The Life and Death of Banana's
From these humble beginnings, the place where the great gardener has placed me, I struggled. Rocks, of the past, push down on my small beginnings preventing my efforts from breaking through the barrier of dirt that has been placed over my head. These rocks believing that I will amount to nothing. But that is a lie, and is not in the heart of this banana shoot, I have a desire, given to me by the gardener, to reach to the sun. To the sun, where my life is found, and so I push past the dirt and rocks towards tomorrow.
Reach, reach past those other plants around me blocking the sunlight from touching my life. Reach to the sun. Reach to the source. Reach to Life.
Breakthrough! Sunshine, finally! The gardener has indeed chosen a wonderful place for me. From this place the reaching really starts, stretching, growing, growing, stretching... and soon dying. What? Dying, I just got here. I just broke through look at my single leaf. It's new, fresh, and alive.
Yes, I send out my first magnificent leaf, dark green, full, and rich. My leaf seems so strong, so capable and yet after just a moment in time it begins to die. Yes as the banana plant sends out new leaves the first leaf of yesterday is discarded. Fading, the bright green turns slowly to brown, the vitality of yesterday fades into the empty shell of today and eventually this leaf will lie at my foot as I continue to reach towards the sun, towards my calling.
Time will pass, a lot of time. Leaves will come, leaves will go, successes will come and go. But I will show the world my strength. I will demonstrate, defend and define my existence as the leaves get larger, and larger, bigger and bigger, darker and darker. After seasons of growth and moments having turned into days, weeks and months, THE moment happens. A moment that I knew would happen, I wanted to happen, but I never could have guessed what this moment would mean when it happened.
A new shaft extends out from the heart of the plant, my heart. From the very centre of the plant...from my very heart... a new shoot emerges and stretches out. But this shoot, unlike it's brothers does not reach up towards the sun, towards the son, the strength, the source, but rather this shoot stretches down. Yes down, towards the dirt that covered this plant only months before. Down towards the rocks that worked to prevent his beginnings. Down, closer to those what will come next. We must reach down to flower, to reproduce.
How I just wanted to reach farther and farther upwards. But, just at the time when all seems healthy and rich, reaching to the sky, a new growth begins to manifest itself into my spirit and life of this now growing plant. Little did I realize that this new growth will trigger both new life and upcoming death. Yup, this "flower" which resembles a purple spear will reach down back to the very ground where this story started.
Just, as I can reach higher and stronger then I have ever been able to reach before, I much reach down. NOW? When I know that the size of breadth of my leaves cover more people, ground, and animals then they have ever covered before. Now, I must give all my efforts to this spear pointing down?
This new shaft will of course create the fruit of the plant, a large bunch of bananas made up of many hands. Multiple different brightly coloured bananas arranged neatly in rows, hands, and eventually a bunch. These two echo this time of my life, so much is right and good in this world at present. Fruit in the ministry, lives being born again, developing into disciples, each one sweet with the promise of new beginnings and new growth.
Now the gardener watches as my efforts must turn down to those who will follow. This is exciting too, I tell myself, but the main plant can already sense it. I can sense it. Leaves continue to darken and die but now at an accelerated pace. All around this new brightly coloured bunch of new birth, lies the ravaged leaves of days gone by. Moments of effort now fading into the dark rich soil at the foot of this plant. Memories of yesterdays, expressions of outreach and opportunities to share God's love now rot at the foot of this dying giant.
Somehow the gardener knew. He knew that this was not all about my leaves, my deep dark green life but rather about that small spear, striking out from the heart of the plant to strike a final blow of death.
Oh, those around are appreciative of the fruit that now is so event to all who wish to see. Oh they are most grateful for the sweet taste of new life and new beginnings that this tree has been able to produce with God's grace. But wait...what is that sound.
A bush knife being sharpened, readied to cut off the fruit and ship it to the farthest reaches of this world to bring that new life to all who will receive them. The bunches broken into hands, the hands into individual fruits so that they can reproduce in location that was intended, before the beginning of time. The gardener with a single motion cuts away the very fruit that I have been putting all my effort into. Cut away, moved away, separated to grow somewhere else.
And now in this last moment of mercy, grace and love the gardener strikes me down too. Back to the dirt. Back to the beginning. Back to the Rocks and challenges to grow skyward once again. Allowing other new shoots to spring out of the ground, push past the rocks and reach for the son. For it is in this last moment that the remaining broken pieces of that once tall, proud banana tree now rotting in the ground give one last gift of life through death.
There would be no new life, if the old did not die first. Die to self, to prominence, to being seen, being heard. The new life needs the old, to provide those things that they don't even realize that they need. Sadly they too will give up their place in days to come. They too will die to themselves, as the gardener will once again come for his fruit. But today, it's my day. Today I choose to push back my leaves to reveal the strong stock at the centre of it all. Reveal to the bush knife that we all know is coming.
As my present day is filled with fruit. As new leaves strike out towards the son, and the fruit is filled out and ripens, as lives are begin changed and touched by the son, remind me gardener that this too will pass, and only what's done for you... will last.
May my life, fill the ground around me with the building blocks and nutrients that will provide the next generation with the foundation that they need. May the next generations see in my words, actions and motives a plant who did as his gardener wanted, always, and may these words, actions and motives inspire them to reach towards the son, too. Especially in these days when it's raining and the son is difficult to see.
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