Earth of Whom we sing "Joy to the World!" Jesus self-expressing Vine to our Branches! Inheriting from all ancestors of every species! Borrowing against all grandchildren whose ancestors we would become -- more changeable, less chargeable, species.
Doing habitat restoration, Muir Woods, giant redwood falling across pedestrian path, volunteers moving not tree but path, trusting life, the reminding remainder. We promise you, mast in our midst, we will not move you but path ourselves through you.
Whose glory lies in the dirt, at the roots, robustness of strong separate trees relying on "whom they grow next to," neighbor-roots tangling with own:
"A forest's resilience reflects diversity . . . an interwoven fabric of roots," so that, even as "own individual memories slip behind, we will be part of the whole."
How do we pass on our lives, our works? "Where does the next generation come from? Redwood trees don't usually spring individual seeds; they spring from the roots of older trees." "We, too spring from roots of those who precede us."
(Gary Gunderson)
"Evolutionary Equivalence!"
Species, creatures, lives fully revealing Jesus' image, "Branches and Vine," "Big Picture," beyond every frivolous ranking, scaling, lording, laddering, one over all others -- Leaving just one species room at the top? WITH OUR RECORD??
Imagine instead! Healthy tree cut thoroughly through at its fullest point; creating a Leveling Plane, like Sheet of Glass, the Present Moment, placed over the cut. Everything visible down through the glass current Genealogical History, all Life thus far on Earth. Base of the tree single trunk grounded in Life's Origins, three and a half billion years! Growth of Creation gigantic "V" shape, inverted pyramid; no longer many at bottom, one at top; rather, one at bottom, many at top -- from Life's Origins to Uninterruptible Fullness?
Many no longer yielding to one; rather, one branching into so many, each uniquely in part, in place of the whole. Branches diverging from base of the "V," all our Ancestral Species! Branches ascendant, descendant, daughters and sons of species, evolving into own genuses, countlessly splitting off new limbs of Life -- Most of whom, like lower branches, "timing out" far short of glassed present.
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Does Jesus anticipate our way of seeing? Evolution as pruning of Vine? So many withering lineages, so many fossiling remains, vastly outnumbering few branches reaching the glass. Imagine! Branches that do reach! Songs of the Earth! Joys to the World!
"They encompass diversity of life on Earth as we know it. [Every one of our names here calling out our place in it now!] Here a parasitic worm! There a sponge! Farther along frogs, not too far from them, fishes, crocodiles and lizards! Antelopes, yeasts, bacteria, giant squids, oak trees, cormorants, algae, paramecia, locusts, moray eels, deer ticks and centipedes -- diversity almost beyond imagining!
Some of these life forms simple, microscopic specks, hardly more than a strand of DNA surrounded by a membrane. Others indescribably complex, vast conglomerations of special cells, pulsating organs, joined legs, moving fluids and bulging brains packed with millions of sparkling neurons. A few of them are human beings . . . ." (Kurt Schwenk)
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