{"id":4509,"date":"2012-02-21T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janaremy.com\/?p=4509"},"modified":"2012-02-21T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:00:18","slug":"it-is-your-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2012\/02\/21\/it-is-your-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"it is your nature&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I was active in the LDS church and trying to make sense of the challenges of my life, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lds.org\/new-era\/1973\/01\/the-currant-bush?lang=eng\" target=\"_blank\">one talk by an Apostle resonated with me particularly deeply<\/a>. It was by Hugh B. Brown and used a metaphor of a currant bush that was pruned so it might produce better fruit. In that talk Brown discussed some professional opportunities that he lost as a result of his adherence to the LDS church and praised God for not letting him be successful and affluent. He wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, \u201cHow could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done\u2014that I should have done\u2014that I haven\u2019t done. How could you do this to me?\u201d I was as bitter as gall.<\/p>\n<p>And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, \u201cI am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.\u201d&#8230;<br \/>\nAnd now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, \u201c<strong>Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was reminded of that talk as I read a Marge Piercy poem this morning&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A work of artifice<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The bonsai tree<br \/>\nin the attractive pot<br \/>\ncould have gown eighty feet tall<br \/>\non the side of a mountain<br \/>\ntill split by lightning.<br \/>\nBut a gardener<br \/>\ncarefully pruned it.<br \/>\nIt is nine inches high.<br \/>\nEvery day as he<br \/>\nwhittles back the branches<br \/>\nthe gardener croons,<br \/>\nIt is your nature<br \/>\nto be small and cozy.<br \/>\ndomestic and weak;<br \/>\nhow lucky, little tree.<br \/>\nto have a pot to grow in.<br \/>\nWith living creatures<br \/>\none must begin very early<br \/>\nto dwarf their growth:<br \/>\nthe bound feet,<br \/>\nthe crippled brain,<br \/>\nthe hair in curlers.<br \/>\nthe hands you<br \/>\nlove to touch.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder sometimes, if my life had held different contours and experiences, would I have been a statuesque tree on a hillside?<\/p>\n<p>Or is there something more beautiful to a life where one&#8217;s branches have been clipped (over and over again), and yet there are blossoms every spring?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was active in the LDS church and trying to make sense of the challenges of my life, one talk by an Apostle resonated with me particularly deeply. It was by Hugh B. Brown and used a metaphor of a currant bush that was pruned so it might produce better fruit. In that talk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>it is your nature... - PilgrimSteps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2012\/02\/21\/it-is-your-nature\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"it is your nature... - PilgrimSteps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was active in the LDS church and trying to make sense of the challenges of my life, one talk by an Apostle resonated with me particularly deeply. It was by Hugh B. Brown and used a metaphor of a currant bush that was pruned so it might produce better fruit. 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