mast year

 

Every several years, certain fruit or nut trees produce a harvest that is exceptional in both quantity and quality. These are known as mast years. 2025 appears to be a mast year for acorns, and apples.

No one knows exactly why this happens. There are various theories, and it may be that the phenomenon is the result of several factors combining. Climate may be a factor. Another theory sees mast years as a mechanism for survival: producing seeds is costly, and many are eaten by animals — for example, wild pigs like to eat acorns — so there is advantage in reserving energy for bumper crops every so often, which are more abundant than the prey can consume.

I believe that the physical and spiritual are entwined, and that the physical can be an expression of the spiritual. We are seeing an unusual number of people exploring Christian faith for the first time or the first time in a long time, and this seems to be replicated across the UK and across other western contexts that have not been especially open to such things for some time. It interests me that this coincides with a mast year.

Why would we see a mast year in people coming to faith? Perhaps climate plays a factor. Perhaps a materialistic worldview is increasingly ‘dry’ for more and more people, experiencing a new awareness of thirst for spiritual things. Undoubtedly, successive generations are needed for a particular faith, or other worldview, to survive, and Jesus’ parable of a sower sowing seed points out the many reasons why converts might give up. Mast years might be a good way of ensuring the faith is passed from generation to generation. Certainly, large numbers new-to-the-faith at the same time is exciting, yes, but also demands a lot of energy. It is not necessarily sustainable. Mast years with quieter years between them might be a more viable pattern, over the long term.

Anyway, all this to say, 2025 might just be a mast year, in the physical sense and the spiritual sense. I am praying that we would not only see an increase in people coming to faith, but that they would be a cohort of exceptional quality, not just quantity. That this year’s seeds might, in time, grow into what the ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah called oaks of righteousness, keystone species in the ecology of their community, providing a viable habitat for many others.