英语美文：成长的树根

　　以下是小编整理的哲理类英语美文欣赏：成长的树根， 希望对你有所启发。

　　When I was growing up, I had an old neighbornamed Dr. Gibbs. He didn't look like any doctor I'dever known. He never yelled at us for playing in hisyard. I remember him as someone who was a lotnicer than circumstances warranted.

　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was plantingtrees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life's goalwas to make it a forest.

　　The good doctor had some interesting theoriesconcerning plant husbandry. He came from the “No pain, no gain” school of horticulture. Henever watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why.He said that watering plants spoiled them, and that if you water them, each successive treegeneration will grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weedout the weenie trees early on.

　　He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren'twatered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep rootswere to be treasured.

　　So he never watered his trees. He'd plant an oak and, instead of watering it every morning,he'd beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and hesaid it was to get the tree's attention.

　　Dr. Gibbs went to glory a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked byhis house and looked at the trees that I'd watched him plant some twenty-five years ago.They're granite strong now. Big and robust. Those trees wake up in the morning and beattheir chests and drink their coffee black.

　　I planted a couple of trees a few years back. Carried water to them for a solid summer. Sprayedthem. Prayed over them. The whole nine yards. Two years of coddling has resulted in trees thatexpect to be waited on hand and foot. Whenever a cold wind blows in, they tremble andchatter their branches. Sissy trees.

　　Funny things about those trees of Dr. Gibbs'. Adversity and deprivation seemed to benefitthem in ways comfort and ease never could.

　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch theirlittle bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that theirlives will be easy. But lately I've been thinking that it's time to change my prayer.

　　This change has to do with the inevitability of cold winds that hit us at the core. I know mychildren are going to encounter hardship, and I'm praying they won't be naive. There'salways a cold wind blowing somewhere.

　　So I'm changing my prayer. Because life is tough, whether we want it to be or not. Too manytimes we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for rootsthat reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be sweptasunder.