Reflection: ‘Unlike a tree’

Fossilised in ancient metaphor is, that people are like plants. Our bodies remarkably simulate aspects of plants and trees with myriad mimicries, from fertilised seed to circulatory systems. But the essential building blocks of plants and people … they tell another story. The Bible’s not a science book and I’m no botanist (nor do we need to push the tree metaphor to its limits) but I’m reflecting on this non-tree-like thought today.

Plant cells are photoautotrophs (literally, self-feeders that use light). Human cells can’t do that. Can’t live on air. Instead, our energy comes at the expense of other organisms. Once plants have fixed carbon from carbon dioxide, we consume them … or the animals that have consumed them. Point being, we heterotrophs are utterly dependent on others, all the way from the inside out and bottom up. We haven’t the capacity to self-feed. At the most minute level, we were designed not to be self-sufficient.

Prayer:

Growing solo is not our design. So, individually and collectively we reaffirm, Lord Jesus, your good design — a picture of absolute inter-dependence. Forgive our fickle inclinations and our pride. In your good but languishing world, we ask that people would recognise their helplessness-by-design and ‘perhaps reach out and find’ you today.