I saw the excavator in an unexpected place, evidently done doing shocking things.
That evening several weeks ago, I was on my way to church to deliver my wife’s contributions to the next day’s noon meal. Due to my illness, I had not been out that way in a while. I stared in disbelief at the scenery in that orchard.
Several years earlier, someone had done extensive work propelled by a vision. The vision entailed making a profit worth waiting for, a profit selling filberts (aka, hazelnuts). The previous time I had been past the young orchard, I had marveled at the height of the well-established trees and admired the pretty green of their fresh leaves. When would they begin to bear fruit?
Now all the trees lay in piles. Uprooted by the excavator. Devalued and destroyed by new owners. New owners who had insufficient interest in the values and visions of the previous owner. There was no going back, even if the new owners suddenly realized the magnitude of their loss. The flames that later consumed the promising trees symbolized the vision bridge burned by the new owners without much more than a fleeting glance in their rear-view mirror.
Look, I am a realist. Things of this nature happen all the time. It is a natural result of new owners pursuing their own vision, untethered to and unobligated by any visions of the previous owners. (And at times even driven by scores to settle with the prior owners.) A massive distribution center replaces the farm. An apartment complex stands where now-razed single-family dwellings sat. Decorative stones lay where lush grass once thrived. An old hen hut serves as brief fodder for a hot dog fire.
It happens in other ways as well. The publisher’s board of directors changes over the years until the company has a website despite the earlier board’s assertion that such a thing would never happen. The right-leaning news outfit passes on to the next generation, a generation bent away from the right. The local congregation becomes ingrown as outreach-oriented congregants die or otherwise move on.
Yes, changes in vision happen all the time in businesses, in churches, in neighborhoods, in schools, in mission organizations, in militaries, in governments. Sometimes they are for good. Other times they reveal poor judgment, short vision, and shallow values.
I looked at the disturbed soil and mounded dead trees of the ex-orchard. I saw parallels. And I mourned the potential eternal consequences of a devalued vision, vandalized.
“When would they bear fruit?” I asked above. Never. Uprooted, discarded, burned hazelnut trees don’t do any such thing. Vulturized visions are that way too.
Especially when they are replaced by nothing profitable. Or worse.
Oh, the new owners could realize their grievous goof and plant a new hazelnut grove. But they can never recover the years of progress the previous trees had already made. That hard-won gain is gone. Forever.
Deal with it, Mark. (No, I did not previously own the discarded filbert lot.)