RT @nick_routledge: @Plough Hesse called fruit trees "the most penetrating of preachers." They cannot lie, cannot command what they do not embody. Slow cathedrals of praise, orchards preach not with words but by becoming. Grow toward light, bear fruit, shelter others, they say. Wisdom is grown, not grasped.
@Plough 8/ Individual varieties we carry have recorded histories of cultivation dating back 3,000 years. Fruit culture, then, transcends empires, epistemologies, eras - and theologies, too. Perhaps trees, steadfast in their giving, silent as stones, are closer than us to immortality?
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THE SPIRITUAL USE OF AN ORCHARD OR GARDEN OF FRUIT TREES The world is a great library, and fruit trees are some of the books wherein we may read and see plainly the attributes of God, his power, wisdom, goodness &c. … for as trees (in a metaphorical sense) are books, so like-wise in the same sense they have a voice, and speak plainly to us, and teach us many good lessons. How much of the goodness and excellencies of God do fruit trees show forth when they ... flourish with leaves, blossoms and fruits; especially considered not only as they appear beautiful to the eye, but also with all their inward beauties and perfections, their virtues, and uses in the life of man? Fruit trees discover many things of God, and many things of ourselves, and concerning our duty to God. We enquire of, and discourse with fruit trees when we consider, and meditate of them, when we search out their virtues and perfections… when we pry into their natures, and properties, that is speaking to them.