Natural - Unplanned - Spontanious Development

The Basic issue

Life grows and multiplies. It was built to do that. There is a natural expansion that is built into life. There are also checks which counter act skewed expansion which usually click in to balance things up then they get out of balance, but overall growth is built into the system.

A few years ago, I planted a very large garden in an unused plot of ground out at the farm just to see how much actual productivity there is in the ground. Even without a lot of extra care, I found that the garden exploded in productive abundance. Then I started noticing it everywhere. For example, the Birch tree in my backyard had enough seed on it one year that I could have planted the whole of Westman with birch trees. Then again when we look at the exponential growth of the human race since 1800 or so, we see even more of it. One strategy for community development is akin to weeding, subduing the negative forces which inhibit growth, and watering what is already growing. That is, let things grow rather than make things grow.

A positive attitude to life, and an encouraging and supportive attitude to new life is often all that is needed for life to take shape. Much of the rise for capitalism in its early stages was augmented by the coincidental rise of the "Protestant work ethic", which was just a healthy attitude to life and growth. Such an ethic allowed for life to work instead of inhibiting it at every turn. At an individual level it still to be seen. When a family takes hold of the Gospel, they start looking after themselves and their life and it starts to improve. Sometimes I think that one of the greatest approaches to community development in all its dimensions is to simply get out of the way and give God some room to operate directly and indirectly.

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