All Things Came Into Being Through Him - January 10

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1

John’s Gospel begins rather boldly.  One of the more memorable lines of Scripture, what John is essentially trying to say, at the beginning of Creation, when the moon and stars, the earth, and the seas, and everything was created, God was there, and so was Jesus.  I especially love the next line, that “all things came into being through him.”  It’s an equally bold statement: everything comes from God, designed by God, with purpose and design.

I’m reading an interesting book about gardening titled Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas Tallamy.  His premise is rather simple: bugs can’t eat alien plants so when we introduce foreign plants it impacts the entire ecosystem.  At Saint Stephen’s, we have a project to remove all of our invasive species and reintroduce natives, but only now am beginning to deepen my understanding of why. 

Tallamy introduces a rather interesting concept (created by Peter de Ruiter at Utrecht University) in trying to understand the role of certain species in an ecosystem.  The hypothesis is called “the Jenga hypothesis.”  Jenga is the popular block game where a freestanding tower is built with blocks that can be removed, each player removing blocks as the tower becomes more and more wobbly until it finally comes crashing down.  Tallamy writes, “In the Jenga metaphor, the role of any given species in maintaining the stability of its ecosystem is similar to the role to the individual blocks play in keeping the tower from tumbling down.  Each block supports the tower in some way…Each time a block is removed, the relative importance of the remaining blocks change. 

John’s premise is that everything is created by God.  I love the Jenga metaphor because it speaks an unexpected truth, that we don’t understand the purpose and relationship of everything or even everyone.  We don’t quite get to know fully why or for what purpose everything is, or maybe more specifically people come into our lives, our communities, and our stories.  And we don’t understand the significance always when there is loss.  But it does change everything.  And that matters.   

So this morning, I’m going to remember that everything, and everyone can into being by God, and while I might not understand why, that’s ok.

John+

Question for Self-Reflection:  What are some of the things, relationships, people, and ideas that impact your life that you don’t often consider?  Are there recent losses that have changed other relationships?

Daily Challenge:  Take a walk outside.  Try to make it longer than you would normally.  I would suggest at least thirty minutes and try to see things you haven’t seen before.  If you see something extraordinary, let me know!