At my parents' house this Sunday, a somewhat abnormal topic came up in conversation. Some kind of rodent keeps eating my mother's flowers down to the stub as soon as they attempt to sprout fresh growth, and my father was asking how to trap the rodents so they can relocate them to a different food supply. You see, they wish to enjoy the fruit of the plants they installed and the water for which they pay that nourishes them.
Although most of us think very little about plant roots, they are largely responsible for the parts of plants we enjoy. Roots bring in most of the nutrients and water the plant will use, and they provide stability, particularly when the desert's harsh winds rip through and upend mobile homes. If you are an orange juice drinker, you don't care too much about the roots as long as the tree makes quality oranges. If the trees are for shade, you don't care about the roots, just about the amount of shade the tree gives your house in the summer sun. If you are growing it for wood, you only care that the roots nourish a good tree. You see, very few of us use the roots for anything. Plants however work differently.
There are actually genes in a plant that specifically enhance root growth. When animals graze a plant, they help the roots grow strong. You see, if the roots survive, they can grow a new shoot or replace leaves or replace fruit, but if the root dies, the plant will likely die. When you pull a weed but do not remove the root, this is why they get more difficult to remove, because the roots grow stronger. Let's not forget that plants don't make fruit unless the roots can support it. Before any other part of the plant grows, and sometimes when the world is blanketed in snow, the roots begin to grow. Root growth determines the ultimate amount of shoot the plant is able to sustain, and roots that are strong can resprout old trees, which you see with grape vines and cottonwood trees very often in Nevada.
This past Sunday, a leader of my Faith talked about love. He asked members of the congregation to tell him what love means. Mostly, like people usually do, they gave canned answers. He then pointed out that those are the fruits of love. Love isn't something we do. It's a state of being; it's who we are. The acts of love that evince of its presence grow naturally out of a strongly rooted love, and they are just its fruits.
In part at least, the strength of the root determines the quality of the fruit. If we are firmly rooted in good principles, the behavior that people observe and of which they wish to take part will also be good. If we are rooted in the philosophies of men, in fads, or in lies, then all sorts of fruit, and of inconsistent quality, will cumber the branches of our character. Not all of us are placed in the best of soil with access to the choicest of nutrients, and not all of us have the benefits of great climate or care. However, some of the most impressive trees I have seen are the bristlecone pines that line the escarpment of the Sierra Nevada. They are some of the world's oldest trees, and they stand amongst the rocks and against the elements for millenia. The fruit of their roots is that they are firmly planted in the rock for men to see for all time.
Whatever you wish to be, remember that the fruit depends upon the root. Nourish and care for the roots, encourage them to grow, and you will see a stronger shoot. No matter how many times the rodentia of the world gnaw at you, if your roots are strong you will be able like my mother's flowers to resprout and try again. As your roots grow better, so will the fruit they bear.
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