SEEDS, PLANTS and SOULS

15 DRINKING

Water is a good place
to start discovering how natural plants work in detail.
It makes a fascinating subject in itself.
Water is the only liquid that occurs naturally
all over the earth,
and is absolutely essential for life.
The chemical processes
that drive the living cell
depend on water in which to occur.
Plants depend on this same water
to give them shape and rigidity.

Water must be continually on the move
to carry out its function.
Even before being used by the plant,
water is continually being recycled -
evaporating from the seas and rivers and the ground,
to form clouds which in due course produce rain,
 moistening the soil, feeding the rivers and seas,
and thus continuing the cycle.

Read Ecclesiastes
and you will see that this cycle
was well understood in the past,
the writer albeit somewhat wearied by it!

"All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again".
(Ecclesiastes 1:7)

Perhaps wearisome
if you are caught in the rain
or washed away by a flood (particularly The Flood!),
but water that is not on the move
becomes stagnant and polluted.
Only by moving as rain or streams
can water absorb the oxygen it needs to keep fresh.
Only by draining away from where it falls
can the ground keep a good structure
and not become waterlogged.
Only by evaporating back into the sky
can water rid itself of toxic substances.

In contrast to Ecclesiastes,
Isaiah records God
using the illustration of the water cycle
as an encouragement
for those who are spiritually thirsty
(especially the exiled Jews):

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower
and bread for the eater,
 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
 and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow"
(Isaiah 55:10-13).

Not only is a moving water cycle
essential outside the plant,
it is essential inside too.
Roots pick up water from the soil,
which then passes up the stem
through cells known as xylem.
Once in the leaves,
it picks up substances manufactured there
and takes them to parts of the plant than need them,
using cells known as phloem.

The motive power
that keeps the water moving in the plant
actually depends on the water itself,
and is quite complex.
In the roots,
it moves in by capillary action and adsorption.
Within the plant it is helped along by diffusion.
At the other end,
evaporation through the leaves
gives the chain of water a helpful pull.
The whole process is technically known as transpiration.

The seemingly static function of water
in giving individual cells their rigidity or turgor
depends in fact also on continual movement
of water and dissolved substances
through special semi-permeable membranes.

The external, atmospheric water cycle -
although it can exist without plants -
is greatly helped by their presence and their use of water.
 It is well known
that the great forests of the world
play an important part
in maintaining a constant and well distributed rainfall.

 Although the relationship
is not as simple as it is often made out to be,
the removal of trees and forests
can certainly lead to decreased rainfall or even deserts
 which would otherwise not have existed.

If we look at the spiritual plant again,
it is also true that the spiritual water
representing the Holy Spirit
must be continually on the move for it to be effective.
 Although the analogy of water is rather different,
I think that the passages in John's Gospel
where Jesus refers to the Spirit
confirm this.

When Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman,
he compared the physical water of the well
she came to draw from
to the spiritual water,
or the Holy Spirit that he could give:

"Everyone who drinks this water (of the well)
will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give him
will never thirst.
Indeed, the water I give him
will become in him a spring of water
welling up to everlasting life"
(John 4:13)

Further on,
Jesus uses the same analogy
when he is talking to the Jews
during the Feast of the Tabernacles:

On the last and greatest day of the feast,
Jesus stood and said in a loud voice:
"If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,
 streams of living water will flow from within him".
By this he meant the Spirit,
whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
 Up to that time the Spirit had not been given,
because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
(John 7:37-39)

From these passages
it is clear that while we take in the Holy Spirit,
we must also give out the Holy Spirit -
and the more we take in,
the more we must give out.
So the seed of our faith is born of the Holy Spirit,
is made to grow by the Holy Spirit,
and produces the fruits and gifts of the Spirit,
through which the Spirit is passed on.

There is a potted plant
on the balcony of our house in Barbados,
where I am writing these paragraphs.
As regular as clockwork, it wilts if it is not watered.
To me, that is an illustration
that spiritually we will wilt
if not kept topped up with the Holy Spirit.

Christians have different ideas
of how and when the Holy Spirit is poured into us.
 Baptism, confirmation, ordination -
these are Christian events
which acknowledge
the special working of the Holy Spirit.
Like faith and works,
natural growth may help understand the process.

 Germination requires water,
and the event can be spectacular, though not always so -
 some seeds sprout in a very inconspicuous way.
After germination,
growth is usually sure and steady,
 but again there can be spectacular spurts,
especially after a long dry season.

In the same way,
Christian growth may or may not be marked
with distinct and memorable milestones.
But whatever the pattern of growth,
water must be available to ensure fruitful growth,
both physical and spiritual.

To conclude on water,
here are two more quotations from the Old Testament
that make use of water's influence on plants
 to illustrate the effect of going to God for drink.

The first from Isaiah is more physical than spiritual -
a promise from God to exiled Israel
that they will return to the promised land:

"The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the Lord will answer them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the deserts into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia,
the myrtle and the olive.
I will set pines in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
(Isaiah 41:17-20)

The second is from Jeremiah,
and echoes one of the Psalms
that we have quoted before.
Jeremiah records God
comparing desert scrub with tree lined oases
to illustrate the futility of people
doing things without God.

"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no-one lives.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends forth its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit".
(Jeremiah 17:5-8)

This is just one of many comparisons
between moist forest and dry scrub
that are used in the Bible
to remind us of the fall of man,
and life within and without the Garden of Eden.

Of course, it does not mean
that dry land and the scrubby bushes it supports
do not have value in our natural world.
The point is, and always will be,
that without God's Holy Spirit
we eventually dry up and wither away.

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