Reflection When I searched my memory for an example of what abiding might look like, I recalled a sequence of unfortunate events that occurred while I lived in Nambé, New Mexico. While enjoying dinner with several of my neighbors in the home of the one who was a gourmet chef attention turned to me when someone commented, “For a person who is so healthy, you sure are sick a lot.” The words paralyzed me but I could not deny them. When I looked around the table I realized, “We all are constantly upping the ante of home remedies and doctor visits, unexplained allergies, itches and coughs.” The only other thing I recall about that meal is asking myself, “What do we have in common?” The next morning I awoke with an answer, “Water. Everyone at that table drinks from a common well.”
So I filled a quart jar with water and drove to a local lab. When the technician asked me which tests on the list of hundreds I wanted I was utterly perplexed and returned the question, “If you noticed that everyone who is drinking water from your well has escalating allergies and recurring medical issues, what would you test for?” Without hesitation he replied, “Heavy metals.”
Five days later I picked up the results and discovered the level of uranium-238 in our drinking water was one hundred times the maximum contaminant level allowed by the FDA. With a bit of research I discovered it takes fifteen days for the body to dispel low levels of uranium, which of course does not happen when you ingest the contaminated water every day. To confirm this finding a scientist friend brought a geiger counter to my home. When we held it near running hot water at the kitchen sink and in the shower the needle jumped off the gadget. Calling the University of New Mexico pathology lab I discovered twenty years earlier a study had been done of the drinking water in Nambé and neighboring communities. It was determined that several of the wells had high levels of naturally occurring uranium-238, including a school, a church and multiple private wells. The information was not made public.
Immediately I warned my neighbors and was stunned by their response. “Why are you causing trouble for us?” So I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper which poured fuel on the fury of neighbors who, though clandestinely installing reverse osmosis systems, refused to acknowledge the problem - after all what would this news do to the value of their expensive real estate? How naive was I? My daughter and I moved away.
Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” Or you might say, when we are cut off from the flow of the life giving love of God and humanity we suffer the effects of chronic, insidious poisoning. The people of Flint Michigan know this. The people succumbing to coronavirus in India and all those suffering from every kind of food and finance insufficiency know this.
And, even when we allow the love of God and humanity to flow through us, we do not escape the pruning shears. Jesus speaks this plainly, “Every branch that bears fruit (the Vinegrower) prunes to make it bear more fruit.” Not only were my daughter and I essentially pruned by the neighbors who rejected my disturbing news, we also had to prune ourselves and move away in order to restore our health and bear more fruit.
In the midst of Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse” given to his eleven disciples following their final Passover meal in Jerusalem he maintains, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” This of course begs the question, “How do we know if the fruit we bear is good?” I believe the answer is simple. When the fruit is good it is not toxic, it does not shatter peace nor incite violence, it does not tarnish, trample or traumatize. Good fruit is harmless, healthy and helpful. It is life giving and sustaining because good fruit corresponds to the nature of the vine in which it abides and we abide in the Vine that vitalizes by love.
As countless branches of the Divine Vine our flesh and blood and breath depend upon our harmless, healthy and helpful alliance with all of the other branches and the Vine. Of course this means we must wield the pruning shears, “removing every branch that bears no fruit,” unsnarling the snags that slow the flow of life sustaining love through us. Much as a vinegrower skillfully prunes the grapevines to guide them in certain directions and produce good wine, sometimes we must prune our own branches to insure we are untangled and free to receive and transmit the vital life force that we call love.
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