What a ugly tree... Do not cast your pearls before swine.- Matthew 7:6
Today I was thinking how ugly the olive tree is.... It is not a tree which would at once strike the beholder with admiration, like some giant oak, or lofty elm; nor charm him with its elegance, like a weeping willow; nor astonish us with its grandeur, like a cedar of Lebanon. In order to perceive its beauty, you must linger a for little while. You must look, and look again; and then, if you do not at last feel a deep respect for the olive, and a quiet delight in its beauty, it must be because you are not of a thoughtful spirit, or else because we have little poetry in our soul. The more familiar you become with the olive tree, the more you will take pleasure in it. And olives are such a needed food for our diets. Studies show that they are good for the heart and may protect against osteoporosis and cancer. The healthy fats in olives are extracted to produce olive oil, one of the key components of the incredibly healthy Mediterranean diet. But what a ugly tree, that is the thoughts when we first approach a person with deceases, cancer, MS, lupus , leprosy etc. Right away we prejudge and distance ourselves. Not knowing right away the repour, the compassion, the agape love that flows like the olive oil. Look, and look again; and perhaps, in time you will come to admire as an excellence what you now think to be a defect.
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This place for Jesus was the wine press, in other words Gethsemane, for him a place of holy memories. Under those old olive trees, so gnarled and twisted, he had spent many a night in prayer; and the silver moonbeams, glancing between the somber foliage, had often illumined his blessed body as he knelt there, and wrestled, and had communion with his Father. He knew how his soul had been refreshed while he had spoken there face to face with the Eternal, how his face had been made to shine, and he had returned to the battle in Jerusalem’s streets strengthened by his contact with the Almighty. So he went to the old {meeting} place, the familiar place where holy memories clustered.