Pruning with Ice

Recently, I had the opportunity to work the High School Summer Program at the New England campus of Thomas Aquinas College. As I walked about the grounds, the grand trees with their enormous trunks and majestic crowns filled me with awe. Looking up through their branches, I noticed that some of the trees had an occasional dead branch mixed in with the living. This sight reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend years ago about freezing rain and how it helps to prune trees. 

During some winter storms, precipitation can fall as rain but freeze as soon as it lands due to freezing surface temperature. A thick sheath of ice coats the trees and the surplus weight prunes them. Weak, dead branches break. Strong, healthy branches endure. 

I am struck by a parallel lesson for our lives. As trees mature, their shape unfolds as branches grow in different directions. Some of these branches are strong and life-giving. Others are dead and produce nothing, or even worse, they’re infested with rot and threaten the whole tree. Similarly, as we mature the shape of our lives unfolds with different branches. Some of these are life-giving and continue to nourish us. Others are close to dead and produce little vital energy. And some branches are rotten, dangerous to the other branches and perhaps even to our very lives. 

So how do we discover the strong, life-giving branches? One way to do so is to test and prune the branches by freezing them. While working the High School Summer Program, I was away from my wife and 2-month old baby for twelve days. Their absence produced a temporary “freeze” and this short winter led me to see more deeply just how life-giving my family is to me. It occurs to me that the way to get rid of dead or rotten branches is to freeze them as well. 

This week, I invite you to dig into the following questions:  

What are the different branches of your life? Which ones are strongest and most life-giving? Which ones might be dead? Which ones might be rotten? Which branch would you like to test with a freeze? 

God Bless,
Dan