Amongst Death, an Abundance of Life
Where one finds death in nature, an abundance of life is sure to follow
The pure and simple delight of overturning a deadwood log to uncover what lies hidden underneath is one of the earliest memories I can recall from my childhood. I can vividly remember the sense of anticipation of what I might discover under each individual log. Those who have undertaken this activity with their children will know all too well that what I discovered gave me as a curious little boy endless wonders of dark hidden worlds now brought into the light: of scurrying centipedes and funny woodlice, to strange coloured slimes and wriggling earthworms, to the rarer gems of devil’s horse coaches and stag beetle larvae.
I loved uncovering these creatures. l loved overturning log after log, each one revealing its own unique community of “creepy crawlies (as I called them back then). I loved overturning logs — and I still do. I thank God that I have never lost this sacred wonder of the things He has made, both large and microscopic. Rarely does a woodland walk go by where I don’t overturn at least one or two logs to peer anew at what lies hidden underneath.
It was on one such a woodland walk recently that my mind drifted back to the childhood woodland ritual. A great deal of time has passed since I overturned my first log — time which has included gaining a degree in ecology where the importance of deadwood was scientifically explained and emphasised over and over again. Now as I walked through the trees, talking out loud to myself (as I do when out in nature where only the birds can listen in) I wondered why so much life is intimately and abundantly associated with dead and decaying things. As a trained ecologist, I knew the scientific answer for it is obvious — an abundance of readily available nutrients and a dark damp atmosphere conducive to processes of decay. But since those days of hard science in the lecture room, my mind has strayed down the less-beaten trail of ecological philosophy and indigenous wisdom. And that is the angle this ‘why’ question took: What does abundant life being found amidst death mean? What are the reasons beyond ecology and biology? What great truths and realities does this phenomenon communicate? What are the lessons I can learn?
These questions once would have unnerved me and sent me running back to the safety of the concrete, linear answers of the textbooks. “What a stupid question” the old me would have shouted from the back of the class1 — “there is no deeper why there is just the scientific how. Look in the textbooks, there you will find all the answers you need.”
But who made me think like this — that there is no underlying reason why things are the way there are and that the only answers are the reasons found in scientific textbooks with their peer-reviewed pronouncements? If we live in a spiritual world (which I believed back then and much as I do now) then there are spiritual and deeper reasons that underpin the way things are. Everything we observe is not all just down to chance operating within the bounds of the Laws of Physics. There are deeper reasons. Everything has meaning. There is thought and design.
Of course there is! If there is a Creator, then there must be a message. No one creates anything in a vacuum devoid of meaning. Architects don’t just create buildings, they create buildings with messages emanating out from their structures. Their designs are the outworking of their ideologies — they are trying to communicate something through their creations, whether that be the brutalism of high modernism or the respect of ancient traditions which come from the Classical school. We readily accept deeper meanings in architecture so why not in Creation? The way things are in the natural world — the sacred order — is meant to communicate a message, meant to show us truths, meant to make us stop and ponder.
But most of us are senseless to this.
Why this insensible tragedy? Why did I remain senseless for so long, failing to perceive the messages of Creation? And why when a sage or preacher pleads with us that more can be found and known in Creation do we look at him like he is some freak who has spent too long with his own company? I don’t fully understand why, but I would hasten to guess that our western senses, having been formed in the stupefying environments of rationalism and the Enlightenment (and thus trained to ignore the background of “spiritual noise”), has a lot to do with it.
Given, then, that there are deeper meanings behind the order of Creation, what is the meaning of the abundance of life one finds so readily associated with death? Why is it that toto find the greatest abundance and diversity of life one needs to find a rotting carcass or a damp dark log? I don’t fully know. Humility leads me to acknowledge the Creator’s ways are higher and deeper than what I can fathom. I don’t claim to know my Maker’s mind — only a fool would claim such. But this I can fathom, and this I can believe: He wants to communicate through the deadwood logs and rotting carcasses teeming with creatures that life triumphs over death.
Out of death, new life bursts forth. Diverse life. Rich life. Beautiful life. Death is not the final line in the story. No, the story of life goes on. One creature passes, only to become part of another. The nutrients and building blocks of life that once sustained it now become enveloped in the muscles of a multitude of other creatures that have feasted on the decaying carcass or log. Death is not ultimately vanity. It does not have the final say. It never will. This is the message we all need to hear.
And this is what the creatures inhabiting the dark damp logs were doing. Yes, they were decomposing and feeding on the decaying matter of the log. Yes, this all makes perfect ecological sense and has an essential ecological function. And yes, the textbook would be happy if I stopped here. But there is more, and I must go on for what these creatures were also communicating was the wonderful truth that new life is brought forth out of death. Their feasting upon that which has died opens up a whole new food web of life. They, as decomposers, break down and consume matter that would have otherwise remained inaccessible to other creatures — creatures who, in turn, feast on the decomposers — and on it goes. Death then forms part of the foundation of the food web. Death, then, is conducive to life, even abundant life.
Wherever we look we can see this same dynamic playing out again and again: death leading to life. Countless examples of intricate and beautiful ecological relationships could be told — such is the abundance of rich analogies and stories that this world is saturated with. And I would love to tell of them all, but time and my limitedness do not permit. However, never being one to resist a good story two examples, in particular, I will share: the story of the apple blossom and the story of the graveyard.
Springtime is here, and the orchard is in full and glorious bloom. White and pink flowers laden the trees in these ancient groves while bullfinches sing sweetly from the branches. However, as pretty and idyllic as this all may be the flowers are only here for a brief moment in time and their beauty is not why the orchard exists. Ripe, juicy fruit is what the orchardist longs for and he knows that for his wishes to be fulfilled, the beauty in front of him will have to perish — for the flower must die for the fruit to bear forth. Once pollinated, the flower’s work is, in biological terms, complete. Its beauty was only there to attract the insect whose action leads to the flower’s own demise. The pollen having reached the stigma signals it is time for the flower to die and for the fruit to form. One form of beauty leads to another — the beauty of sight leading to the beauty of taste. The casual observer may miss, though, that the transformation occurs through death. Death is the necessary ingredient for delicious fruit to bear forth. It is worth remembering that where one finds goodness, richness, and delight death has often preceded.
That is worth pondering.
A traditional church graveyard is a place where one cannot escape the gravity of death. Here lie the bodies of the saints, whose gravestones testify either of a well-lived life of ‘threescore years and ten’, or of a life tragically cut short. It is a place where dreams and hopes lie buried: of novels that will never be written, of inventions the world will never see, and of masterpieces never created — all cut short by the abruptness and finality of death. It is a place where death is ever present and seems to have taken a victorious, eternal hold. It is a place which reminds us that this too will be our end — and all seems vanity.
But wait a while and you will surely find life and hope among the ruins. It is almost universal that church graveyards (at least British ones) are often rather unkempt places, an oasis of wildlife amongst the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle. They are habitats where trees and wildflowers can grow undisturbed, where the weapons2 of over-zealous town councils are forbidden, and “where foxes have their dens and the birds of the air their nests”. In amongst the gnarled yew and oak trees, nuthatches frolic and song thrush herald forth their melodious song. Mice and foxes play out a life-and-death drama and wildflowers flourish in peaceful serenity. The place where the dead come to rest (and will one day rise again) harbours rich and diverse life for all mankind to enjoy and is a perfect backdrop for a meditative walk — the place where essays tend to find their birth.
So the parable of the apple blossom and the wild, untamed graveyard remind us that where death is present, life is all the more abundant. That is the message. That is what our death-ridden fearful age needs to hear. Death is the servant of the living.
Perhaps, though, this close association of life with death unsettles us. Surely the dividing line between these two polar opposite states of being should be thicker, firmer, and more impermeable to one another. Surely something so good and pure as life cannot be intimately aquatinted with and dependent on something as dark as death. Those of us who have experienced the gut-wrenching tragedy of a death of a loved one may find little solace in what I have written; that is understandable, perfectly so. Death remains a tragedy — and is meant to be — for it is the extinguishing of a created masterpiece more beautiful than anything a sculptor could fashion and more intricate than any machine. A creature or person who was the object of our love has been irreversibly lost. Jesus wept, and so do we.
And even in the beautiful reality of abundant life in the places of death, we are given a reminder that death remains a disturbing tragedy. The community of creatures most associated with death (vultures, beetle larvae, and a whole host of other scavengers and detritivores) will rarely be made into cuddly toys or feature on an inspirational calendar. Ugly, gruesome, legion. These are the adjectives associated with the creatures of death - a reminder that we are dealing with something tragic and disturbing. But beauty can still be found among the ashes. And these creatures, though shunned, overlooked, and perhaps even killed by us out of acts of revulsion are essential in bringing forth life that is beautiful for without these scavengers and decomposers, there would be no life that we find truly beautiful. They are food for the robins on our Christmas cards, and they provide the raw material in the soil that delicate orchids in the meadows need to grow. Although death remains a tragedy it is not the final say. Beauty can still come forth - and it will.
A separate but connected conclusion that my walk through the wood and my eventual pondering on life triumphing over death has resulted in is that I believe there are two fundamentally different types of death: death that brings life and death that brings desolation. Firmly located in the second category are deaths resulting from murder, terrorism, ecocide, and suicide. These instances of death bring untold tragedy, devastation, and destruction to those in a relationship with the ones who have died or to landscapes and wildlife now permanently scarred by human greed. These deaths are utterly tragic (as with suicide) or utterly evil (as with murder and terrorism). Little if anything can be redeemed from these smouldering ruins.
But not all instances of death fall neatly into this category of desolation even though we might think they do. There are deaths that bring forth life — and at times life abundant. Within this category are heroic deaths (where one has laid down one’s life for one’s friend); the death which comes by eating (where one literally takes the life of another (plant or animal) into themselves)3; and as explored earlier, the death by which flowers bring forth fruit. The act of life-giving death, therefore, is the ultimate act of self-giving as we give our life so that another may live, which stands in stark contrast to ‘the death that brings desolation’ which is the ultimate act of selfishness and life-taking. And while life-giving death remains a moment of intense tragedy when humans or animals are involved, it is a moment of immense and sacred beauty nevertheless.
One death, though, stands above all others. It was the ultimate life-giving death and where the most intense beauty can be found. It was the supreme death which conquered death and won life for those as numerous as the stars. For at the point of the Saviour’s death, the greatest diversity of true life became possible. Jesus came so that those who follow him may have life abundant both now and for eternity. He knew, though, that in this fallen sin-stained and death-ridden world, abundant life can only come forth through death — His death. So on a cross 2000 years ago He died in humiliating agony. But, what looked like the utmost tragedy was in fact the moment that death was defeated. For this moment was the most life-giving event in history, the moment when eternal life was won for all those who call upon His name. And then, as a momentous declaration of death defeated, three days later Jesus rose in triumph — for death will not have the final say, nor the final line in the story.
O death where is your victory, o death where is your sting!
Not literally I hasten to add - I never would have had the confidence!
Pesticides and electric grass trimmers.
See Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith. for an extended treatise on this.
I loved this piece, Hadden. So, so beautiful. This reflection reminds me of how the Bible says that Jesus is like a seed planted in the earth; he rises to life and brings with him life for his people.
I likewise love to turn over old wood, rocks, and rotten logs with my little boys and show them the creatures underneath—as a child, I was terrified of such bugs, but I'm striving to teach my children to see God's good creation in them rather than fearing them as I did.
“But beauty can still be found among the ashes. And these creatures, though shunned, overlooked, and perhaps even killed by us out of acts of revulsion are essential in bringing forth life that is beautiful for without these scavengers and decomposers, there would be no life that we find truly beautiful. They are food for the robins on our Christmas cards, and they provide the raw material in the soil that delicate orchids in the meadows need to grow. Although death remains a tragedy it is not the final say. Beauty can still come forth - and it will.”
Hadden, your powers are getting stronger my friend. What a beautifully written message here on such and “uncomfortable” topic. Thank you for taking us along this walk with you.
It has become increasingly clear in the past few years that our Western culture as a whole has been too saturated by science and parched of meaning. And it seems to be at tipping point.
It seems that many of us know we can’t go on like this. It may be high time we let the science “die” only to use its edifying qualities in a life of more abundant of meaning.
Much to think over here. Thanks again.