grassroots什么意思 英语美文赏析 Growing roots 成长的树根

英语美文赏析 Growing roots 成长的树根  

When I was growing up
I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted.

When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives
he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres
and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandry. He came from the “No pain
no gain” school of horticulture. He never watered his new trees
which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them
and that if you water them
each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out the weenie trees early on.
He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots
and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of Moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.
So he never watered his trees. He’d plant an oak and
instead of watering it every morning
he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that
and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.
Dr. Gibbs went to glory a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again
I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some enty-five years ago. They’re granite strong now. Big and robust. Those trees wake up in the morning and beat their chests and drink their coffee black.
I planted a couple of trees a few years back. Carried water to them for a solid summer. Sprayed them. Prayed over them. The whole nine yards. Two years of coddling has resulted in trees that expect to be waited on hand and foot. Whenever a cold wind blows in
they tremble and chatter their branches. Sissy trees.
Funny things about those trees of Dr. Gibbs’. Adversity and deprivation seemed to benefit them in ways fort and ease never could.
Every night before I go to bed
I check on my o sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies
the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change my prayer.
This change has to do with the inevitability of cold winds that hit us at the core. I know my children are going to encounter hardship
and I’m praying they won’t be naive. There’s always a cold wind blowing somewhere.
So I’m changing my prayer. Because life is tough
whether we want it to be or not. Too many times we pray for ease
but that’s a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal
so when the rains fall and the winds blow
we won’t be swept asunder.