It’s that time of year: the ‘green stuff’ is growing apace and the evenings and weekends will soon resound with the hum and clatter of lawnmowers. The following imaginary conversation sheds an objective light from on high!

God: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature, what in the world is going on down there? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colour by now. All I see are patches of green.

St. Francis: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. They are called the Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But it’s so boring; it’s not colourful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs & worms. It’s temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it … sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most rake it up and put it into bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now let me get this straight… they fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes, sir.

God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You aren’t going to believe this, Lord, but when the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so that they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer, in the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It’s a natural circle of life.

St. Francis: You’d better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buy something called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down the trees and shred them up to make mulch.

God: Enough! I don’t want to think about this any more. St. Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It’s a really stupid movie about…

God: Never mind – I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis!

How fortunate we are to live in a temperate land with great variety in the natural world, against a background of dramatic seasonal changes. Today, a sunny, warm spring day – and yet last week at the start of April the countryside was covered in a blanket of snow, with freezing temperatures at night. In spite of such abrupt contrasts, the natural world surges forward, developing new leaves to make food, new flowers to produce offspring and new nests, which soon get filled with insatiable gaping beaks. Those bulbs bursting forth into beautiful shapes and colours remind me so much of a Welsh poem I learned in my youth about the snowdrop:

"Oll yn eu gynau gwynion "All in their white gowns

Ac ar eu newydd wedd, And in their new aspect,

Yn debig iddi eu Harglwydd Like unto their Lord

Yn dod i’r lan o’r bedd." Rising from the grave."

What is this powerful life force that drives all of us forward? - for we too are affected in many different and subtle ways by the increased warmth and daylight hours. Reflect in awe that the same dramatic interaction of chemicals and environment inside every living cell causes such a powerful surge of activity in all living things at this springtime.

In some ways a more dramatic process of activity is seen in the developing embryo, be it fish, frog or human. In our case millions of different cells develop from two minute cells, an egg and a sperm, all in the space of nine months. In a thoughtful moment, it is interesting to speculate when that life becomes "human": is it at that moment of conception when sperm and egg join, or is it much later when the resulting embryo first takes breath by itself (or with the help of a respirator)? For many animals the answer is easier, for we see them leaving the parent or the nest and fending for themselves. Our reasoning on the subject is very weak and ill thought-out, for although approximately one third of human embryos die during the early stages of development (spontaneous or natural abortion) we don’t baptize them as humans, nor do we give them funeral rites. Surely, if they are already "human", then they should be shown the same regard as fully developed humans? In spite of modern medicine, they cannot survive by themselves for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy and even for the next two or three weeks many will still have serious problems. The human potential is there in the fertilised egg but my judgement is that the embryo cannot be called a human until it breathes for itself, with or without a machine, and its major organ systems integrate their activities.

Great tensions occur in our society when we make judgements without knowing the facts and thinking clearly on this area of life. Too easily we jump into group attitudes based on simplistic, loose thinking and then become more entrenched as time passes. The Catholic Church has a problem at the moment with the proposal to take a human cell nucleus (the DNA instructions), put it into an animal cell from which the nucleus has been removed and allow it to grow only for 14 days. The resulting ball of a few hundred cells could give profound insights into dreadful human conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Motor Neurone disease and who knows what else. One Cardinal described this proposal as "a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life and allows for experiments of Frankenstein proportions." Another leader said that "we should not interfere with Nature" – but I later learned that the same person had a heart pacemaker fitted in his body. On the basis of his thinking, none of us should have antibiotics, operations or cancer attacking chemicals, for they all interfere with Nature!

Sadly, the Church at large has a poor track record when some of its leaders make pronouncements against scientific analysis or proposals.

We opposed Copernicus and Galileo in their assessment of the solar system, and yet time proved them right. We opposed Charles Darwin and others as they looked at the world around us and in the rocks beneath. Time has also proved them to be correct! The Church at large, along with other faiths, must keep an honest, thoughtful dialogue with the world of science if it is to avoid the appalling blunders of the past, as it seeks to put forward its own position on life’s issues.

Marvel in this present Spring surge of life – and enjoy it!