The Lesson of the Avocado Tree

I knew that this summer would be intense, so I had decided to take a longer break than usual from blogging and most social media—I usually unplug for one month; this time I was trying to mostly disconnect most of the time the kids were on summer vacation (which was FAR shorter than the 104 days our favorite cartoon promises).

Over the last ten weeks, along with vacation and summer camps, my family has gone through some significant transitions, including buying an old house in Burbank. This smallish 1927 beauty is in really good shape, with a few minor issues that I imagine would accompany any 85 year old house.

One of our favorite things about the property is this HUGE avocado tree on the back corner of the lot. The branches reach out to cover most of the yard, and the large leaves block the direct sun as well as provide sound dampening for the distant sounds of the freeway. I’ve imagined attaching a rope-swing, building a tree house, and eventually eating the truckload of avocados that would be produced at some point.

This house has a lot of plants and trees that have not been tended to for some time, so we hired an expert to assess them. Most of it simply needed to be cleaned up and cut back. But we had bad news about the Avocado tree.

Though we didn’t know it, it was diseased; it had also grown out of control, and had gotten tangled up in the power lines running into our house. Also the roots were destroying our wall, and starting to reach into our alley and into our neighbors property. The expert looked at us and without one ounce of pity he said it needed to be taken out or it would quickly go on to cause much, much more damage.

So while the crew was taking down the tree, the Clark family was crying. We were so very sad to see this new friend go—and I’m just glad it happened within the first few days of living here and we had not had time to get overly attached (my kids are known to name inanimate objects like cars and trees…for instance the name of the moon is “Fred”—glad that isn’t going anywhere soon).

So now I look out from my family room to my backyard and I just see a huge patch of dirt where the tree used to be. And when I walk outside I can hear the freeway more than I used to. Eventually we’ll fix up the backyard and all will be well, but before moving on emotionally I wanted to reflect on a couple of lessons that I could also apply to my life:

1. Planning: Trees need to be planted in the right place. If the person planting this tree would have done the research, they would have known that it was going to grow to 50 feet tall. The back corner of the house right below the power line was not the right place to plant such an organism for long term health.

Often when we want to start something with growth potential, we are not careful to “plant” that thing in such a way that considers its future growth. When getting something going, I always want to ask myself this question: If this endeavor is wildly successful, are we prepared to steward it well or will its success kill both it and us?

2. Pruning: Trees need to be constantly taken care of. I hate the look of trees that are freshly pruned, but I know that it is the only way for healthy, full life to happen. We like the look of a huge tree with lots of branches and leaves, but invariably the tree will be overgrown, the fruit will be no good, and disease will set in. The only options then are to either let it die out and rot, or to mercifully take it down.

As leaders we are called to be cultivators, which means while we and others may celebrate the visuals of unchecked growth, we are actually responsible to ensure that it is not just growth, but that it is also healthy, or some future leader may have to come in and take out that thing that looked so good to us while it was exploding with life.

I’m grateful for a lemon and orange tree that were spared, and I’ve now got a plot of dirt that I can envision a pool going into (after years of saving), but it’s a shame we had to loose the tree. I want to make sure to hang onto the lesson, though, of watching for unchecked growth and ensuring that it doesn’t turn into disease or danger before cultivating it for life.