Becoming fruitful !

The red and yellow Rambutan fruits in our garden are ready for harvest. The flowering started in February and now the fruits are ready. 

I noticed a few transition stages in their growth to be ripe fruits. The flowers when became raw fruits at the early stage, the trees dropped many raw fruits. A few weeks later, the wind and storm caused damage and many more raw fruits got dropped. When the fruits were reaching the maturing stage about six weeks ago some more were lost. What survived are now ripe and fully formed fruits. 

The fruits which got dropped became the manure for the tree. The soil received them to nourish the tree. 

What was evident was that the trees did not have any tender leaves during these preceding months. The trees converged to nourish the fruits. In one sense the fruiting season is when the trees turn the attention from growing to fruiting! 

This is an annual feature when the trees have about five to six months in this stage of flowering and fruiting. 

As we distributed the fruits to about twenty-five families in our neighbourhood, Anna and I found that this annual feature, since we returned to our cottage to live here twelve years ago, has a vibrant story to tell us about life itself. All the trees were planted when we arrived to live here. Now all the five trees grow to give. 

This is a life lesson for us- Grow to give! 

A Rambutan tree becomes the tree that it is meant to be, only when it flowers and gives fruits for others to receive them. 

Life is fully lived only when we offer the fruits of our lives for others to receive! 

What is this fruit of full living! 

It dawned on me while visiting two homes yesterday that just the visit sparked an encouragement in the families. Both families have had  some difficult times recently. I returned feeling awakened to the resilience they carry within ! They live in the midst of illnesses which they endure and yet feeling ready to move on! 

The South African thought of 'ubuntu' which Arch bishop Desmond Tutu often referred to represented a vision: each person becomes a person by being with others. 

We as humans are relational beings helping each other to become fully human and humane. This dual journey is the formative journey that we embrace more so in mid-life. The journey beyond mid-life is to become an elder ! 

The fruits above in the Rambutan tree are ready for anyone to relish! Our lives too are an offering to bring hope and purpose to the lives of others! That is the calling in life! 

I ponder and pause to internalise this truth more!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)