I Was Thinking... Being Naked

Now that I’ve got your attention, you will soon find this isn’t going to be about what you expected. The nakedness I observed recently were the trees all around town. My wife had gone into the grocery store, and I sat in the car so it could keep running and get warmer. Despite being below zero, the bright sunshine that reflected off the snow created a feeling of warmth. As I sat waiting, I noticed how the leafless trees stood out against the clear blue sky.
Kasson is known as a “Tree City” with many varieties of trees dotting the boulevards and lawns. In the summer, adorned with a complete coverage of leaves, they all look pretty much the same. If you looked at the city from the air or even from Google maps, you would just see an abundance of greenery. But in the winter, it is different.
There aren’t many of us that would ever want to be seen naked. In fact, it is one of the themes of scary dreams when we find ourselves someplace and not fully clothed. While we complain about winter, one of the advantages is that we can pile on clothes and hide many of our imperfections. In the heat of summer, we only take off as much as we are comfortable with others seeing. But what has that got to do with trees?
In the summer, trees are fully clothed with their leaves. But now, in the dead of winter all of the summer camouflage is gone. They are naked for all to see any flaws in their structure. After looking at a few trees while I waited in the parking lot, I decided to drive around and take some pictures of other trees in town.
The first thing evident were the differences. Some trees were tall and majestic with perfectly shaped limbs reaching to the sky. But when you looked at others, you could see some of the imperfections. Without leaves you could observe broken limbs, some without bark, and others misshapen and crooked. One tree had a tall slender trunk that erupted into a canopy of limbs stretching out perfectly, but the next one was short and squatty with no hope of reaching the height of those next to it. Another was obviously older with missing limbs on one side and was tilted awkwardly from years of fighting prevailing winds. The next was a less than perfect tree that had never been pruned and exhibited misshapen limbs going out in all directions. But still they were all trees no matter how beautiful or less than perfect.
The trees I observed weren’t all the same kind, the same shape, the same height, or in the same condition. Some were broken, scarred, or diseased. There were newly planted trees trying to survive their first winter while others were old and showed wear of many years. However, they were all trying to survive to do their part as part of the family of foliage that made Kasson a Tree City. Despite their differences, they all had their roots set down in Kasson. They were all part of the same community. In fact, their differences were part of their strength. If they had all been elms or ash, they wouldn’t have survived. Even with their differences in shape, size, deformities and age they all expected to be reborn in the spring with new life. They would continue to make individual contributions to the beauty and shade of their community.
We could learn a lot from these trees. In fact, we are a lot like them. Few of us are perfect. Most of us have flaws or have been broken in some way. But because we are different, we each have something unique to contribute to our society. We are different ages, nationalities, races, religions, languages and political views. We have distinct skills, abilities, and interests. Yet we all have something to offer our community as well. Besides, if we removed all the other things that make us different and were naked, we would all be pretty much the same anyway.
Did You Ever Wonder? — If you expect the worst and it happens, did it work out as planned?