People are like plants.
“We are being patiently and lovingly tended by the Gardener,” Kevin Diller, professor of philosophy and religion said. “Our capacity for growth is far more than physical, but also not less.”
Plants and humans have more in common than just needing food, oxygen and vitamin D to survive. They both also need a support system.
Just like the human body is made up of different parts that all work together, a forest needs all its parts to survive.
“The support system that plants have are all of the other plants around them,” Junior Von Herring, a communication major with a minor in sustainable development and the vice president of Stewards of Creation, said. “So, you know, you're not going to see a flower in the middle of a desert. You need the ecosystem surrounding it.”
Just as plants grow roots in the area and are affected by the soil surrounding them, humans grow roots in the community and are influenced by not only the people they are surrounded by but the activities they participate in, Herring said.
God created everything with a design and purpose, but there are limits to how far one can go.
When we go against the way God made something, we are likely to get hurt, Erik Hayes, professor of kinesiology, said.
“I think our definition of flourishing has to include gray January days where the leaves are off the trees,” Hayes said. “If we think flourishing is just defined by the October glorious day where the leaves are bright or a summer day where they're green and growing and they're fruitful, then we don't understand flourishing. He (God) sets limits. He set seasons.”
Psalm 1 says a tree will yield fruit in due season, which means there is not always fruit. The fruit comes in time.
Hayes concluded that true flourishing involves embracing all life stages, including periods of apparent inactivity.
“There's these spectacular fall days where the colors are brilliant, but recognize that brilliance is happening because the leaves are actually dying,” Hayes said.
Diller said the primary roots we aim to cultivate should be the growth and condition of our hearts.
We cannot survive on our own. God is the vine, we are His branches. We are created for purpose, but can only go where the vine directs. A tree branch withers when it is disconnected from the vine.
“We are plants that cannot grow without connection to Him,” Diller said. “So much stuff in the Scriptures on water, and sunlight, good soil, nourishment, and growth. He is tending us patiently and we grow slowly in Him.”
