It's the Little Things

I have so many experiences and stories to tell about my time spent at T Bar M Sports Camps. This will be but the first of many accounts of this blessed place in my life. The second summer I coached at T Bar M, I was placed in a cabin called “Bug Tussle” with two other lovely ladies. Jokes began to develop about the three shortest girl coaches being put in such a well-named cabin. The jests came more so after the first week’s age groups were assigned. Bug Tussle was to be a temporary home to twelve 6 to 7 year olds, the youngest age group allowed at Sports Camp, commonly nicknamed “The Babies”.

Now all my life, I have known what it felt like to be the shortest girl in the crowd, and for some of these girls, this was their first time to be away from the families over a week’s time and thrown into a crowd of 200 kids up to the ages of 12. From the beginning, they probably felt smaller than they actually were.

There’s no way to quantify this, but by the end of the week, those girls probably taught us more than we taught them. They were all so courageous on the ropes course, helpful during cabin clean-up, and thankful when they were served their meals. Most impacting was their insight during our morning Bible studies. Those times when I felt like what I was saying to them wasn’t sinking into them, they would chime in with faith-filled, God-honoring wisdom and knock me out of my seat.

I found it interesting that at the beginning of the summer, with all the short jokes connected to our cabin name, we established Proverbs 30:24-28 as our cabin verses. Solomon accounted that,

 “There are four things which are little on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise:

       The ants are a people not strong,

      Yet they prepare their food in the summer;

       The rock badgers are a feeble folk,

      Yet they make their homes in the crags;

       The locusts have no king,

      Yet they all advance in ranks;

       The spider skillfully grasps with its hands,

      And it is in kings’ palaces.”                                    ~Proverbs 30:24-28

All species of ants, from the Formicidae family, collect their energy source in various ways, from predatory, scavenging, or herbivores. One of my favorite methods of cultivation happens to be a more specialized practice. A symbiotic relationship exists between ants and aphids where environments permit. Aphids secrete a high-energy food source called honeydew as they feed on plant sap. The ants feed on this secretion while giving protection to the softer-bodied aphids from predators and “herd” them in such a way so that they found quality plants to consume. In the periods of migration, the ant colony would carry the aphids with them to the new location. I admire ants as the tiniest ranchers on the earth, with their aphids as their livestock. They could harvest from plants, other animals, even fungus. Obviously we don’t think of an ant being strong, but they certainly don’t seem to be in need of their nutrition, as they have the wisdom to prepare it on their own.

The rock badger, also known as the rock hyrax, seems to be the odd example out in this list of four creatures. The other three belong in the phylum, Arthropoda, while this creature is in the phylum Chordata. It’s also probably the less known of the four, especially under the label of “hyrax”.  A rock badger resembles a guinea pig which inhabits rock crevices to stay protected from predators. They tend to live in communities, and similar to prairie dogs, have members take turns standing guard and give alert to the others if a predator is sighted. Their wisdom on survival certainly gives them what they need, despite their feeble physical stature.

I imagine that a swarm of locusts would be a terrifying thing to behold. The truest account of the damage these creatures can inflict upon crops and natural vegetation can be observed best in Exodus 10 as God sent His eighth plague upon Egypt to urge the hard-hearted Pharaoh to let the Israelites go from their slavery. Exodus 10:14-15 says, “And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested on all the territory of Egypt. They were very severe; previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt.” Generals dream of leading soldiers who fought like locust, wholly and undividedly set on their goal, working as a unit to overcome their enemy. Yet a swarm of migrating locust needs no leader. They have their God-given wisdom to swarm together in ranks, so that each individual may be filled and have the energy to carry on their journey together.

Now we come to the never quite-so-loved spider. I’ve met only a few people in my life who wouldn’t mind the chance to observing a spider on any given day. Most civilized people feel the need to dispose of its presence immediately. That’s what I love so much about this verse. Something so lowly and despised is even in the king’s palaces. He wasn’t invited by the king himself. I’m sure most royalty would react harshly toward a spider if it came too close to him. Yet, God gave spiders protection with their unique ability and wisdom to weave delicate, and still, strong webs that they can grasp with their hands. They can go undetected in the corners of their throne rooms building their own living that God provided for them. The God-given wisdom in a spider gives it the opportunity to be given a place in the king’s palaces despite its lowly position. It reminds me of when Jesus said,

“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

~Luke 8:11

That was another lesson my Session 1 Bug Tussle campers taught me, humility. In their thrilling new experience of being away from their families, they were honestly humble. We were not the most athletic cabin, we didn’t win any of the cabin competitions, but our girls were having the time of their life, experiencing things they’ve never done before, like jumping off the Leap of Faith on the ropes course. I pray for them still, that God would continually build on their wisdom, faith, and humility.

King Solomon

I remember the first few rangeland plant identification practices I had. I hardly knew the coach, Dr. Knight, since he sponsored me for a scholarship in the field a few months before college started. I had only spoken to him through email and phone calls. I finally met him at the beginning of my freshman year. When we shook hands, and he asked, “So you’re joining Plant Team right?” I didn’t quite understand at first, but his description sounded familiar to my experiences on FFA teams. They studied, memorized, and matched the names of plant species to their features. Each team member had 60 seconds to identify each one to their family, genus, and species, spelled correctly, along with their origin and longevity. It could be one of 200 species, and we had to memorize every species on the list. I had been a part of a landscape judging team through FFA where we allowed a name bank of the 50 common names we studied. This team is what shocked me into the difference between college and high school, not the classes.

My memorization was truly tested for four years while on the Texas A&M Plant ID Team. I started absorbing bits and pieces of what made each species different from the others.  My friends became accustomed to hearing the excuse “I can’t. I have plant practice,” often from me. Even when I tried to explain to my professors outside of my major that I would be taking a week off from school to travel to Billings, Montana for a national Society of Range Management meeting to compete in a Plant ID contest, I was met with skeptical questions.  It was like I was a part of a strange club.

I’m encouraged by King Solomon’s interest in living creatures. 1 Kings 4:32 states, “He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.” The proofs of his wisdom and song writing are found in the Scriptures within the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Songs of Solomon. The Scriptures also speaks of how Solomon asked God for wisdom when he could have asked for anything. After emphasizing his wisdom, the author of 1 Kings accounts that, “Also he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish.” A man with God’s gift of wisdom spoke of the flora and fauna around him.

I believe in God’s gifts, that He gives us a heart for cultures, ministries, and even fields of study.  When friends asked me what a grass is called in the lawn of A&M’s Research Park, and I respond with Cynodon dactylon, they laugh and tell me not to mix up dinosaur names with grass names. Despite the unusual interest, I have grown a heart for identifying plants, even some insects as well. To identify individual organisms, we can begin to understand and classify plant communities, the animals that live within them, and then classify those areas into ecosystems. The individual builds the ecosystem. Perhaps Solomon understood that also. Either way, it comforts me to know I’m not the only one a step-short of being obsessed with plants, or one of 6 or so students who were also on the Plant Team.

I also find it interesting that within verse 33, he describes the cedar tree and hyssop with more detail than any other type of organism. I love also that “the hyssop…springs out of the wall”. I can imagine Solomon sitting near a brick-laid wall observing hyssop breaking through it. Life had burst forth from concrete. Something so frail could force itself through something we assume to be stronger. Whatever he pondered or spoke further about God’s creation, I’m glad He did.

Real Life

I come from a generation which sadly associates itself with creating and developing "reality television". I'll admit that I had a few favorites of my own, but I could never separate myself from thinking that all reality TV is most likely just like professional wrestling. It's not real - just actors performing their trade. I know this is not a grand surprise to most, but I do think about how producers of these shows pick out people either of phenomenal skill to act like someone you would want to punch for their rude behavior, or they really are just that idiotic. Yet the kicker comes when these shows become so popular. Viewers enjoy seeing people being obnoxiously rude to each other, maybe to make their life seem just as normal or better. In either case, this popular entertainment is now famous for being our reality, or at least dramatically faking it.

Here in lies my point. I come from a generation who would take the fake over what's real, and then call it real. I wish to focus on real life in this blog; relating biological organisms, the biotic and abiotic factors that make up their environment, and how they all together work to reflect their Creator.

As I worked toward my undergraduate degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management at Texas A&M University, the majority of my peers’ loathed classes such as Agrostology and Plant Taxonomy. Both of these classes dealt with identifying and classifying plants down to their species. We would scramble along Texas highways then bring our collections into lab to key them.  This process is meticulous and time-consuming where the most effort comes from trying to distinguish the minute differences like a shape of a lemma, length of an awn, or the specific type of hair present on the stem of the plant. Every step of the keying process offers two options, known as binomials, and both options lead to further binomials until the descriptions are differentiated into the identified species. Careful observation, therefore, is a critical component in the classification process. A wrong turn at any binomial in the key will produce a misidentification. In the midst of the long process, you might not be surprised that some less motivated students would accept their misidentification as their answer. Moreover, for the sake of time, some would even attempt to sight identify the species based solely on what their past experiences have taught them. Success in this method is not impossible, but not as frequent as those who took time to rigorously key out the species. I do paint my generation with a broad brush, but only to explain that even those who choose this laborious field of study today can fall to what’s easier and false instead of what is more difficult to seek out and is truth. In the end, they will pay for choosing the former instead seeking out the truth behind the life of the earth.

                           

Those features on each plant, as small as they are, were sketched by God. Some believers find God’s glory among the galaxies and constellations. I do find His glory among the stars, but ever more so, I see His amazing attention to detail in the tiniest veins on the glumes of a spikelet – meaning the bracts of the solitary spikelet which hold the minuscule florets, or flowers, of the grass (figure below). This is like our life. The details in blades and petals are similar to the details He’s written into our individual lives. He provides us life just as He provided for the individual grasses to take root, survive, and become reproductive. This is reality. He has written the DNA within each of us. Not only that, but He has written our life story, our family story, and our love story. He shares in our darkest seasons and our brightest mornings, and every moment of every day of our lives. To say that you are anything else besides what God has made you and who He's molding you to become is like looking at an apple tree sapling and saying it will become an orange tree. It would be a lie, a fake, and a false reality.

I look to God’s creation as a reminder of the life He has given me, both the physical and the gift of spiritual life I have accepted from Him, and His attention to detail to my time spent on His earth. Though we have already received our physical life, He calls us to accept or reject the gift of eternal life after putting undivided faith in Him. In the midst of the false realities among my society and culture, I hope for this outlet to help me connect biological lessons to the teachings of spiritual life God has taught me and continues to teach me. He wishes to give us the greatest reality we could ever imagine.

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” ~John 10:10