Community

Here’s a little ecology lesson . . . It starts with trees and it ends with you.  When you look at a tree, realize this one thing: it is not just a tree—it is a community. Kind of a micro-ecosystem. I have a large Post Oak in my back yard that is three feet in diameter! (I measured it …) Periodically, on a windy day, it drops dead stems and branches. They are absolutely filled with a fascinating (to me, anyway) array of organisms. Various colorful lichens and fungi mostly.  This is a fungus on a stem from my oak:

But that is only the beginning—a tree is a vast community of bacteria, viruses, mycoplasmas, fungi, lichens, mosses, liverworts, nematodes, mollusks, worms, insects, mites, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles even—my little friends, the northern fence lizards and lined skinks. Here's another shot with three snails crawling over a fallen stem of my oak tree and scarfing up lichens. Can you imagine literally crawling through your salad--head high--as you eat it?

Probably hundreds of species of organisms interact with my Post Oak tree--each with their own intricate associations with this tree. It reminds me a little of Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31-32: “He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”  That is, the kingdom of heaven is where life happens, and is a haven for those who need God’s shelter and the community of abundant, spiritual life He provides.

I heard a story recently on NPR (a common opening phrase for me …) about Noah Fierer, a University of Colorado at Boulder microbiologist, who immerses himself into the strange world of bacteria—one of the most primitive, yet numerous life forms on the planet.  He is trying to develop a method of using bacterial profiles on human skin to identify criminals for CSI investigations. He made the point that our bodies are huge repositories of bacteria—on our skin, in our gut, our hair, under our fingernails, between our toes, in our mouth . . . shall I go on? He even made the claim that there are more bacterial cells in and on our bodies than there are human cells. Now, I’m not sure how to check on the accuracy of that, but that is a rather amazing—and unsettling—statement. In other words, you are more germs than you are you! 

  

Bacterial cells are much smaller than human cells, so perhaps this could be true in terms of number of cells instead of volume. [About 500 average-size human cells would fit inside the period at the end of this sentence; about 25,000 bacterial cells would fit into it.] The point is that, biologically speaking, you are not just you. Your body is a community of species—bacteria, viruses, fungi, mites, and mycoplasmas.  Depending on where you live, maybe even a few rikettsia, worm larvae, ticks, etc. But that’s okay, that’s the way it is—like a tree or a mustard plant--you are a community.

Here’s a sideline story:  A recent study at San Diego State University, funded by the Clorox Co., tested the assumption known variously as the “Three Second Rule” or the “Five Second Rule”. You know: if you drop some food on the floor, you have a certain number of seconds before it becomes contaminated. Pick it up quickly and you can still eat it. Microbiologists tested microbial activity of baby carrots before and after dropping on a tile floor, a kitchen sink, a carpeted floor, etc. Their results?  …. Turns out, whatever “germs” (that is, bacteria and fungi) the carrot picked up was picked up instantaneously—it doesn’t take five seconds. The good news is that nearly all bacteria and fungi that occur on your home surfaces won’t hurt you. (the rim of your toilet is another matter).  Of the thousands of microbe species out there, your body has the ability to neutralize nearly all of them. Only a very few have developed ways to overcome our body’s natural defenses. In fact, some medical researchers have suggested that young children of overly fastidious (meticulous, easily disgusted, squeamish) parents--who clean their floors and counter tops  like operating tables--may be more vulnerable to infections than those whose parents are less hung-up about it. That’s because our bodies develop defenses early-on against most germs. Children who are not exposed to germs don’t develop the defenses. Or so goes the theory. So, make your own judgment on the Five Second Rule.

If there is a central theme to this rambling blog:  community is built into the system—to nature, to your body, to the human condition, to Christian believers. Embrace community.

Another Side of Me

This posting is a follow-up to the previous posting, “My Alter Ego?”. Maybe that alter ego—the irresponsible, but harmless vagabond—is a piece of me in an unrealistic dream world, but not in the real world. I was out of work for six months and was not myself. It gives me empathy for anyone in this depressed economy that is looking for work, especially those looking for a career.

There is a side to many of us, I suspect, that stares dreamily into the distance of time and reality at the thought of being irresponsible and self-indulgent and carefree. The vagabond, Mr. Browne, played by Buddy Ebson in one of the old Andy Griffith episodes, tells Andy: “I live the kind of life that most men only dream about because they don’t have the courage to live it.” Well, when you have a wife and especially a wife and kids, all bets are off, Mr. Browne.

The neurobiologist, Robert M. Sapolski, author of Monkeyluv—And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals (2005) says that behavioral studies of other primates have shown that it is not just the physical studs that attract female monkeys or baboons for mating; or the ones who intimidate other weaker potential male suitors to flee out of the picture (think Biff vs. Michael J. Foxe’s nerd dad in Back to the Future). But often, the males who “get the girl” are the ones who demonstrate relationally that they are the kind of guy who is in it for the long haul. Biologically, that means that a female somehow senses which potential mates will likely be around to help her do the heavy lifting of raising this child, and who will partner with her through the travails of life. Sapolski essentially says that, even amongst monkeys, responsible can be sexy.

As a pastor, I used to counsel young couples who were preparing to be married. One story that I often used was one that I heard on the radio many years before. It goes something like this: the radio show guest said that he was pastor of a church and one of the elderly women in his congregation was incapacitated, living in a nursing home. Periodically the minister would call on her as part of his pastoral duties. One day he walked down the nursing home hallway to her room and found the door slightly ajar. He peaked in, not wanting to enter at an inopportune moment. What he saw was the ultimate love story.

He saw an elderly gentleman leaning over his wife’s bed with a spoon hovering before her blank face. He coaxed, “Please dear, one more bite … you need to take one more bite.” Her unresponsive eyes told him that she didn’t comprehend, or maybe that she had given up on life altogether. He was undeterred. “The doctor says that you need to eat, dear. Please… you can do it … I know you can do it … open up one more time.” She opens her mouth briefly and he shoves the spoon home. Some of the food drips unattractively down her chin and on to her gown. He patiently grabs a cloth and dabs her clean, all the while praising her effort. Then he begins anew: “That was wonderful! … Okay, one more bite … you can take one more bite, just for me …”

She probably didn’t even know who he was--didn’t remember they had been married for sixty years or more. Maybe she had Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t know. But what a love scene! I used to tell the young husbands-to-be the same as I told my two sons-in-law when they asked for my daughters’ hands in marriage: this is the kind of guy that girls ultimately want. This is the kind of guy that I want for my daughter—one who will love her when she is gray and wrinkled and no longer sexy. Who will love her for the long haul, even into the nursing home. (By the way, at the end of the program I finally heard the name of the radio guest and pastor: then Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee.) My favorite love songs are the rare ones about old people still in love, like Michael Smith’s The Dutchman (from Steve Goodman) and Eva Cassidy singing Anniversary Song.

So what is it like when a young man transitions from carefree, unattached player to provider and care-giver and sacrificial partner for life? Here is an interesting poem that I heard on the Garrison Keiller’s Writers’ Almanac on National Public Radio (9:00 am weekdays on 91.3 FM in my part of the world). It is a poem by Thomas C. Hunley called, “Father to a Man”. You can see the transition happening before your very eyes in this young husband’s life, much like it happened to me when my Junius Maltby went into hibernation. But, as it turns out, I’m a much happier man for it. Follow the action:

Father to the Man

The OBGYN said babies almost never
arrive right on their due dates, so
the night before my firstborn was due
to make his debut, I went out with the guys

until a guilt-twinge convinced me to convince them
to leave the sports bar and watch game six
on my 20-inch, rabbit eared, crap TV. After we
arrived, my wife whispered, "My water broke"

as the guys cheered and spilled potato chips
for our little dog to eat up. I can't remember
who was playing whom, but someone got called
for a technical, as the crowd made a noise

that could have been a quick wind, high-fiving
leaf after leaf after leaf. I grabbed our suitcase
and told the guys they could stay put, but we
were heading for the hospital and the rest of

our lives. No, we're out of here, they said.
Part of me wanted to head out with them,
back to the smell of hot wings and microbrews,
then maybe to a night club full of heavy bass

and perfume, or just into a beater Ford with a full
ash tray, speeding farther and farther into
the night, into nowhere in particular. Instead I walked
my wife to our minivan, held her hand as she

stepped down from the curb, opened her door,
shut the suitcases into the trunk, and
ran right over that part of me, left it
bleeding and limping like a poor, stupid squirrel.

"Father to the Man" by Tom C. Hunley, from Octopus. © Logan House, 2008.