I wish to begin by telling a story.
Once there was a man who planted a tree. This tree began to grow and on one occasion the man was about the yard carrying a basket filled too high when he tripped up on the tree and fell to the ground. The man became angry with the tree, shouting at it, and with fingers wrapped tightly around the newly forming trunk shook it angrily. He got up, returned his things to his basket and entered the house, deciding that day to not give water to the tree.
As summer turned to fall the tree began to lose a few leaves. The man who always prided himself on a tidy yard got upset with the tree for dropping leaves onto his freshly swept walkway. Day after day this occurred and the man grew impatient with the tree and plucked off the rest of its leaves and trimmed its branches to ensure less mess in the future.
In the winter time as the tree stood cold in the wind it began to collect snow on its branches. The man who did not like winter much at all intended to rush inside to get warm by his fire. In his haste he brushed up against the tree whose branches released its large collection of snow on top of the man’s head and down his neck and in between his shirt and his back. The man, furious with rage, exclaimed that the tree produced nothing of value and only those things which caused him disgust. He shouted “Today you have spat on me but no more.”
So the man cut down the tree.
———
At the first telling of this story I asked my wife what was to be learned from the story. I was told that one moral we could learn was forgiveness. She said that the man should have forgiven the tree. I was surprised by this answer principally because when I asked the question about what the moral might be I had a different answer in mind.
I asked another leading question hoping she would realize what my answer would have been and the point of my telling the story, thus continuing with the seldom enjoyable and seldom won game of “Guess what is in my head.”
I asked, “Why did you assign the human characteristic of malice to the tree? Why did the man have to forgive the tree?” She realized that what I wanted in that moment was an interested pair of ears who I could share my thoughts with rather than a two way conversation that she now knew was not to take place just yet. She nodded that I should go on to explain my thinking. I did so, not realizing in the moment how generous she was to listen to her husband continue to share his thoughts while knowing that he had not paid her the same courtesy.
The moral of the story, I continued excitedly, is developed as we watch the man in each instant get upset with the tree as if it were another human being with intent to cause physical harm, the cunning to devise an annoyance so clever, and the unkindness to cause such discomfort.
But we realize soon enough that the man is caught in a delusion. He, perhaps unconsciously, chose a set of ideas about that tree that helps him feel justified in his treatment of the tree and makes his actions feel perfectly reasonable. If however he could approach each situation with a different set of assumptions, like for example the tree is not a being with human characteristics, cannot be tempted to cause physical harm or find joy in annoyance or feel unkind toward anyone.
If the man could have seen the tree as a tree, he would have realized that unfortunate as his circumstances might appear he can only place the blame for his discomfort on himself as an actor and make the proper adjustments to mitigate his unfortunate circumstances. The man in the story never discovered the truth but it was folly for him to require a punishment for the tree, because the tree had not violated any law belonging to trees.
That concluded my own thoughts on the matter.
What I lost when I blew off my wife and her answer was an understanding of the complete message of the story that only our answers together provided. My wife said the moral of the story was forgiveness, the man should have forgiven the tree.
It was only after reading the entry “Forgive” in the Guide to the Scriptures that I realized how perfectly astute she was in her observation. It reads as follows.
As used in the scriptures, to forgive generally means one of two things: (1) When God forgives men, He cancels or sets aside a required punishment for sin. Through the Atonement of Christ, forgiveness of sins is available to all who repent, except those guilty of murder or the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. (2) As people forgive each other, they treat one another with Christlike love and have no bad feelings toward those who have offended them.
With my moral of the story, I had pointed out the man’s folly when he imposed a punishment on the tree when the tree had not broken any laws that trees are bound to, thus showing that the man’s actions were unjust toward the tree. I thought there was no need for forgiveness of the man towards the tree because there was no need for repentance of the tree towards the man.
My wife however listened to the story and was more concerned that the man could not forgive as stated in the second definition. Forgiveness for the man towards the tree would have included the release of the bad feelings he had for the tree and a love for the tree regardless of the offense he assigned to the tree’s supposed behavior. Whether he continued to believe that the tree was a harmful actor or not, he could have let it live and treated it kindly at the prodding of the second definition towards a love for all.
So why the story of the tree? 1. Little children, like the tree, are not capable of sin. 2. Little Children deserve our best efforts to forgive