March isn’t just for the Irish; anyone can appreciate
the earth’s “wearin’ o’ the green.” Putting on the mantle is an obvious part of
spring—leaves and grasses turning into various shades of emerald, jade, lime,
and olive. Most of us give only a cursory consideration to the plant life that
graces the earth. We might appreciate the carpeted beauty of grass, the shade a
tree provides, or the blossoms they produce, and then we leave it at that. Even
diehard gardeners may not stop to reflect upon the deepest treasure replete in
the plants they cultivate. Yet if we remember a basic biology lesson regarding
the wonderful life-giving purpose of plants and trees, we see them in a renewed
light.
They take a little
sunshine, a few carbon dioxide molecules out of the air, some hydrogen atoms
out of water, and then shuffle them around inside green chloroplasts in the
plant cells, and voila! We get their products of
glucose and oxygen, two necessary components to our existence.
In God’s
marvelous ecological economy, green plants, and trees were created as our
necessary counterpart—they breathe in the carbon dioxide we make and exhale the
oxygen we need. Martin Luther said, “In the true nature of things . . . every
green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”
If I see some
people hugging trees or watering even weeds, I know they appreciate how
precious our green earth is.
The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars
of Lebanon that he planted
No comments:
Post a Comment