Your Personal Tree of Life

Behold the Cashew! A most unique fruit; both the seed and the fruit are highly edible and enjoyable, but the seed (nut) is difficult to obtain and the apple has a very short useful life.

There are two parts of the cashew fruit: the apple and the seed. The cashew fruit is unique because the seed of the fruit is outside of the fruit. The fruit has no seed inside it. Wikipedia tells us the following:

Cashew Seed (nut)

The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing … a potent skin irritant chemically related to … poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs.

Cashew Apple

The cashew apple can be eaten fresh, cooked in curries, or fermented into vinegar, as well as an alcoholic drink. It is also used to make preserves, chutneys, and jams in some countries such as India and Brazil.

I tell you about the cashew fruit because, as in many others of God’s creations, there seems to me to be an eternal lesson to be learned from the strange cashew fruit. In my mind, the nut represents the seed Alma discusses in Chapter 32 and the apple represents the things of the earth that can be perverted by Satan – and have no eternal value because the fruit is very fragile, must be eaten or processed immediately, and cannot be shipped elsewhere because it perishes in transit. The only permanence in the cashew fruit is the seed. It can germinate and create new life, thus propagating the cashew indefinitely. The apple provides temporary pleasure to those who consume it, but quickly fades into uselessness.

The nut (seed) is hard to get to and the toxic shell must be removed before the seed can be roasted and eaten. It is my assumption that the cashew seed is heavily protected to ward off the animals and birds who would like to eat it. Only man has figured out how to get the goodness of the seed out of that shell.  If planted, the shell would remain on the seed until the seed germinated and burst the shell, and the apple would provide fertilizer and food for the young sapling.

Likewise, we must expend considerable effort to help the fruit of the seed that Alma suggests we plant in our hearts to grow and expand into a real testimony of the gospel. Alma’s description of the growth of the seed into our personal tree of life is at the heart of this discussion on faith. Alma says: in Alma 32:27-28:

27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

This is not as easy as it sounds. There are myriad mortal concerns that press in on us and prevent us from cracking the hard outer husk of the seed of faith so that we can plant it in our hearts. Finding the particle of faith is difficult in part because Satan would hide it from us, even seeming to make it toxic to our ability to use the seed for our eternal progress. If you can do no more than desire to believe; if you can push Satan aside just enough to crack the hard outer shell he would place around the seed, then you can give place to the seed and let it begin to germinate.

But even then, the seed is fragile. The adversary will redouble his efforts and encourage you to neglect the seed. “You don’t need to water it with prayer, study, and pondering. Let it die. Enjoy the pleasures of the earth. You don’t need the gospel to be happy,” repeating all of the same sophistries he has spouted since Cain and Abel. The adversary has been singing the same song since he and his followers were cast out – perhaps even in the pre-existence.

So in spite of Satan’s whisperings, you tend to the seed. It grows and pushes its fragile head above ground. It begins to swell in your breast and you recognize its goodness and want to increase your understanding of why your soul feels joy and enlargement. So you ignore Satan (always the best policy) and study, ponder, and pray to fertilize the seed. In verses 30 and 31, Alma elaborates:

30 But behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow. And now, behold, will not this strengthen your faith? Yea, it will strengthen your faith: for ye will say I know that this is a good seed; for behold it sprouteth and beginneth to grow.

The seed continues to grow and gain strength, and is now easily recognizable as a good seed. In verse 34 and 35, Alma continues to expand the concept of a personal tree of life:

…ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand.

35 O then, is not this real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light; and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernible, therefore ye must know that it is good…

The sprout has become a sapling, gaining in strength and beauty, even glowing in your heart with a wonderful light of its own. Alma continues the metaphor and cautions us about neglect of the tree verses 38-39:

38 But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.

39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.

Alma describes the rewards of your patient nurturing of the tree in verses 41-42 – it can become your personal tree of life held in your heart from which you can pluck the fruit that will never perish:

41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.

42 And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.

Lehi describes the same tree – the tree that can grow in our own hearts, and its fruit – in 1 Nephi 8:10-12:

10 And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.

11 And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen.

In Isaiah 61:1-3 Isaiah speaks for the Lord:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; …to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness…

Let us all seek the wonderful blessings Alma and Isaiah described that come from becoming “trees of righteousness” through the creation of our personal tree of life.