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• "An act I thought would make the clump of bamboos more beautiful turned out to be a nearly disastrous.  Cutting around 19 culms (stems) this previous summer made the clump aesthetically lighter and cleaner. However when the rains came about a month later this aesthetically lighter clump was defenseless when the rains and the winds came.  They are substantially weaker as each culm INDIVIDUALLY contends with the winds, instead of leaning on each other as they crowd and twist together.  Destruction will progress on a merely rainy day, just imagine the winds on the day of a Typhoon.

• Bamboo stems (culms) prop each other up.  They lean on each other and sway as a single unit with the wind.  Interlocking stems and sometimes thorny twigs may not be pleasant to the eyes but they perform a life-saving function for the whole clump of bamboo during stormy weather.

• When we removed most of the old, dying, seemingly ugly and useless stems we effectively reduced the interlocking structures that gives the clump the collective strength to survive even the strongest typhoons.

• We are designed to live as a community that props each other up, a group that magnifies and complements individual gifts, strengths, faults and weaknesses.  Like our old clump of bamboos the community can be messy.  It may not look great and feel great at times.  Some members of the community may seem to be rubbing against us at unpleasant parts and may be blocking our assumed growth path but in the long run and taken as a whole it is a thing of functional beauty."

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