Bucking the trends and the winds
There was an experiment conducted years ago, called the biosphere. It was a giant bubble, extended over a certain amount of ground, providing light, air, nutrients, but no wind, no breeze, even. It was an experiment in growing, to see how plant life would grow. I don’t pretend to know its true purpose completely, but it did have that effect.
This was done over a decade or more of time, enough to see what would grow, how it would grow, etc. The trees planted were some short, some tall. The tall trees grew tall, but fell over, having no strength to stand at all! The weight of the trunk and the canopy brought them over to the ground, eventually.
What was decided afterwards, at least part of it, was that the trees needed a breeze, and occasionally a wind blowing at it, while young. The reaction to an adversarial force like a wind, built up strength in the tree, helped it stand tall.
When aviation was young, airports were designed, as much as possible to allow airplanes to head into the wind, wherever it was blowing. Planes still need that but are designed now to take off with wind blowing wherever it wanted. With a wind at a higher speed, a bit more attention is paid to direction, but not so much.
People are like that too. We don’t need wind, but we develop strength of character by facing and dealing with events and trends that oppose us. The stronger the opposing force, the stronger we grow to face and deal with it. This is a critical lesson in our lives, as we need to have a deciding direction for our lives to have some meaning, some reason for living. Some call this tilting at windmills, something we lean in against that we cannot possibly overcome, no matter what.
The tendency of mankind to always choose an easier path is historic. Anything that opposes that bent, that direction is apt to be ridiculed, bullied, defied to the bitter end of life. But the fact of this opposition is not so bad, when the one opposing is doing so having weighed the ultimate outcome of both directions. He or she has looked at the state of people who live to satisfy themselves mainly and found that what they were doing was NOT satisfying, after all. Doing to satisfy brought about a tyranny of need to keep satisfying, there was not much fulfillment inside on a lasting basis, just on its own. Something else, something new had to be done, near constantly, to remain satisfied inside the soul and heart. So, constant restlessness becomes the order of life for the majority, being unwilling to try anything else.
There is an allure to the tendency, the rewards are quite delicious, though also quite destructive in some ways. Those who “go with the flow” have a lot going for them, in the short term, it seems. And those who turn around and look at what’s happening in their lives, and decide to turn away, are also pulled back into the mainstream, sometimes. But it doesn’t negate the value of having turned to something more, something deeply peaceful on a lasting basis, without having to do, have and be.
Going back to developing character, it doesn’t take any to stand in a crowd and fight who or whatever is defying the flow. But it does take it to stand alone and say something is wrong, because it is destructive, ultimately. England’s legendary prime minister, Winston Churchill used to say that if you have no enemies, its because you’ve taken no stand. He stood with his country against a growing menace on the mainland in the person of Adolf Hitler. What Hitler was doing to some people was laughed at, it was so horrendous, nobody believed it, at first. But stand he did, for human decency and freedom.
Like a tree in a strong wind, something it has stood against all its life and developed its strength to continue standing, people need to stand for what they know is right. In the case of believers who have believed in God and accepted Him, according to His terms, it is time to stand up to ridicule and harm. NO ONE in this group stands on their own strength, there’s not enough of it to survive. They have to draw on the strength, NOT of an idea, but of God himself. Ideas are great motivators, but do not have strength beyond that of those who cleave to them.
Divine strength is something quite different. It comes from trusting God. When the children of God arrived at the Gulf of Suez, there was the Egyptian army on one side, mountains on another, and the water. Where to turn, how to go? Winds blew all night long, and the water eventually separated, allowing those children to go through the water on dry ground! No mud, dry ground. When the armies of Egypt tried to follow them, the entire army was in the gap, and the water drowned them! Those bodies, chariots and horses have been recently found, where the water used to be, which it has receded from over time.
Standing against the winds and trends of life is essential to building strength of character and a reason to keep standing. But nobody has to do it on their own.
