These Northwestern summer nights are perfect -- cool and soft and limpid, tranquil and dark. I went outside last night at dusk because I could see a breeze through the window and needed to quiet for a moment the thinking frenzy I've been spinning circles in over the last month. I found the swing in the big pine between our house and the neighbors's and swung into the breeze, leaning back to watch the branches whirl silently overhead. It helped, until I spun the swing right back into my mind-trap, got mad, got off, and kicked the swing. Tromped through the ivy and into the backyard, where I dusted off an old wicker chair and sat for nearly an hour under the pergola, which supports our last remaining grapevine. Over me and the pergola and the grapevine loomed a giant oak from the back-neighbors yard, swaying and fluttering gracefully against the deep Parrish blue sky. I looked up at the grapevine, which was trying to tell me something.One of its long green tendrils stretched out from the pergola over my head, and i wondered what it was reaching for, since the nearest stable object was still a good 12 feet away. I watched it reaching out hopefully, putting out tiny new leaves and feelers that ended up curling together around nothing, just hanging there. There were countless other young tendrils doing the same thing, poking out from all sides of the pergola in all directions. Some had connected, curling tightly around each other, creating points of strength, of reinforcement. All of these tendrils, however, could only stretch out so far from the pillars and the pergola before dropping under their own weight. Mostly they didn't, I assume because they knew when to quit.
There was one old main branch, and all it grew entwined around and was supported by the pergola. On top of the pergola (can you tell I like the word pergola?) grew most of the broad green sun-soaking leaves, quite beautiful and healthy and young, and the tendrils. From the underside of the pergola hung a bunch of dead black branches and broken tendrils, old dead matter from years gone by, hidden artfully under the living and seemingly perfect outer covering of fresh leaves.
It occurred to me that without constantly reaching and stretching its tendrils and feelers out into thin air, even without having anything to cling to, the grapevine wouldn't grow. Even though it didn't reach anything solid, the reaching tendril grew, and expanded, beautified, and in its own small way, strengthened the whole vine. I also saw that without the stability of the pergola, the grapevine would never have gotten so big, so healthy, so beautiful, fruitful, or useful. The one branch, although it provided life to the whole plant, couldn't possibly support its own weight, and would've trailed haplessly along the ground. And although it hid all that old dead matter so artfully, I wondered whether it would be healthier or more fruitful if the lingering rotten things were pruned away. And I wondered then what would happen if even most of the living green stuff were pruned ruthlessly away - what would the grapevine do? The answer of course is simple: put out those little tendrils in faith and trust and grow back, every time.
Life applications? I think so. I said a little prayer, smiled, and went back inside.
