JPG Story
The old man and the Peach Tree©
The old man and the Peach Tree.
There was an old man that had a peach tree in
his yard. For most of his life the tree produced an abundant crop of
sweet juicy peaches. Every day the old man would go out to his tree
and pick a single ripe peach for his breakfast. For many a year this
would be his routine.
Then one day some of his neighbors asked if
they could try his peaches since he had the only tree in the
neighborhood. Not
wanting to be un-neighborly he said sure, you are welcome to have as
many as you like for I have plenty. It wasn’t long before the peach
tree stood bare as the greedy people took him at his word and took
them all except one.
Now the remaining peach was perched at the very
top of the tree and the old man being frail could not get to it.
Each day he would look at the peach and finally decided to cut the
tree down to get the peach. He figured what was the difference; my
neighbors won’t leave me any next year either. So he went in the
garage, retrieved his chain saw and cut the tree down.
His neighbors were alarmed and dismayed that
the tree was no longer there and regretted their greed since the old
man was so generous to them. The old man regretted cutting down the
tree also since he now had to buy the peaches on his meager pension
and they were expensive and not as tasty as the ones he used to get
from his tree.
I guess the moral of this story is generosity
must be received with temperance and gratefulness. Just like
America, we were more fruitful than we are today. As the years pass
our “Peach Tree” is withering and soon will no longer be. What will
it take for people to change their ways, accept their
responsibilities to each other and our nation and stop trying to
take, take, and take?
As I look at the daily events how can we not
see that we are headed down a road that will not have a happy
ending, unless we cherish each day. Open our eyes and change our
future. Borrowing more
money each year means we are selling our souls for a peach today
whilst we should be planting more peach trees for the future.