In the eternal garden where fear and blame are masters no more, a man came upon an old overgrown pepper tree. Now on earth this man had been a sculptor, and so when he saw the weeping canopy and the bulbous trunk, he thought it looked like a woolly mammoth. This musing pleased him so much that he took his pruning sheers and begansnipping the pepper tree to shape it like he had once done to wood and clay on earth.
Before he was finished, another man came along. Now this man had once been an arborist. And when he saw the trimmed pepper tree, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was no mistaking its form. It was a woolly mammoth in size and texture.
The arborist burst into laughter. All his thirty-odd years of trimming trees, of selecting a tree’s central leader, of judging the strength of each off-shoot’s angle, and waiting for growth to fill in the gaps, had not taught him to trim trees into woolly mammoths. It had never even entered his imagination. And here now this sculptor, with his …
Before he was finished, another man came along. Now this man had once been an arborist. And when he saw the trimmed pepper tree, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was no mistaking its form. It was a woolly mammoth in size and texture.
The arborist burst into laughter. All his thirty-odd years of trimming trees, of selecting a tree’s central leader, of judging the strength of each off-shoot’s angle, and waiting for growth to fill in the gaps, had not taught him to trim trees into woolly mammoths. It had never even entered his imagination. And here now this sculptor, with his …