should be, and then, I think when it is time of us to be fruitful we can be totally committed to being fruitful because we’ve done the rest and the new growth we were meant to do beforehand.