Pruning

This picture is from our front yard in Myrtle Beach. It is a Crepe Myrtle. At the moment, it looks wonderful. That is, compared to what it looked like just 2 months ago!

When we retired into our home, this tree had been growing in our front yard for 10 years. In that time, apparently no one knew what to do with a Myrtle Tree. Therefore, it was covered in some kind of tree rot, did not look good at all and appeared to be dying. 

So we did some reading and called a local guy to come out and murder our tree. Yes, you read that right- it's called Crepe Murder!

I figured he would clean the junk off the bark and cut it back a bit. After a minute of bark cleaning, he started his chain saw and cut it down to almost nothing! I was horrified! Imagine this image with no leaves at all- just 3 sticks about 4 feet high and you've got the picture. We had 3 sticks in our front yard as our central tree! Aauugghh!

After a winter of "stick in our yard," all of a sudden it started to grow branches. I'm told this is normal for such a tree. Every few years we will do the same thing and it will grow again into a much larger, healthier tree.

Pruning. It's a common gardening practice. However, it's not so common in The Salvation Army. I think it should be.

We are currently in a tough place. COVID and (frankly) dealing poorly with our officers has left us in a state much like my old tree. Rotting and appearing to be near death in some places. We are stretching ourselves way too thin with way too few resources. Some of our locations are dead already and leadership refuses to see it.

I'm not going to go into a lot of explanation here, because I think you are smart enough to figure it out. We should get about pruning those dead locations and put the resources into ones that are still living and have actual potential for growth.

Yes, it would look bad for a time, but when the "Spring" comes, all of a sudden we would begin to see new growth that is much healthier. And that growth will supersede what we have now. But I don't think it's going to happen if we continue on our present course.

Corps Murder. There- I said it.