The Mushroom Knows-Lori Wilson

God speaks to me in the most interesting ways. Today I was caught by a mushroom. Small. Brown. I don't even like to eat mushrooms, but this one called my name. I noticed it last night, and this morning it called even louder. Okay, I said. What do you have to say to me?

What came up was the function of fungi: interconnectedness. And it turns out, the science is as mysterious as the invitation.

Mushrooms are the visible fruiting bodies of fungi, but beneath the surface, they are part of vast underground networks called mycorrhizal networks -- sometimes called the Wood Wide Web. Through thread-like filaments called mycelium, trees and plants share nutrients, water, and even chemical signals with one another across an entire forest. They are, quite literally, in communion. Scientists like Suzanne Simard and author Merlin Sheldrake have documented this in ways that feel less like biology and more like theology.

Which made me wonder about my own connection to life. Where do I recognize it? Where do I resist it?

With the people who get me, I can feel it so clearly and easily. And goodbyes feel like part of me being cut off. In the places that draw me: the water, the forest, birds, flowers, the created world, I feel like I am home.

My stretch point is with people I feel disconnected from. Are past hurts keeping me from being as open as I could be?

Where are you inviting me, God, to be more like my mushroom guide?

Paul knew something about this. Writing to the Corinthians, he described the Body of Christ as a living network of belonging: "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." (1 Corinthians 12:26) The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. We are made for each other. We are made of each other.

The necessity of connection is real. And when I allow myself, I can feel it. Maybe my urge isn't that I don't feel connected; maybe my urge is to cut others off. It's me who does it. My own need for protection. My worry about past hurts, about being hurt again, about being rejected.

But the mycelium doesn't stop growing because the soil is difficult. It finds a way.

My desire is to be open to all, to see my connection to the world, to all of creation, to the people of my global family, more easily and more regularly. And like the mushroom, I have agency. I can make connections. I can grow and become more than I am. I can recognize the connections I already have to everyone and everything. I can make them stronger. I can recognize my own fear and hesitation.

There is the invitation again.  Thank you, God.

For Reflection:

• What holds me back from connection?

• How might I begin to release that fear?

• What is waiting for me on the other side?

A Closing Prayer:

God of total connection, mystery of the universe, eternal force between and among us,

Help me tap into that energy and spirit more fully and completely, so I can help multiply good and love in this world, and be more firmly planted in that field of divine being.

Amen.