“Rootlessness”
SCRIPTURE
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” —Exodus 16:3
DEVOTIONAL
One afternoon, forester Peter Wohlleben was walking through the beech tree forest that he manages in Germany and he noticed a strange group of stones laid in a circle about five feet wide with a concave center. Interested, he pulled back the thick moss to realize that they were not stones at all, but a stump of an old beech tree that had fallen some four to five hundred years before. While all visible evidence would conclude that the old stump should have died and decomposed long ago, it turns out that the surrounding trees had been pumping the stump with the necessary nutrients to feed it and keep it alive – for the past four to five hundred years! That small exploration launched Wohlleben into an extensive study of how the forest was interconnected through an elaborate root system. Underground, trees share resources to protect each other from danger, to feed the hungry, and to strengthen the weak. That inter-rootedness is what makes the trees a forest, and it turns out to be essential for life. 1
When the Israelites were freed from Egypt, they were uprooted from the old securities, reliabilities, and methods of survival. Slavery was hard but in Egypt at least they knew where they could find food, water, and the golden idols made in their image. Released after 400 years, when they were cut from the barren roots of captivity, they felt vulnerable, hungry, and alone. They cried out to God. So after freeing them, God showed them how to stay free. God led them (by fire at night and by a pillar of cloud by day), fed them (manna), and bound them through a new root system (a covenant) that would connect them to one another and to God in order to protect them from the dangers in the wilderness, to feed all of their hungers, and to strengthen their weaknesses. That inter-rootedness is how they survived when all visible evidence would have left them for dead. It made the people a community and it turned out to be essential for life.
-
- What are your roots? Rather, what helps sustain and nourish you?
- When have you been disconnected from that root system? What happened?
- Henri Nouwen says that “Life giving connectedness is what allows Jesus to move out of the places of death toward life.” How might your “root system” move you into a greater and more abundant life?
PRAYER
God, our source of life, sanctify our vulnerability when it turns us to depend on you and one another. As we come to know our inter-rootedness, remind us of who we are and whose we are. We ask this in gratitude, always gratitude, Amen.
1 Wohlleben, Peter. The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World. (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2016).
The daily devotionals for the season of Lent are written by Rev. Dr. Kirk Hall, Associate Pastor of Formation at First Presbyterian Church from 2010-2013. He is currently a founding partner at The Metis Project, LLC. and lives with his wife and two girls in Salisbury, Connecticut.