Roots Remember What Branches Forget
A story for the days you’re not sure you believe.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been deeply moved by the notes many of you have sent - sharing where you’re finding yourselves these days with love, hope, fear, and faith. I’m humbled by your honesty and honoured by your vulnerability. Thank you.
Recap: This is the third and final post in this little series — my wrestling match with faith, doubt, and the stubborn ache for greater wholeness. Somewhere in that messy, wild borderland — the ecotone where belief and uncertainty meet — I offer a short parable. Maybe — just maybe — it points us toward something worth holding onto.
The Root Remembers
There once was a vine that grew along a stone wall at the entry to a village. It wasn’t much to look at, thin and weathered, ravaged by too many dry prairie winters. Its leaves battered by too many hot, dry west winds.
It had once stretched high and wild, offering shade and sweetness to birds, bugs, and anyone who passed by. But those days had long since withered.
Now, it clung low to the wall, barely alive. Passersby no longer noticed it. Children no longer played beneath its branches. The villagers all said it was dead. Most had forgotten it ever bore fruit.
One unremarkable spring morning, a traveler came to the village. She was no one important. Worn boots. Dusty coat. Kind eyes.
She stopped at the vine and knelt beside it. Ran her fingers gently along its bark. Closed her eyes and whispered something that no one heard.
Then she stood, took a well-worn flask from her pack, and poured a slow stream of water at the base of the vine.
“A waste of time. It’s dead.” A watching villager scoffed.
“You’re probably right,” she replied, while she poured.
“Wasted effort,” he said, this time a little louder with a hint of snark.
She looked up and with a kind of sad knowing she replied: “I’ve seen roots remember what branches forget.”
He laughed, but nervously. “You really believe it could live again?”
She stood, brushing off her knees. “I want to.”
“But you don’t know?”
“I’ve lost a lot,” she said softly. “More than most know. There are days I think the vine in me is dead too. But sometimes, faith is what you choose to water even when you doubt the root is still alive.”
The man shuffled his feet awkwardly.
She offered him the flask.
He hesitated. Then, almost ashamed, he took it and poured too.
The vine didn’t bloom that day. Or the next. Or the next hundred.
But come summer’s end, a child walking by noticed a single green shoot curling quietly toward the sun.
Invitation
Who are you in this story?
The vine - brittle, bent low, nearly forgotten?
The villager - jaded, arms crossed, afraid to risk hoping again?
Or maybe, just maybe, you’re the weary traveler - kneeling with more questions than certainty, but still carrying a banged-up flask of love?
So:
If you could - for just a breath - lay down the doubt, self-protective disbelief, the ache of your circumstance… Where might you risk loving once more?
Water it.
“That part of me is dead.”
Water it anyways.
Maybe the gift is found in the absurd, holy persistence of Love and how it keeps showing up, in ten million ways and places. It keeps reaching. Keeps hoping. Keeps trying. And maybe that’s enough for today.
So where shall we water today?
Sola Caritas,
𝞃Michael
PS: I’d love to hear your reflections with this little parable and exercise. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Beautiful and meaningful! I love parables.