DON’T JUDGE A TREE BY ITS BARK

Tree? Bark? You probably think I’ve got my proverbs mixed. 

Bear with me, though I think you get my gist.

Appearances can be deceiving – book, tree, or person.

When I first saw this tree I thought it dead. A central trunk rose within a dry, cracked, broken shell of old bark. Scraggly un-leafed branches rose claw-like and naked to a burning sky.  This tree, I thought, is done. Whatever life it lived, whatever shade it might have once thrown, is over. Why leave it here by the road, a barren reminder of better days? 

And yet … what of that straight core I saw within the tree’s broken shell? What roots might it be connected to? Could there be life yet within?

As time passed, I no longer noticed the tree nor its bark.

Then something strange happened. Tiny green buds formed on those grey clawed branches. 

The buds grew. Became leaves. More and more grew where there had seemed to be only lifelessness. 

Now I see this tree, lush and full, green and living large. 

Can people be like that? 

Torn, broken, cracked by life and hardship, suffering and disappointment. 

Some I see, as I walk these streets, look like that barren trunk, dry, cracked, broken shells of what they might once have been or were made to be. Seemingly with little hope for life or fruitfulness.

And yet.

There may yet be roots reaching down into solid ground, or clinging hard to a rooted rock. 

We become accustomed to seeing the situations or people around us as they appear to be on the surface.

After a while we expect less … or, worse perhaps, we expect the same … we expect nothing to change or grow from their lives.

We take people for granted as I did that seemingly dead tree. 

We pass through their lives without seeing them. 

Even, dare I say, those closest to us. Do we stop seeing friends, colleagues, family members with hope for better, hope for growth, for new buds that could sprout into leaves, perhaps then to fruit? Do we give up hope for growth and change?

Let us not judge a tree by its bark.

Let us look deeper, expect life. 

Let us look with hope – ready to be surprised by life growing in dry places – places that can then become lush and green and live large.