Bring Us a Shrubbery! (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

            Those of a certain age might remember that film with the Knights Who Say “Ni”, and their demand that those who would traverse their domain “Bring us a shrubbery!”

            What brought this to mind was seeing some buds on one of our hydrangea bushes, a promise of spring in what has been a severe and unrelenting winter of discontent here in New England.

            But it got me to thinking, if I were a shrubbery, or a tree, or a plant, what would I be?  Not what I would want to be (that is for next week!), but what I am.

            And what about you? If you were to think for awhile about what sort of shrubbery, or tree, or plant, you are, what would it be?

            Would you be a hot-house orchid, gorgeous and yet at the same time a bit on the fragile side? An oak tree in the forests of Wisconsin, with gentle autumn breezes strumming into tune your dried leaves? A palm tree gently swaying over a Caribbean lagoon? A beech, pale bark scratched here, peeling there? A Vermont sugar maple in a March thaw, sap running strong, full of the potential for growth that in just a little while will astound the world with vibrant fall colors? 

            Me, I’m thinking of a pear tree, like the ones in the orchard out back of my childhood home.  Not a towering giant, but orchard-sized, maybe 12 feet tall at most, formed by the grafting of a pear onto an unknown root stock, so as to keep the mature tree at a harvestable, yet sturdy, height. And not a spring-time pear, with its delicate blossoms, but one in full fruit.

            Thinking of the many graftings in my life. Of being adopted at four-months by two wonderful parents, who gifted me beyond measure. Of being taken in by my spouses’ families, quirks and all. Of being chosen to pastor a congregation some almost four hundred years young, and over the past twelve plus years growing in many ways. But also thinking of community – of standing with many others. And of being at a point in my life where I can be fruitful, and of benefit to family, to friends, and church, and the wider community, in many ways.

            What kind of tree are you?

“They are like trees

       planted by streams of water,

     which yield their fruit in its season,

       and their leaves do not wither.

     In all that they do, they prosper.”

Psalm 1:3