{"id":1430,"date":"2015-05-15T03:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/the-true-and-only-vine\/"},"modified":"2015-05-15T03:00:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T07:00:07","slug":"the-true-and-only-vine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/the-true-and-only-vine\/","title":{"rendered":"The True and Only Vine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Sr. Nun Other<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>One of the Sisters suggested I write a blog\u00a0called &#8220;bloom after pruning,&#8221; and she even provided a great picture!\u00a0 She referred, of course, to the parable that portrays Jesus as the True Vine and God the Father as the Vine Dresser. Jesus says in John 15: 1-2, that He&#8217;ll remove every branch that bears no fruit, and prune the fruitful branches so that they bear more fruit. It&#8217;s a scripture I approach with caution, and not an experience I wait in line for. When one of my irregular branches is trimmed, usually through circumstance, I then have difficulty identifying who I am. I&#8217;m like a wibble-wobble toy without a fixed foundation &#8212; no idea how or where I&#8217;ll land.\u00a0 Advice to me: keep reading. In subsequent verses, Jesus counsels His branches to (paraphrased), &#8220;Abide in me, abide in my love, until your journey is complete. Follow my commandments, as I have kept my Father&#8217;s commandments, and if you do, your joy will be complete.&#8221; It&#8217;s a passage more about relationship than pain&#8211;an intertwining of love, obedience, and joy &#8212; each dependent on the other &#8212; until we become not servants, but friends. So I&#8217;d like to modify my friend&#8217;s suggestion ever so slightly to say it&#8217;s possible to bloom <i>during<\/i> pruning.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4916716\" src=\"http:\/\/of.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1396-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"The Community of Jesus\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/Qw-Ckek8PTw\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sr. Nun Other One of the Sisters suggested I write a blog\u00a0called &#8220;bloom after pruning,&#8221; and she even provided a great picture!\u00a0 She referred, of course, to the parable that portrays Jesus as the True Vine and God the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/the-true-and-only-vine\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}