Branching Out

Growing up is hard to do.  But when are we really grown?  Do we ever stop?  Isn't there some part about us that is constantly changing, learning, even after we have matured?  Do we ever actually arrive?  Or is that not until we are exiting the party?

I have a lot of trees in my yard.  I have tons of pines mixed with sweet gums, oaks, a couple of dogwoods, a maple, and some other large tree that bears purplish black fruit that I have no clue as to its name.  The pines tower over all the others by ten or twenty feet at least, and by more over the smaller trees.  It's rather fitting that I'm surrounded by arboreal giants since I grew up in an area of Texas where the largest trees we had were Mesquite trees.  Some of my friends here in Georgia jokingly refer to them as bushes.

I've learned a few things about trees in my time, some things through school, and some through mere observation.  One elementary thing I learned is that trees never stop growing throughout their lifetime.  They get taller, their trunks get wider.  You can often tell how old a tree is by the number of rings it has on the inside, as they grow with each rainy season. 

I also learned that trees grow toward the sun.  But that's a problem at my home because there are so many pines that they block the sun from the other trees.  So these other trees continue to grow, but at odd angles, with all their branches facing one direction: the direction from which they get the most sunlight.  They reach out, striving to get a touch of the rays which bring them life, a necessary part of the circle of photosynthesis by which they survive.

As these deprived trees continue to grow, though, shadowed by the looming pines, their branches continue to achingly stretch toward the only direction that brings them light.  The larger they grow, the more dangerous they become because all their weight starts to head in one direction.  If they are not allowed to come into the fullness of light, they will never be able to stand tall and strong; they will grow ever more vulnerable to the stresses of the forces of nature.

When we go through life in the shadows with only glimpses of the truth, we are filled with misconceptions because we long for that which is good, which will allow us to stand tall, straight, and firm.  We all want to be able to reach out to the heavens and spread our branches so that we can be all we are meant to be.  We can often even measure how we've grown by the way we weather a storm.  But life is full of obstacles:  fear, deception, doubt, uncertainty.  When we are led astray by these towering obstructions that block us from seeing the truth, one of two things will happen.  Either we become fiercely strong on one side and so incredibly weakened on the other that we eventually fall prey to the battering storms and winds of life or the deceptive orchard of death looming over us is cut away so that we can grow the right way, evenly, strong, powerful against those things that would rip us apart.

The truth is out there, and I was never one for living in the shadows.  See, as long as I can get full coverage by the sun, I am growing, I am learning. Up to the day I die, regardless of whether I'm a 300 foot Redwood or a 20 foot Mesquite, I want to be able to learn, to stretch my branches out into any direction without fear of deprivation from the sun, absorbing all that gives me life, so I can stand firm and weather any situation.