英语专业晨读美文-哲理篇 9 Growing Roots

[00:02.06]Growing Roots

[00:03.37]When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs.

[00:09.17] He didn't look like any doctor I'd ever known.

[00:12.12] He never yelled at us for playing in his yard.

[00:14.97] I remember him as someone

[00:16.61] who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted.

[00:19.57]When Dr. Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was planting trees.

[00:24.16]His house sat on ten acres,

[00:26.79]and his life's goal was to make it a forest.

[00:29.52]The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandry.

[00:33.56]He came from the "No pain, no gain" school of horticulture.

[00:38.27]He never watered his new trees,

[00:40.46]which flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

[00:42.97]Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them,

[00:48.22]and that if you water them,

[00:49.64]each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker.

[00:53.14]So you have to make things rough for them

[00:55.66]and weed out the weenie trees early on.

[00:57.91]He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots,

[01:02.07] and how trees that weren't watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture.

[01:07.10]I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

[01:10.27]I planted a couple of trees a few years back.

[01:13.22]Carried water to them for a solid summer.

[01:15.62] Sprayed them. Prayed over them.

[01:17.81]The whole nine yards.

[01:19.45]Two years of coddling has resulted in trees

[01:22.41]that expect to be waited on hand and foot.

[01:25.79] Whenever a cold wind blows in,

[01:28.09]they tremble and chatter 1 their branches. Sissy trees.

[01:32.25]Funny things about those trees of Dr. Gibbs'.

[01:35.31] Adversity and deprivation 2 seemed to benefit them

[01:38.81]in ways comfort and ease never could.

[01:41.65]Every night before I go to bed,

[01:43.63] I check on my two sons.

[01:45.37]I stand over them and watch their little bodies,

[01:48.21] the rising and falling of life within.

[01:50.73]I often pray for them.

[01:52.38]Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy.

[01:55.54]But lately I've been thinking that it's time to change my prayer.

[01:59.59]This change has to do with the inevitability 3 of cold winds

[02:03.64]that hit us at the core.

[02:05.50]I know my children are going to encounter hardship,

[02:08.67] and I'm praying they won't be naive 4.

[02:11.44]There's always a cold wind blowing somewhere.

[02:14.28]So I'm changing my prayer.

[02:16.91]Because life is tough, whether we want it to be or not.

[02:21.17]Too many times we pray for ease,

[02:23.25]but that's a prayer seldom met.

[02:25.97]What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal,

[02:30.57]so when the rains fall and the winds blow,

[02:34.06]we won't be swept asunder 5.