Fertile ground?

I get a train from my town into the City every day. I’ve been saddened lately as I stand on the platform and see a barren landscape where there were once trees and flowers. “They” have chopped down all the growing things on the railway embankment, leaving bare earth with ragged stumps, clinging roots and a few tenacious weeds, fenced off by bright blue plastic netting.

I can’t find out why this has been done. A few weeks ago I would stand on the platform as dawn was breaking, sniffing the frosty air and listening to birds singing. Now there are no birds and the air smells metallic. This makes me reflect not just on the human tendency to interfere with nature, but to wonder whether we are afraid of growth and beauty.

Good soil is a fine thing. It has microscopic particles of all kinds of minerals and organic waste. It is home to earthworms and other creatures (did you know there are over 5,500 species of earthworm worldwide?). But is it complete? Well yes and no. Soil is a complete microsystem but it needs fresh organic matter if it is not to become sterile. And in another way it is not complete, because it has and is potential. I would argue that unless soil supports plant life, it has not fulfilled its potential. And it reaches an even richer potential when that plant life nurtures and supports its own habitat of creatures.

And so it is with us. As human animals we are a miracle of nature and in that sense perhaps complete. But have we reached our full potential if we live lives devoid of creative expression, of emotional connection, physical joy, intellectual growth, spiritual openness?

It’s a huge challenge to reach the fullest and richest expression of our potential, of our unique, God-given gifts. All we can do is keep picking ourselves back up every time we fall on our faces. But we can also remember that just to be on the journey is no small thing.

Addendum: I finally found a member of station staff who was able to tell me what’s going on. Apparently they are building an extension to the line and therefore an additional platform. That’s actually a good reason to do it because more people travelling by train than car is environmentally sound. So I don’t feel as bad about the tree sacrifice!