SEEDS, PLANTS and SOULS

7 BREAKING DOWN AND BUILDING UP

To a great extent, the soil and the plant that grows in it
are dependent on one another for their existence.
Most plants cannot exist in nature
without a soil to support and nourish them;
and a soil that is deep, friable and fertile
depends on plants for its formation
and continued existence.

There are many ways in which plants
help to create and maintain a fertile soil.
As mentioned earlier,
roots help considerably in breaking down
the harder parts of the soil.
At the same time they help bind the soil together,
 preventing erosion
by wind, water and the force of gravity.

The leaves of the plant provide valuable protection
 against a scorching sun
which can bake and harden the soil.
They protect from the power of gales
which can remove the fertile top layers
and convert them into dust storms.
And they protect from the impact
and flow of torrential downpours
which turn soils into quagmires
or scour them away.

When a plant has finally reached the end of its life,
died and decayed,
it still contributes to keeping the soil fertile
by providing the essential humus
which nourishes further plants
and helps control the water flow over and in the soil.

A good example of the interdependence
of soils and plants
is that of tropical rainforests growing on deep red soils
. The whole system is luxuriant and vigorous,
with soils and plants in harmony.
However,
if the forest cover is removed,
as is done in so many parts of the tropics
to make way for farmland -
what happens?

The cover gone,
the sun bakes the ground,
rains wash away the soil,
on hills landslides bare underlying rocks,
and all the humus rapidly vanishes,
not to be replaced.
The end result is that the poor farmer
only gets a few years of crops from his land
before fertility is lost and his crops fail to bear fruit.
Then the only solution is to let nature take its course,
and slowly reestablish the balance
and fertility that was once there.

Surely here is a spiritual parallel?
We must all be born with fertile spiritual soils,
receptive to the word of God.
The sooner this is sown and faith develops,
the better is our spiritual self
able to resist the damaging effects of the outside world -
 those excesses of sun, wind, rain and gravity.
If we are not protected in this way,
then the pressures of life,
opinions of other people,
hardships, habits,
all conspire to erode and harden the soul,
letting weeds in
and making it more and more difficult
to grow the belief of God in it.
But, thank God,
once it is growing,
the balance will surely be restored!

Another aspect of plant growth worth noting here
also concerns the interrelation of plants and soils.
Plants are formed from the raw materials
of soil, water and air -
and when they die they eventually decay
to form these same materials.
So one can summarise the process
as was done in Genesis:

".from the ground you were made,
and unto the ground you shall return".
(Genesis 3:13)

And so for our souls,
unless we let Christ grow in them
and form part of him,
 and he us.
This is surely how we achieve eternal life,
by allowing ourselves
to be transformed into Christ-like beings
as our belief in him grows
and develops in our spiritual soils.
 
Of course, there is a difference
between the spiritual and the natural here,
in that the spiritual plant is eternal
and does not die when we die.

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