Against All Odds

The Norfolk pine that I wrote about in a previous post never recovered from its experience in the crowded dish garden. On Thanksgiving Day, I laid the shriveled, brittle remains under some bushes in the back yard.

Just as I was musing over the importance of environment to proper growth, I came across another tree while I out doing some errands on Black Friday. Underneath an overpass, in the tiniest of cracks in the sidewalk, was a healthy tree/weed that was flourishing in spite of the concrete that covered its roots and shut out the sun. This was no "proper environment," and yet its will to live is strong enough that this plant is making it in a way that the Norfolk pine could not, despite its Miracle Gro potting soil and fancy container.

What is it that makes some of us able to survive the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" as Hamlet put it, and others bend to varying degrees under the pressure?

Virgil might have part of the answer and he even carries the plant analogy as bit further when he wrote: "as the twig is bent, so the tree inclines." Whether or not we view ourselves as loved from the outset is crucial to our ability to withstand life and its struggles.

So, were the Beatles right when they sang "All you need is Love"? Yes and No. Lack of enough love or the right kind of love - most particularly when we are very young - colors our perception of life and fills us with fear.

It is also true, however, that in many cases, we are given love that we don't understand or can't appreciate and we go thirsty while surrounded by wells. Maybe our bucket is too big to fit down the shaft or maybe it's too small to hold much when we bring it up, but the love that is offered and the love that we need aren't a good match.

Genetics plays a part in this mismatch, but some of the effects of even this preconditioning can be softened, if each of us would lay aside our own conception of how to love and adapt to the unique needs of others, instead. Too often we set up ourselves as the arbiter of what another should see as a loving action and get hurt if they misinterpret what we've said or done.

Meaning lies with the receiver and the love that we offer must be put into the "language" that the other understands. When others cry out for love, it shouldn't matter whether or not we think the cry is justified. The need is there and it is up to us to try to fill their bucket and not tell them that they should get a different container.

I could go and uproot the plant along the highway - and probably save it from the City landscape crew - but I won't. For the moment, it is getting all that it needs and in my attempt to make decisions for it, I would probably wind up giving it the wrong kind of love.

Apparently, it likes concrete.