God Rot

And [God] will destroy… the covering that is spread over all nations; [God] will swallow up death forever. – Isaiah 25:7-8 (NRSVUE) 

For 60 or 65 million years, something like 350 million years ago, a totally bonkers thing happened. These tall woody plants called trees had developed, with the lignin and cellulose in their cells necessary to hold them up nice and tall as they reached for sunlight.  

But while trees had evolved, things that could effectively biodegrade them had not. No bacteria, no fungi were yet on the scene that could eat all that lignin and cellulose. Which means that when the trees died, they just … stayed. Forever. Trees grew, died, fell, and stayed. Grew, died, fell, and stayed, piling up and up with all their nutrients locked in tight, no way to release them, no way to reuse them unless a wildfire happened along. For 60 million years, whole swathes of the planet were covered with this death, slowly sinking down into bogs, there to become coal. 

Eventually, fungi and bacteria evolved that could eat the dead wood effectively, freeing its component parts for use. Suddenly, the wood could become all manner of new things. Suddenly, the wood could rot. Rotting is the process that turns fatality to vitality, that allows new life to proceed from what has lived before.  

Rotting is the thing that swallows death. Rotting is the thing that transforms it. Rotting is why pretty much every ecosystem you’re familiar with today exists. Rotting is why you can exist. Without it, death covers everything. 

We always look skyward for our new life. I really can’t imagine why we don’t look down more often, into the rot that makes us possible. 

Prayer
Our Fungus who art underground, rot all that is dead within me and turn it to new life. Amen.

About the Author
Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.