The tree looks like a Dr Seuss character. It's covered in pink wisps. At night something magical happens and it lets out a heady, intoxicating fragrance like big ripe peaches.
I make a pilgrimage to the tree every night, sometimes twice. I walk around and wobble my head, sniffing all the while, trying to find the best spot in the yard. Sometimes it's 5 feet away, sometimes it's right next to a blossom. And I inhale again and again, greedily sniffing it all up.
It bothers Gilligan to the extreme. Why are you sniffing that tree instead of watching me urinate?
I also make visitor to the apartment come and sniff the tree. "You gotta smell this tree," I'll say. And they do. And they love it too.
I've been reading Jacob 5 over the last week or so. Its a parable about a the gardener caring for a tame tree that used to give great olives but in its old age has become sickly and pooped. He saves the tree by grafting in peices of wild olive branch. The new pieces are wild, the olives were probably bitter and everyone probably thought he was a little nuts. But it works! This crazy wild olive tree saves the tame tree. More then that, they combine perfectly to become a new tree-- a healthy tree with delicious olives. Now I know what this parable means about the scattering of Israel, but I've been thinking in a different way lately.
I have been thinking a lot about wild trees. Tree's that smell like peaches and have pink fuzz all over them.
Sometimes, we get so set in our ways. The right ways. We put our blinders on and do our thing. Often this leads to personal decay and unhappiness. Especially if we are attempting to get different results and change and prosper--all by doing the same old thing.
So I invite you to look at your own tree. Your family or body or schooling or fitness or whatever you decide that tree is, and then look around. Go out into your yard and wobble your head and sniff out a pink perfume tree. And see what you do with it. See how it may change you for the better.
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