Mat 13:8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

Our Hydroponic pepper plants here at South Dr. are looking good. No good soil, just monitored water fed just enough nutrients to replace that which the good soil would have provided. Some of the tomato plants in my little grow bags are also doing well so I guess my home made potting soil is good enough to give them a place in the sun.

But whether their roots are being fed by the good soil or the good water, they still need to bear fruit to justify the time and expense expended on their behalf and that comes down to the need for pollination.

One of the things I love about the Bible is it is a living book. Always capable of giving the continuing revelation that us Quakers claim to believe in. In working on my garden this year I realized my past failures had a lot to do with a lack of pollination. In the past I had a lot of green growth but little consistent fruit, a little like Jesus’ least favorite fig tree. This year I have imported laborers to facilitate the necessary pollination - bees. In this case "solitary" bees, not honey bees.

The Spirit is showing me that we are a lot like my pepper, tomato, cucumber and squash plants. We need pollination in order to bear fruit spiritually. We are a spiritual entity, a soul, made in the image of God housed in a physical body so we can survive in this physical universe (See Genesis 3:21). Unless our spiritual entity and our physical entity make contact we have the same problem a plant has when the products of its stamen and pistils don't connect - no fruit. Now the Sower knows our need for pollination and never leaves anything to chance. Just as owners of orchards rent colonies of honey bees to pollinate their fruit trees, so too the Sower provides various critters to make sure we are all pollinated. Just as some people consider bees and wasps and other flying insects pests, we also have a tendency to consider the people and events the Sower uses to pollinate us as pests: the needy, the poor, the lazy, the stubborn, the drama queens, global disasters, our own personal tragedies, and other events that disrupt our self-centered world. Left to our own desires we would over-indulge ourselves in gratifying our physical senses of sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing - listening to beautiful music, smelling the flowers, tasting our favorite meal - all the while ignorant of the spiritual purpose of our very existence which is to bear fruit for the Creator and to bear it abundantly. However, as Jesus said, we will always have the poor with us; there will be wars and earthquakes to the very end; not to punish us or anyone else but for a purpose, a spiritual one. This purpose is to help us become the spiritual beings we were created to be, manifesting the love of the Creator by living for each other instead of ourselves. A way of life we are incapable of without pollination. Self pollination is convenient but like many plants cross pollination produces stronger plants and abundant fruit. With this in mind let us no longer look at life's disruptions as trials and tribulations or for that matter pests, but lets recognize that we are being called to reach out beyond the limitations of this physical universe to a new heaven and a new earth where we can be a part of the tree of life, which bares twelve kinds of fruits, and yields her fruit every month with the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2)