THE LIFE FORCE
An Astonishing Fact
ACREEPER growing in a courtyard once had the misfortune to have its roots and branches buried under mounds of earth and rubble when the house was undergoing repairs. While cleaning up, the owner of the house cut away the creeper which had been badly damaged and even pulled out its roots so that it would not grow again. The whole courtyard was then laid with bricks and cemented over. A few weeks later, something stirred at the place where the creeper had been rooted out. The bricks heaved upwards as though something were pushing them from below. This appeared strange, but was dismissed as the burrowing of rats or mice. When some of the bricks were removed, it was found that the creeper had started growing again, although in a sadly distorted form. Not all its roots had been pulled out and when the time of the year came for them to grow, life began to stir within them and they pushed their way up through the cement to the sunlight. It is one of nature’s miracles that these tender leaves and buds which can be so easily crushed to a pulp between finger and thumb can summon up such strength and force their way through bricks and cement.
Life is an astonishing, ongoing process of this universe—a force which will claim its right to exist.
The owner of the house regretted taking the creeper’s life. He remarked, “It seems to be appealing to me for its right to grow. Now I certainly won’t stand in its way.” So saying, he removed some more of the bricks so that it would grow unhindered. In less than a year’s time, a fifteen foot creeper was flourishing against the courtyard wall at the exact point from which it had been so unceremoniously uprooted.
A mountain despite its great height and girth, cannot remove so much as a pebble from its flanks. But these tiny tender buds of the tree can crack a cemented floor and sprout through it. Whence such power? The source of its energy is the mysterious phenomenon called life. Life is an astonishing, ongoing process of this universe—a force which will claim its right to exist. Even when uprooted, it continues to exist, albeit dormant, at one place or the other and reappears the moment it finds the opportunity. When people conclude that there is nothing visible on the surface, so life must have ended, that is just when it rears its head from the debris. o