The Fungus Among Us

It doesn‘t take much to turn my stomach these days. It rebels at a number of things commonly shown on television commercials, usually just when I’ve sat down in front of the screen with a meal that I can’t wait to dig into. Everything you can imagine is paraded in front of me at such times in explicit detail, from out-of-control pest populations on ads for exterminators, to various medical conditions that can be treated with the latest discoveries in the pharmaceutical world. As the pictures scroll, my stomach starts to roll and rumble in protest. It’s bad enough to see toenail fungus on your feet, but on the television screen at a mealtime, it’s simply too much. Yet the commercials continue, often one right after another, heedless of my voiced protests, “People are trying to eat here! Have a little mercy…!” I’m forced to close my eyes and wait for the visual torture to end, hoping I still have an appetite when it’s over.

All that to say that while I’m not fond of seeing fungus on people, on trees it’s a different story. One of the delights of walking though the woods for me is noting the “conks” or fruiting bodies of various fungi that spring up on dead or infected trees. The variety is astounding, each one beautiful in its own special way. We normally think of fungi in negative terms, but the truth is that they are doing the forest a favor, breaking up dead tree matter to release the minerals they contain and make them available to the healthy, growing stems in the ecosystem. Fungi are simply the forest’s friends, and so I feel free to admire the unique beauty and individuality of these growths that indicate their presence at work in the woods I‘m passing through. A little knowledge as to their purpose puts beauty in the eye of an otherwise skeptical beholder.

Perhaps I need to remember that when I’m tempted at times to avoid some seemingly fungus-filled people around me. Many times I’ve come to a mealtime in God’s house only to be put off by the behavior of someone near me that simply rubs me the wrong way. Yet it’s likely that God is using the very quirks that irritate me in their personality to develop some missing qualities in my own. Those traits then become a blessing rather than a burden, and that different perspective causes me to view the person with more tolerance and acceptance, again putting newly-perceived beauty in the eye of this formerly impatient beholder.

Too much time spent criticizing the other guy makes me blind to the ugliness of my own imperfections,…at least until some unexpected turn of events sprouts an uncensored reaction in me that is similarly openly displayed before a watching world. I am suddenly reminded again that I, too, am a sinner ever in need of the Savior who has redeemed me and is gradually changing me from the inside out. While those moments of reality are repulsive in themselves, their value lies in the revelation of problem areas that can be corrected once their existence is made known. Like conks on the trees they are the visual evidence of spiritual potential that is currently trapped by my sin nature, awaiting the touch of the Savior to release it in power to the benefit of those around me. And He awaits my invitation to come in His victory and likewise set me free.

It’s comforting to note that because we’re covered in Christ, when God walks among His people as I walk in the woods, He is not put off by the problem areas that are often so newly visible to us; they are hidden in His Son’s perfection. When He looks at you and me, it‘s His Son that He sees, and therefore there’s nothing but Beauty in the beholding eye of the Most High.

 “You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye. How can you say, ‘My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you don’t see the log in your own eye?”
(Matthew 7:3 CEV)

Lost in Life

My years as a field forester spanned three geographical states (from California to Oregon to Washington), two marital states (from single to married), and on one particular day, two physical states (from lost to found).

For four years every workday began largely the same way. I’d load my boots, my vest, and my hardhat into the company truck, stop at the office for a co-worker, my paperwork, a cup of coffee and a donut if I was lucky, and then head out for whatever corner of the company’s land holdings I was to work in on that particular day. At the end of the day everything went back into the truck for the drive home and a run-through of the events of the morning in reverse. The duties of each day varied depending on my job title, office location, and the season of the year. Some days I found difficult, such as the one on which a “controlled” burn lost that status when it jumped the fire lines and turned into a raging forest fire. I hated working in the bone-numbing cold of snow and hiking on terrain so steep that I had to hang on to the brush I was pushing through to keep from catapulting down the hillside. But there were many more moments I loved, such as coming over a ridge onto the heart-stopping beauty of tree-covered hillsides stretched out before me, the heart-dropping thrill of helicopter rides with herbicide applicators who needed to be shown boundary lines, and the depths of friendships that developed between coworkers who got through all the moments together somehow. Yet few days stand out in my mind as forcibly as the day I got lost in the woods.

It began like so many others. Armed with the tools of our trade, my coworker and I headed out to find the stand of trees we were supposed to work in that day. The morning seemed to go smoothly, but at some point in the early afternoon we noticed that our maps weren’t lining up well with what we were seeing on the ground. The more we tried to get back on track the worse the situation became until suddenly we realized we were hopelessly turned around; in short, lost. For hours after that we trudged in one direction through thick brush and open tree stands, up one hill and down another, hoping to intersect with a road of some type that would give us a clue as to our whereabouts.

I remember the heat and physical exhaustion of the trek and our overwhelming disappointment each time we reached the top of a ridge only to see more hills and valleys before us with no logging trail or access road in sight. But mostly I remember my incredible thirst. Our water supplies emptied hours earlier, we looked in vain for refreshment in dry streambeds on a warm end-of-summer day. Weary, soaked in sweat, and incredibly cotton mouthed, I can’t describe our relief when we finally stumbled across a road, determined our location, retrieved our truck and were headed home at last.

It was a humiliating experience at best, one that required multiple explanations over the days that followed to an inquisitive boss, interested friends, and (supposedly) sympathetic spouses. Mine just thought it was funny, and the longevity of our marriage is due in part to the fact that he quickly learned to quit bringing up the subject for laughs in social gatherings of one sort or another. The people around me focused on the fact that I got lost. Yet what made it memorable to me was the absolute joy of being found – the relief of finally coming across a road, the gratitude for the directions we were given, and the satisfaction of finally drinking my fill.

Shortly after this incident occurred I discovered that I was as lost in life as I had been in the woods that day. My job had been going along fine until a transfer to a new city left me lonely and vulnerable. A few missteps in the wrong direction knocked me seriously off course until I gradually came to realize how desperately I longed for a way to get myself back on track. I was tired of waking up each morning to more of the same questions, problems and difficulties, the answers I sought having eluded me once again. I didn’t realize how spiritually thirsty I had become. Desperate to find a way out of my situation, I sought help from a fellow traveler who answered my questions and pointed me in the right direction, a path that led to the foot of the cross.

It likewise was a humbling experience. When that particular morning began I was a 24-year-old college graduate just killing time in the back of a classroom, looking forward to my plans for the rest of the day while my boyfriend fulfilled his weekly spiritual obligation of teaching a Sunday School class to a handful of sixth grade girls. People later laughed to hear that I needed the lesson he taught more than the kids I was with. But I remember the absolute joy of walking out of the room much as I walked out of the woods that day, having moved from Lost to Found, a huge smile framing my face.

One more detail from our Bad-Day-in-the-Woods. When we finally found a road and had made a decision which way to head on it, we soon came upon a small house. My coworker knocked on the door to get directions, but I spied something I needed more. A hose was curled up underneath a faucet on the side of the building. Without waiting to ask permission, I ran to it, turned the spigot, and got the drink I so desperately needed. I drank and I drank and I drank.

Once you’ve discovered how lost and thirsty you are, you don’t necessarily need to wait for the next available church service or to pray with a pastor to ask for a drink of Living Water, good though it is to get direction in those places. You can go straight to the Source and get what you need.

In my case, I found the Road, slacked my thirst, and have been happily heading Home ever since. The same can be true for you.

“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I, the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.”

(Isaiah 41:17,18 NIV)

Woodland Wonder

Today I said goodbye to the woods for the year.

When we first moved to Ohio so long ago now, God planted us just a few miles away from one of His great treasures, Hueston Woods State Park. After four treeless years in a suburb of Dallas, I rejoiced to be living so close to forested acres once more. From the time the first wildflowers pop up in the spring till the last leaves drop off the trees in the fall, I go there on a regular basis to have my spirit refreshed and my soul restored, to sip coffee by the still waters of the lake and hike through my favorite stand of trees, conversing with God all the while. My enjoyment builds from the beauty of the wood violets early in the year to the refreshing green canopy overhead in the summer, till I’m exclaiming with wonder at the splendor in the treetops in the autumn months.

My route to the woods this morning began with a stop at the local Starbucks, where for some reason I was blessed with an extra shot of espresso in my pumpkin spice latte, perhaps just to celebrate the day. As I came to the stop sign that marks the park’s boundary, I looked down the road and saw that it was flooded with sunbeams streaming through the trees. Standing in the midst of them was a deer, grazing on the berm. The view held me spellbound until the doe bounded away at the sound of an oncoming car. I carried my donut and coffee treat to my favorite seat at the picnic table at the edge of the lake. The fish were jumping at this early hour, their scales reflecting the rays of the rising sun, resulting in flashes of light all over the body of water. Off in the distance a rainbow was captured in a patch of morning mist that lay over the lake. A loud squawk heralded the arrival of a great blue heron that flew lazily away in front of me, completing a scene of exceptional peace and beauty.

Coffee gone and donut consumed, it was time to hike in the woods. Leaves rained down upon me on a trail already invisible under a carpet of their yellow offerings. I never leave the woods on this last hike of the year until I’ve caught one in mid-air, a task usually much harder to accomplish than it sounds. So I was surprised when this morning it happened almost too easily and a leaf simply landed in my waiting hands. Normally I would’ve just dropped it when I got to my car and then driven on home. But this one seemed to have a message attached. I felt impressed to take it with me, and soon God told me why.

In recent years my “farewells to fall” are all the more poignant because I know what follows. I simply dread the onset of bitterly cold temperatures, the difficulties of navigation on roads made slick by ice and snow, and the constant worry about the weather. Even the joy of the holidays and the beauty of the season are diminished to some extent by my distaste of the dark and dreary days of December, January and February. I’m simply not a fan of the winter months.

The wonder that I found in the woods this morning was not the beauty of God’s creation surrounding me so much as the revelation that God is very much aware of the cares of my life, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem to others. In His plan to deal with my distaste for this coming time of year He told me to take the leaf home with me, keep it in the pages of my prayer journal and then bring it back with me to return to Him on my first visit back in the spring. As I move through winter I was likewise to move the leaf through the pages of this book I open daily, its passage reminding me of God’s presence in my dark times and His promise of an eventual end to them. It’s a visual reminder of other times when a specific word from God that I found in the leaves of another Book I likewise refer to daily carried me through the difficult days of my husband’s radiation treatments, the turmoil of my sons’ teenage years, and trouble in changing church relationships. Having that hope to hold on to is what made the difference each time in my getting through the difficulty to the joy and peace on the other side.

Surely God doesn’t need the leaf I would return to him, and likely it will be little more than a crumbling mass of cellulose by that time. But I need the promise of an end of the season to look forward to; hope that I can hold in my hands. Likewise many people struggle with situations so much more serious than a mere dislike of the colder months of the year. And they likewise need to know that God cares about what they’re going through, that He’s willing to walk through the dark days with them, His Word a hand they can hang on to each step of the way.

If you don’t have a forest outside your door as I do, know that God will come to your neck of the woods, wherever that may be. Whether you’re the caregiver of an aging parent who no longer remembers your relationship, a mother on a sleepless night watch with a colicky baby, or a lonely widow navigating the first days and weeks of life without your spouse, He’s no farther than the mention of His Name. God will drop hope into your heart as easily as that leaf fell into my waiting hands this morning. The trick, however, is to catch it… to wrap your belief system around it, tuck it away in your innermost being and then carry it with you until you reach your spiritual springtime on down the road. On the stormiest days in your struggle, pull it out and remind yourself that sooner than you think you will be rejoicing with me as we repeat the words of Solomon, “See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…” (Song of Songs 2:11-12 NIV).