My wife and I pruned some of the vines in our backyard. My wife was especially interested in the grape leave vines that have enveloped two of the trees in the backyard. We had not pruned these vines for awhile. The vigorous picking of the grape leaves to make stuffed grape leaves has extended the vines in unruly ways. It is interesting how pruning and picking gives new life to vines and trees. It is like thinning the lettuce plants as they spring up in the Growing Power Box in the sunroom, less often means more.

I constantly try to do less in my life, but there always seems to be much more to do. Someone wrote me recently about the ‘discipline of prayer’ that persons like Dorothy Day or Thomas Merton practiced. I remember reading a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. some years ago to the effect that the busier his life was the more he needed to take time for prayer.

Making time for prayer, reflection or meditation is like pruning. The more you do them the fuller and deeper life becomes. Pruning, like dong less, makes for a fuller being. Without it, pruning or prayer, life can be unruly. Pruning and prayer are healthy for living.

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