Spiritual Lessons of An Olive Tree

Up in the olive tree.

It’s olive-picking season in our backyard. We have one olive tree. When we moved in to this house in 1994, someone told us the tree was sick and we should cut it down. We cut the trunk down and left the stump and voila! Out of the stump grew new beautiful branches. The olive tree had a will to live and grew again, even more beautiful and hardy than last time.

What’s the lesson? Sometimes we have to get rid of the unnecessary baggage that we’re schlepping around inside us to promote new growth.

Olive trees can live thousands of years…so it’s never too late for us! We sometimes have to stop and take stock and raise our level of awareness. Accepting a situation as it is does not mean that we approve of it, just that we accept it is what it is. Then we can decide what to do about it. We can change, try something new, experiment, step out of our comfort zone, take a risk, take a chance, make that move, change our minds, end something that isn’t working, start another, begin again and again and again and always hold onto hope.

I tried to find a good quote about olive trees and could not so I better make one up. I am open to suggestions. What is yours? Here is mine: Be like an olive tree: plant yourself with strong roots, let your branches sway in the wind, and give of yourself generously.

Here is my acronym for hope: Hang Onto Prayers Everybody. Especially now in the Middle East when things look so grim…We have to keep praying up. The miracle is always just around the corner.

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a freelance reporter for The Jerusalem Post, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.

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7 Responses to Spiritual Lessons of An Olive Tree

Rhonda Blender says:

October 12, 2015 at 7:19 am

Diana, I’m running out of room in my cubicle to post these blogs…but they are so wonderful and uplifting that I want them around me! Maybe if you talk to my boss you can get me moved from a cubicle to an office!! Thank you for all that you write which I find so helpful!!!! Rhonda

- dianabletter says:
  
  October 13, 2015 at 1:35 am
  
  Thank YOU, Rhonda! Your responses mean a lot to me.
  
Tom Scott says:

October 12, 2015 at 7:33 am

“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” John 15

- dianabletter says:
  
  October 13, 2015 at 1:32 am
  
  Exactly! We must prune ourselves. Thanks, Tom!
  
Tracy Campbell says:

October 13, 2015 at 11:53 am

Diana, you look like a natural olive tree picker. I was praying this morning for God to intervene on behalf of Israel. Blessings. 🙂

Ben says:

October 26, 2015 at 9:22 am

Maybe we should all be like an olive tree, have you ever noticed, their leaves turn to face the
sun, searching for the bright side of life !

- dianabletter says:
  
  November 3, 2015 at 7:55 pm
  
  You are absolutely right, B en. Thank you for pointing that out.