From a parable in the thirteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel
The landowner went out to survey his property. He found a fig tree in his orchard that was barren and remembered that it had not borne fruit the previous year. He told the gardener to dig it up and discard the worthless tree. The gardener, being a man of the soil found it as difficult to kill a living plant as a shepherd a lame sheep or a pet owner, a cross-eyed cat. “Please”, he said, “Let me try again for this one more year.” When the land owner agreed he went to work. He dug around it and pruned it and fertilized it. As if it were a senscient would have complained about the annoying digging and the foul smelling fertilizer… but what a difference the slight inconvenience brought about! No sooner did the sun grow stronger than the leaves reached out and the tiny buds of summer figs came forth along the slender branches. The landowner’s children’s children looked forward each summer to the delicious fruit.
