There Was Once a Farmer Who Had a Beautiful Orchard. He Would Look up Into His Trees And

非升學組

Good Fruit

There was once a farmer who had a beautiful orchard. He would look up into his trees and see the potential and growth of all of his fruit. When the time for harvest came, he carefully took his baskets out into the orchard and picked the fruit, imagining the joy it would bring to his loved ones and to the people he would sell it to. His fruit was good and he was very successful. People would travel to come to his table and buy the fruit from his trees. It was sweet and healthy and made people happy.

Sometimes the farmer’s wife would wander out into the orchard. She was constantly looking down. When the harvest season came, she found fruit on the ground that fell before it was supposed to, and it rotted right where it fell. One day she accidentally stepped in rotten fruit and it squished around her shoe. She was angry. She scooped up the moldy rotten mess and went out into the market complaining. “Look” she said as she put it on display. “Look what came from your trees.” The people looked at the rotten fruit and then they looked back suspiciously at the fruit on the table. They each politely excused themselves and left. After having seen the rot in his wife’s hand, they no longer wanted or trusted the good fruit, though moments earlier it was famous and loved.

This story is both true and not true. We have seen this scenario play itself out in various places throughout our lives. Each person has about them things that are beautiful and helpful and things that are downright rotten. Our ability to value that person then is determined by whether or not we look up and see their worth and value and potential, or if we look down on them and see their troubles and failures. Like the fruit of the tree, they have within them the ability to be both.

Additionally, our perspective and the things we hold up matter. The farmer held up good fruit and gave something beneficial to the people around him. The farmer’s wife held up the bad, and ruined people’s ability to get what they wanted or needed, causing them to reject the good for fear of the bad. So also is the power of our words. Let us be as the farmer, holding up good fruit for the benefit of all, and let us let the bad fall to the ground unnoticed and in silence.