I’ve been working in the garden. The vines that I did not plant have overgrown or grown over the plants that I did plant. At first I thought, “any kind of green plant looks lush and alive in the garden.”
But as I left my garden to grow, the months passed, and a year probably, and then I went to prune the roses for their yearly grooming. The vines were choking my roses; they had infiltrated like an enemy.
I got gloved up and began to work on just one rose, pulling and clipping the woody vine that had encircled my roses many times over. It was hard work, and I realized that if I had gotten to them sooner, the job would have been easier. But there was still time, and I meticulously removed each vine from the rose branches. The thorns, which may deter animal prey, did not prevent the vines from wrapping around each thorny branch.
The roses are good, but left here in my garden with the vine, they will get run over, and could eventually die. In fact, some of my lavendar has died from the vines that have over-run and run over them.
Though at first the vine seemed innocuous and even pretty, it was slowly, day by day winding around the stems of my roses and choking them. And causing the demise of my lavendar.
They could no longer live together. The vines had to go, they had “ripened in iniquity”–I was done with them.
Gardening, pruning, planting, are all good metaphors and similes for good and evil, living in the world with things that don’t appear bad, but turn into vines that will eventually work their way into your life, and even overcome you.
There are so many ways to learn about life’s journey on earth. And it’s a lot of work.
“Ripened in iniquity” –I have always loved that phrase. And contemplated that word “ripened”
I think of the bananas on my kitchen counter. I bought them when they were yellow/green, and now it seems that they are already ripe, and I have only had two of them. If I dont eat them tomorrow they will be brown for sure–what happens there? I just bought them, and they have gone from not ripe to over ripe in such short notice. And once a banana goes brown, the stem starts to break open and little fruit flies start to invade and fly about your kitchen.
And into the trash they get flung. Ripening, ripening, just right, and then boom, no good, over-ripe, and time to toss.
God lets us go on living on this earth for as long as he can–until we become ripened with iniquity. then its over–there’s no turning back. Kind of scary. (Visions of Noah coughing blood, in the cold off his ark.)
And yet there are so many people, good people who acknowledge God’s hand. But there are many, many who scoff at the idea of a God, who look at those that believe in such fairy tale myths, as the uneducated–that believe that religion is the cause of all problems.
And then there are those religious that are overly self righteous, and have no compassion for others. That cannot acknowledge that they have faults, that they have vines to daily root out.
I wonder how ripe we are. I do not know. But I do realize that as the ripening process starts, there is no turning back, and before you know it, you’ve got a rotten banana on your counter.
And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity. Ether 2:9
And seemingly benign vines that have gone unnoticed until they have become thoroughly entrenched in your garden. All this while I slept away–
“Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both therefore grow together until the harvest.” Matthew 13:24-30
And so we live together, for……some time.
