The vicar and the guava trees

ONCE I had a relative who was very active in church politics. He took a special interest in the transfer of a vicar for no apparent reason. 

So I asked him: "Why have you done this? Isn't he a very senior priest? Nobody has any complaint against him."

Suddenly he got emotional and said: "It is not true that nobody has any complaint against him. A few of us have an extreme protest against his continuing here. I think that such priests should not be posted in any church."

"What has he done to offend you?"

"It is a very old incident. But it is not possible to forget it."

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"There were three big guava trees in the church courtyard. When I was a Sunday School student I and my friends used to climb these trees to pluck guava and eat them. The priest did not like it and used to scold us."

"Is it for such a trivial issue that you are keeping such a grudge against the poor man?"

"If the priest had stopped at this stage, we would have forgiven him. But he had gone to the extent of getting all the guava trees cut down for the simple reason that we the children used to climb the trees to pluck guava. We then felt as if our own hands and legs were severed. We had then decided that the priest should not be allowed to continue there. But it could become a reality now only," he concluded.

The priest must never have thought that the cutting down of the three guava trees in the church compound was the real cause of his transfer.

Trees and children have a very deep and inseparable relationship. I am writing this to bring home the truth that those who cut trees must never forget this intimate relationship.

(Translation of Dr Jacob Samson's Malayalam article “Achane sthalam maattiya peramarangal" by Eapen Chacko)