By Cate Edmonds, Canon Steward
On Sunday, we will in the Cathedral, be thinking about St Boniface, an 8th Century martyr from Crediton. St Boniface became a Benedictine monk devoting his life to the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic tribes in Europe.
According to legend he worked tirelessly in the country destroying idols and pagan temples. Around the Winter Solstice he found a group of pagans worshipping an ancient oak tree, Thor. He was so horrified he took an axe and hacked the tree down, the pagans watching were amazed at his strength. The legend claims that instantly a fir tree sprung up in its place. The people gathered there were converted to Christianity on the spot. The fir tree as an evergreen was deemed a symbol of the everlasting love of the creator, God. It was thought that from then on branches of fir trees were taken into houses and decorated for the winter season; a precursor of our practice of decorating a fir tree at Christmas.
This of course is legend and nowadays we would be shocked at hacking down an ancient tree just as we were in 2023 when two men hacked down the iconic 150 year old sycamore tree growing so magnificently in Sycamore Gap in Hadrian’s Wall. This was a senseless act, certainly not a meaningful act with a miracle outcome as that of St Boniface.
We have in our garden a very old ash tree, it must be well over 130 years old if not more. Sadly, it has been suffering from ash dieback. We have tried several trims to try to curb the dieback but to no avail. As the tree is near a main road, we have been anxious that should the disease spread further it could come down in storm and cause an enormous amount of damage. So earlier this year following advice we took to major decision to pollard the tree rather than remove it entirely and so left a substantial length of its trunk. It was very sad to watch the tree surgeons lop off the enormous branches and reduce this magnificent tree to a rather ugly tall bare trunk.
Almost immediately we noticed life returning to the trunk, small shoots of new growth were appearing, and small leaves have started to form again. These look healthy and we hope that eventually this magnificent tree will return to its former glory, sadly though not in our lifetime.
This incident reminds me of a passage in John’s Gospel 15:1-2: Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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.”
Jesus’ metaphor of pruning the vine illustrates how God, as the gardener refines and disciplines believers to increase their spiritual fruitfulness. Certainly, the pollarding of our ash tree has enabled the tree to revive and start to become healthy again. I wonder what we need to prune of ourselves to enable our spiritual development and as also assist in the protection of God’s creation around us?