A Community of Tree People

When I was little and would draw pictures in crayons of trees or hillsides or general outdoor scenery, my mom would always say, "Steffie, not all the trees are the same color. Use some different colors when you draw. It will look prettier and more realistic." My art career didn't advance much beyond that, but it reminded me this week about the diversity in nature that exists, and how it is pretty universally seen as beautiful.

No one looks at a hillside of spring or autumn trees, all different colors and heights, with no shade of green exactly the same, and says, "it would be way better if these were all the same color." The same can be said about almost anything alive in nature. Entire hobbies are devoted to discovering different bird types, flower species, whale songs, and even insect variations. Diversity, in nature, is not only beautiful, it is beneficial. There are volumes of sciency things that could be said about that statement, but to keep it pretty simple: the ultimate goal of living things in nature is to remain alive and produce offspring that remain alive. If it were true that all organisms of a certain species lived longest and produced the most offspring when they were all the same, then all those organisms would, in fact, look the same. Clearly this is not the case. And if it were the case that it didn't matter whether or not diversity existed within a species, then we would see some species look all alike, and some have diversity. This is also not the case. The remaining option, is that it is indeed a positive and beneficial living environment for all species when diversity exists amongst their own kind.

"the over three hundred thousand known varieties of beetles led biologist J.B.S. Haldane to consider that ‘God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.’ Why, one must ask, did God make creation so diverse? One can assume only that the wealth of life on earth is due to God’s extravagance. He created the squirrel not because of any real need for squirrels but because he liked the idea of squirrels. Looking upon the natural world, it is easy to sense God’s sheer joy in creation- you can imagine the delight he felt when he came up with the ridiculous idea of giraffes.

The diversity of creation is simply a reflection of who God is. God is diverse. God is triune- three in one. It is often said that the most profound theological statement in the whole Bible is that ‘God is love.’ The truth is that were God a single person, if he were one rather than three and one, we could not know him as love. As theologican Stanely Grenz put it, ‘Self-love cannot be true charity, supreme love requires another, equal to the lover, who is the recipient of that love, and because supreme love is received as well as given, it must be a shared love, in which each person loves and is loved by the other.’ It is only because the Father, Son, and Spirit respond to each other in constantly loving relationships that we can say that the very nature of God is love. The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that God is a community. God is in the constant eternal relationship."
-Intelligent Church by Steve Chalk and Anthony Watkins

Diversity generates stronger and more creative ideas and so produces more imaginative solutions to problems than are likely to result from the best efforts of a single mind. The result of being surrounded by others who will always agree with you is mediocrity. Personal growth and community creativity are born out of the tension of differing opinions, approaches, and insights.

But back to the original discussion of trees. Why is it that it is so easy for us to look out into nature and to see both the beauty and the benefits of diversity, and o difficult for us to do that with humans? Is it because we are less pretty to look at? Is it because we don't step back and look at society in the same way we look at a hillside? Is it that we have not felt the benefits of our differences? Is it that we think we are all the same?

Created things, whether books, paintings, or buildings, tell us about who created it and why. Biologists would call this relating structure with function. All basic biology books talk about how the structure of the natural world, from cells to planets, relates to their function. One does not come before the other, but rather structure and function are inexorably linked and shift together. God, as the ultimate creator, tells us about Himself through His creation. He has told us what our function is- to love God and love neighbor- and He gives us His Word to teach us how to do that, His Son to do it perfectly for us, and His Spirit to move us to do it.

So that takes care of function. What about structure? We can talk about structure in terms of our physical bodies and mental/emotional abilities. I'm interested more in structure as a society, since it communally that we make up the fullness of the image of God. If we see that differences between living things are beautiful and beneficial and tell us something about what God values, how do we structure our society so that it fits the function it has been given? God's Word says a good deal about cities, city structures, and living communally. What strikes me again and again is how He can look at individuals and communities and see the pure beauty He originally created, though fragmented, and ask us to see it too, so that we would understand Him, as our creator, more.

1 The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
-Psalm 50