Early spring in Sweden I spent some time helping a relative to plant 150 trees. It was a refreshing experience doing something new for the first time. As you get older it is not absolutely vital to focus on novel experiences. However it’s also not healthy to have an attitude that the world has nothing new to offer. It is inspiring to see those in the latter stages of life still showing infectious curiosity and energy for things. Like a child. 

My brief work was a small part of an ongoing project to replant 3,000 spruce trees. Saplings planted 2 or 3 metres apart with their lower trunk covered in a white wax to keep insects at bay. The plan was to replace the same number of trees that were recently cut down. It is a big task. Especially so when I think my relative turns 80 this summer.

To do something that has long-term implications is satisfying and meaningful. It felt so with my tree planting experience. It is unlikely I will be around when these trees mature in all their glory. What potential there is in these tiny, fragile trees weighing maybe 100-200 grams. It is humbling how many tons of wood that they could transform into in the decades to come. Strangely it does not feel necessary to be involved in the whole process.

This principle of life and growth from small things apply to many areas. Teachers sowing seeds in young minds. Developing their potential and giving them hope for the future. Gifts of time, skills and money bearing fruit in women and men escaping from poverty. Medical and care workers imparting quality and dignity to the lives of their patients. Writers planting ideas that open up opportunities and give hope.

As in the physical world so also in the spiritual. Jesus relates a story of a man sowing seed. He likens it to what happens when the DNA of God’s living word is planted in the varied soils of men’s hearts. He encourages us to have ‘ears to hear’. Sowing can be through our words. Perhaps more powerfully by the things we do, the way we live and by our prayers.

In my 20s and 30s I worked with an international organisation that believed very much in distributing good literature, especially parts of the Bible. Our conviction lay in the confidence that ’planting’ Scripture is like a seed. There is potential for lives to be changed for the better. This was all in pre-internet days. The medium of communication was labour intensive! Sharing in meetings and conferences. Physically handing out many thousands of books and leaflets in the streets of the great cities of our world. Not always appreciated. I recall in India street vendors wrapping their roasted peanuts in torn pages of gospels of John. Hopefully it provided food for the soul as well as the body.

This largely face to face sharing took effort. It demanded time, travel and other resources. Today we often communicate in easier ways. Nowadays a message can be shared with many at the click of the ’send’ button. We can reach people in far flung parts of the world without leaving our home. Yet this very ease of transmission makes for a deluge of messages. There is the danger of the self becoming saturated. A surfeit of information that can weary the soul.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11 verse 28

Amidst all the noise of a frenetic world there is life still to be found. As Lilias Trotter so beautifully put it a century ago…

A bee comforted me very much this morning …. There seems so much to be done that nothing gets done thoroughly… we seem only to touch souls and leave them. And that is what the bee was doing. He was hovering among some blackberry sprays just touching the flowers here and there in a very tentative way. Yet all unconsciously life was left behind at every touch as the miracle-working pollen grains were transferred to the place where they could set the unseen spring working. We have only to see to it that we are surcharged like the bees with potential life. It is God and His eternity that will do the work. Yet He needs His wandering desultory bees!

Lilias Trotter, missionary and artist.

Over the years it has been a joy to look back and see growth in endeavours I have been a part of. Like the tree planting it is enough to know you are invited to join in the process of life and growth. Others with different skills have also been involved. Some sow, some water, and others reap. To be a participant in the unfolding of God’s plan for the ages is a great blessing. To stay engaged means remaining open to new things. Like a child.

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