a tale of two trees

I have two 80-year old pecan trees in my backyard. And, as you probably are aware, spring has sprung. And yet only one of my pecan trees has sprung. They are 15 feet apart and one is in full bloom while the other rests dormant. I have begun to wonder if something could be wrong with the still-bare tree. I have begun to wonder if it could be diseased.

I have begun to wonder if I am really that short-sighted.

I guess this whole thought-line has been lying just under the surface for some time now.

How can this be right and that still be right? Especially if this and that seem to be at odds with each other...

I think it is some time in our youth that we decide that our way is the best way. After all, it is the best way that we know. Some of us hold these ideas much longer than the world should allow, becoming adults with narrow minds, becoming relational one-way streets.

For me, Africa opened me up to a lot. Culture shifts and spiritual shifts offered an alternate reality. And alternate realities are as valid as primary ones.

So I am trying. I am trying to practice the Truth that rests within me. I am trying to accept different ideas of what is best and different interpretations of what is absolute. I am trying to trust that God might grow us all at different rates and that simply because two things looks starkly different doesn't mean that one has to be sick, that one has to be untrue. I am trying to trust that He might use parallel stories with perpendicular truths and that He might direct all of the eyes related to either back to Himself.

I am trying. And waiting for that second to tree to bloom - just like it has every year for the better part of a century.