Branching Out

I’m trying to be positive about this. When I was a teen, I grew my first avocado from a pit leftover from dinner; I had probably seen a magazine ad by the California Avocado Council, which heavily marketed the green marvels in those days. I punctured the pit with toothpicks (no easy feat) and balanced it in a jar of water rather like a hippo on a tightrope. I was thrilled when it grew taller and taller; I knew I should prune it so it would branch but I couldn’t bear it.



Somewhere along the way I ordered Richard W. Langer’s The After-Dinner Gardening Book from the garden book club, which gave more incentive to prune. This morning I reread his account of letting his first avocado, Arthur, grow unfettered to the nine foot ceiling of his New York City apartment. Their solution was to take it to live in Pennsylvania with family. But how to get it there? He and his wife put Arthur on a skateboard and hailed several cabs to take the “three of them” to Penn Station, finally convincing a driver to allow them to shoehorn in the avocado tree. Langer wrote, “The ride down was uneventful, except that the [train] conductor looked somewhat askance at me as I stood beneath the shade of my tree in the passageway, observing the passing, avocadoless landscape.”



I had forgotten my current avocado planting; stacking another pot on top of one that seemed unoccupied. In rearranging one day, I remembered the pit. I gently dug below to see whether it had rooted or rotted. It had rooted! In time it sprouted up and made some healthy leaves. But I had to cut it. I’m over my reticence to cut avocado plants. Mostly. But prune it I did. It’s a little sad looking but I know it will be better for it. Now it will branch out.

The other day as I read the Biblical book of Zechariah I came across a man who was to be prophetic of Jesus, ”Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place”. (Zechariah 6:12) We Christians talk a lot about Jesus being the vine and we the branches (John 15:5) but tend to forget that branches branch out.