Life In the Vine: December 29, 2009

Okay, my fellow botanists: its time to get our hands dirty.

I don't know all that much about botany, actually. Funny, because I grew up on a plant nursery. My step-father was a landscaper/nurseryman, and from age 7 to age 17, we lived in front of my step-dad's business, with a 13 acre nursery as our back yard. Some summers I would weed with the migrant workers, trying to learn enough Spanish to understand their making fun of me. For a few days, I even went with them to cut people's lawns. I was awful at all of it. I deeply appreciated the plants -- loved them, actually. But it was clear that plants, shrubs, trees, lawns, or much of anything to do with landscaping was going to be in my long-term future. To this day, I can barely keep anything in my own yard alive.

But the referent of the metaphor here is (luckily) quite simple to grasp. Every plant is anchored deeply into the ground by a set of roots that soak in all the water and nutrients, spreading these out to all parts of the plant. The tree that grows and flourishes is the one that has unlimited access to water and nutrients and a great pipeline system that makes sure every part of the tree benefits. Healthy plants just keep growing and growing and growing. So, when you see healthy branches, full of bright, strong leaves, what you're really seeing is an excellent root system. But that root system is only as good as the leaf's ability to get all that good stuff.

As for the spiritual signifier, well, that may take us all year to fully grasp.

God uses the metaphor a lot. And he makes no bones about what it all means:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Psalms 1:1-3 (NIV)

I get it. When connected to the right Source, all is well. When not, well, then things die.

Getting there is another matter. I want to graft myself on, rather than grow out naturally. The Psalm says that it's a matter of behavior and meditation. I read that as "work yourself into the fruitful tree" but I don't think that's right.

Could I just be planted by streams of water and, not knowing it, keeping my roots from digging deeply in? Am I just barely hanging on the vine? And why, when the result is so obvious? What's the temptation to do it myself, without the help of the Source?

What's my problem, anyway?