Having a Boo Radley moment are we?*

In Sunday School this week we discussed the allegory of the olive trees. 

Quick synopsis - the Lord of the Vineyard has a tame olive tree that is decaying so he did all he could to save it (pruning, nourishing, etc.) when that didn't work he grafted portions of a wild olive tree into his tame olive tree - this process was to help the tame tree "correct it's decay".  The master comes back several times to check up on the trees and on one visit finds that all the fruit is bad.  He tries one more time to save his vineyard, he prunes, dungs, etc. The allegory is about the apostasy on a large scale, but we can apply this to individual apostasy as well. 

Anyway - not the point - just background for people who have never heard of the allegory.  Our teacher collected some quotes about the various aspects of the allegory.  One such quote was about "dunging" which - if you are well versed in the English language you can get an idea of what dunging implies.  I really liked the quote so I thought I would share it with you all.

It's from Harold W. Wood (...I don't know who he is either):

I saw a wheat field that appeared to be greener and taller than the others.  Thinking about it for awhile, I concluded that occasionally some loving farmer drives over the field with his tractor and pumps manure all over it.  I thought, "My, it's just like life.  Here we are minding our own business, growing out little hearts out.  We're really quite green somewhat productive and very sincere.  When out of the blue, life deals us a dirty one, and we're up to our eyebrows in manure.  We, of course, conclude that life as we have known it has just ended and will never be the same again.  But one day, when the smell and the shock are gone, we find ourselves greener and more productive than we have been.' Unfortunately, no matter how often we go through these growing experiences, we are never able to appreciate the sound of the tractor or the smell of the manure.

I suppose I liked this quote because it was a funny way to describe something that really happens to us.  I think when life throws us curve balls we may really feel like we are up to our eyebrows in manure.  And I certainly don't know of anyone who, when they find themselves in the midst of manure says, "Oh yea! Another growing experience!" It probably more like, "This stinks! Get me out of here!"

Well, hindsight is 20/20 as they say.