The fig tree, there, so full of potential:
you waited, thirsting for its fruit
and when it didn’t bloom,
you cursed.
Natural enough, scolding something when it doesn’t do what one wants.
I have a lot of those:
cursing the thing that doesn’t fit,
the thing that doesn’t meet my needs.
Like Moses cursed the rock and struck it until a spring burst forth.
There is a stubbornness there,
a persistence that is both holy and human,
an insistence on goodness.
Except that you forgot — in the humanity of cursing — your divinity,
and the fig tree withered.
Or perhaps the withering was intentional:
holy commentary on the lukewarm, the half-assed.
I should have more of those:
cursing in myself the partial effort,
the motivation that isn’t what it should be.
Jesus, remind me of the fig tree.
Matthew 21:18-19; also Mark 11:12-14.