Deep Connections and The Richness of Life
Our fruitfulness is cultivated from the relationships we have forged.
Norman Wirzba in his book This Sacred Life writes beautifully on how the needs and requirements of a plant are dependent on the strength, variety, and depth of the relationships the plant has to the living and non-living things that surround it. After explaining how an individual plant is not a ‘self-contained bubble’, but is a "dynamic, active, permeable site” for a range of processes and connections that are dependant on carbon dioxide, pollinators, sunshine, fungi, and more, he concludes:
The plant’s continuing growth and decay, and the qualities that will define its specific life, are entirely dependent on the intimacy, depth, breadth, and quality of the relationships it is able to develop.1
The plant’s life depends on its relationships. Without relationships, it would cease to be. The plant cannot be considered in isolation from these relationships; they, in a sense, define what the plant is. The dividing line between a flower and the mycorrhizal fungi that inhabit its roots and supply the plant with nutrients is hairline thin. Some may even say that the two species are at one, much like a lichen.2 What is true for plants is true for so much else in the world around us — and indeed ourselves. The strength of our relationships and connections matter — immeasurably so — but we too easily forget this and live and act as if we exist within our own little bubble of self-concern. But, isolated from all others around us, a fundamental part of who we are shrivels up and dies. We become, vain, selfish, and self-centred — unable to see much of the good that surrounds us and participate in its perpetuation and protection. In short, we neglect what we were made for: to participate in the cultivation of the good of Creation and the good in lives of fellow man.
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