exploits in the garden

Before today, my only experience of plant pruning was watching my parents wrestle with both our productive peach tree and overly-enthusiastic bougainvillea. Today, it was my turn. I suited up in a Vancouver drizzle to do battle with a wannabe-stately forsythia bush that was due for a severe haircut. At first, nearly every cut I made seemed counter-intuitive: I was lopping off all the big, high-growing green stuff--that couldn't possibly be right! To keep on track, I kept reminding myself of the goal: a more contained bush, with green shoots on lower branches.
It was impossible to do this task without calling to mind Jesus' parables about pruning, vines and branches. As I nervously hacked away, I wondered how much of my life is like the branches I was pruning--beautiful, green, but ultimately not heading in the right direction.
However, I think my forsythia bush had something else to say to me. I was comforted in my work that this particular forsythia bush, as established as it is, was pretty much indestructible. As long as I left it in the ground, with some green branches, it was going to survive. And in fact, my final result looks surprisingly robust, considering that I eliminated at least 60% of its foliage.
And that's hopeful. In the midst of painful pruning, it's good to remember that we're rooted and are ultimately going to survive, and not only survive but maybe even look better than we thought.