Cutting away the dead stuff

What is important to you? When you look at your life, what are the things that stand out? Do you have a lot of dead weight that you carry around?

I have a fuchsia plant hanging over my deck in the back of the house. It was a beautiful plant on mother’s day. Someone had given it everything it needed to thrive before I took it on.

I’ve been watering it faithfully, and even fertilizing it as the label instructed. But after a while, my enthusiasm waned, and I began to neglect it a bit. When I came back from my 12 days in the Midwest, the poor thing was all but dead. There were shriveled up leaves, brown stems, and overall dilapidation. It was thirsty, and I was distracted.

When things like this happen to a plant, the best way to handle it is to cut away the dead stuff. Let it put its energy into the healthy parts, so it can grow again. So, that’s what I did. Now, when I look out the window, I see a fuchsia that is bright and healthy, despite its lack of volume. It might not look the way it’s “supposed” to look, but it still communicates life and beauty.

We all know that more is not always better. In fact, sometimes more is a burden and can bring you down. I think our lives are like my fuchsia. We can create big, lovely, brilliant lives. And people might look at us in awe. But sometimes pieces will get neglected, and as they die, we need to cut them out. There are times when we lose track of the important things and get caught up in the little details, only to find ourselves in a tangle of dried out stems and leaves.

I believe when those times emerge, we need to cut away the dead stuff and go back to what’s important. Go back to the things that are bright and healthy, even if that means our lives have less volume and don’t attract so much attention. After all, what is important? It’s family, friends, community, and relationships. That other stuff is just extra fluff. It might be beautiful and awe-inspiring, but maybe that’s because it’s more than what we can really sustain. It’s sensational, so it makes people look. When it comes down to it, if we just prune it back to those few stems and nurture them, we will see that our lives are beautiful even when they’re simple. No volume needed.