Hi all,
I work up with a thought on my mind this morning. Pruning*. Yes I know that it is a strange one. But it is a concept I have heard through blogging. That occasionally you "prune" your website Pruning is in it's original sense a gardening term and and means:-
* Prune
"trim (a tree, shrub, or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems."
(From The Concise Oxford English Dictionary)
And then I started thinking we could use this concept in our own lives. To cut away that which is dead or just in our lives but serving no real purpose. Now this may seem a cruel concept in human terms. Do we get rid of people. Well yes, sometimes, would be my answer.
That is not to say that you only have people in your life because they serve a purpose for you. That's wrong. People should be valued as having intrinsic worth in themselves regardless of any roles they play. But all healthy relationship should be built on the concept of exchange. The relationship should be beneficial to both parties.
This is why I am against the traditional concept of charity. That of doing something for someone else. I am much more in favour of empowering people so they can help themselves. As the old saying goes "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day: teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
But back to pruning. As any gardener knows the main purpose of pruning is to make way for new life and to make the existing life stronger and purer. And that is how I started to think of applying the concept to my life.
My life, and yours, is a living growing thing. Our creation. And we are the gardener in charge of the garden, and occasionally we may need to prune our lives. To get rid of that which isn't working in order to make space for new growth.
I also started to think about this term in relation to things I own.
I am in the lucky position that I get more presents than I can possible use. This is because of other aspects of my life. I have tried to persuade these people to give the money to charity but that didn't work. A friend of mine explained to me that when people give to a person that the giving usually involves ego, and they want the joy of giving to that specific person, so it does not come from the same place as charitable giving, so giving to charity could never act as a substitute for wanting to give to a particular person. Maybe not, but I have managed to get my admirers to give money to my favourite charities, so my personal persuasion can work to some extent.
Anyhow pruning. What I do with a lot of my possessions is keep them for a few years and then give them to charity. Or sell them second hand and give that money to charity. So I guess I am "pruning". Or "recycling" to use a modern word.
I think being wealthy, or having abundance, could be described as being in the position of being able to give things away without feeling loss. Knowing that you will receive again in time.
Well you know what we can all give something away. What can you give away that costs you nothing, but can make another person feel like a million dollars? Answer - a smile!
Personally what I give away for free, for charitable purposes, is something very precious. My time!
So I hope you all have abundance in your lives and spread it around for others to share!
Blessed be
KK
