Sunday snapshot: Fruit {blossoms}

{Canon Rebel XTi, Canon macro 100mm 2.8, f/5.6, ISO 800, shutter 1/200, edited in Photoshop CS5}

Ruts. They are so easy to get stuck in. Sometimes you need a good old kick in the pants to climb on out. Stefanie, thank you for providing that this week with your new vision for Sunday Snapshot.

My camera of late has mostly been collecting dust. I could blame it on multiple causes: winter doldrums, lack of inspiration, busyness, laziness…but we’ll leave behind the excuses. For Christmas I was given a brand spanking new macro lens that has subsequently rested on the closet shelf. Last July, as a graduation gift to myself and taking full advantage of {hopefully} the last time I’ll receive a student discount, I purchased full out big girl photoshop. I finally loaded it on my computer in January. And am just now beginning to play with it. Yes, indeed, a kick in the pants was needed.

Yesterday morning on the way to church Jeff pointed out a lone tree in the midst of an orchard that had boldly decided to bloom before any of the others. And so, when he proposed a walk in the evening, I requested a stroll to the tree, dusted off the camera, and threw the new lens in the bag.

There is something about flowering trees that provides infinite inspiration to me. Their beauty is stunning in its simplicity, and yet the mere angle from which they’re captured and the direction of light streaming in provides infinite possibilities for artistic direction.

Yet perhaps even more so than their beauty, I love the spiritual lessons poignantly and plainly laid out in the crooks of their branches.

I love that fruit bearing trees are the trees that require the most careful pruning.

I love that the trees with the most gnarled trunks and scarred exteriors are likely the most mature, honed throughout the years to bear the most fruit.

I love that a fruit tree can be chopped down to its trunk, deceiving the eye into thinking it has suffered an early death, and then over time branch out to become yet more fruitful.

I love the fact that even fruit bearing branches must at times be pruned back, lest the weight of the fruit break the branch.

I love that these petals, these first testimonies of life to come, must die before fruit appears.

Death and life. Scars and beauty. Drastic cuts for drastic harvests.

Such are the contradictions of the fruit tree, and such are the contradictions of this path we’re called to walk. The more years that pass, and the more scarred and mangled our trunks become, the more bountiful the sweet crop that is harvested. And why should it not be so? For we follow in the footsteps of the one who was scarred and torn much deeper than we shall ever be.

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot–yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him–the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.