A couple of weeks ago my husband was participating in a conference about “other minds” in which experts of various fields came together to discuss the incredibly interesting questions about consciousness, minds, and the truth about reality. It is the type of event that can send you down a spiral commonly known as an intense existential crisis. Victims of this spiral often question their own existence, the existence of others, and whether or not there is in fact a point to their existing.
It is always interesting to me that I end up being invited to these events through my husband and get to have colloquial conversations with people who literally spend their entire lives studying and researching these types of questions. I have been able to discuss some of these questions with world famous physicists, philosophers, and academics from diverse fields.
It is a unique experience because I am constantly placed in situations with experts in their field, and here I am little old me with only my own lived experienced as my source of knowledge, oh, and my secret weapon, of course: the Lord of lords.
As I started reflecting on this fact tonight, thinking about earth day and what this date has come to mean to many, I thought it was appropriate to share what I concluded about consciousness.
What is consciousness and who/what can claim to have it? The conclusion around the dinner discussions is that scientists cannot come up with an agreed upon definition of what is consciousness, and without being able to define it, the conversation often dies or leads to heated verbal arguments since there is no way to prove what is true outside of philosophical arguments.
The Oxford Dictionary defines consciousness as internal knowledge, the state of being mentally aware of something.
To me it comes down to awareness. I believe to be conscious is to be aware – the question is aware of what? Some would argue it means being aware of the self or to be aware of the self and of others. This definition immediately gets complicated because by this standard at what point is an AI with special sensors able to claim being “aware.” I would argue that if we are measuring life and consciousness in this way, we are not far from being able to “create” it ourselves. Also, how could you test if a being that is not human, for example your pet or a plant, is “aware”? This is the question that leads to great debates.
As the question went around, I started thinking of what my own thoughts about this were. Who/what is conscious and how can we understand consciousness? Eventually, someone asked me, and I said the following:
“I believe that everything is conscious, with one key exception, man-made items. The more humans mess with something the less conscious it becomes.”
So what is consciousness?
It came out before I could process it and surprised even myself. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized I had spoken the truth that is in my heart.
I believe that consciousness is the awareness of God. Now this answer is a bit complicated, because some people will argue that they do not believe in God or won’t acknowledge God – but the beautiful thing about the Lord is that even when we think we have removed Him completely from our lives, He continues to be present in it. From every breath we take, to every star that remains in place. This is all the Lord because each of these things obeys the Lord. Which brings up an interesting point – how can something that is a “thing” obey the Lord? I believe it is because everything that Lord has created is in fact conscious and capable of having awareness of the Lord. In fact, certain beings that we consider as less “aware” than humans may in fact that their own personal relationship with God with different levels of ability to obey or disobey the Lord.
In the Bible we have some clear examples of the Lord showcasing this form of consciousness for us in beings that we traditionally do not think as conscious. One of the examples that was always the most striking for me was that of the fig tree in Mark 11.
12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.
20 In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”
I never understood why the Lord would curse a tree for not producing fruit at a time when it was not meant to produce fruit. Yet, the Lord speaks a curse to the plant as if it could in fact understand Him. Yet, in another story of the Bible, as Jesus enters Jerusalem triumphally, He is told by the Jewish leaders to calm the crowd (for they are overjoyed at seeing Jesus and are shouting Hosana in the heavens and celebrating the miracles of the Lord). Jesus responds:
“I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”
-Luke 19:40
The miracle
In my life, plants have played a very particular role in serving the Lord to bring me back to Him and to minister to me about the truth of the Lord.
In college, I fell in love with plants when I learned about the life cycle of angiosperms (seed-producing plants). As I sat in a biology class learning the classic Darwinian perspective about evolution, natural selection, fitness, and the general thrive of species to keep their own line alive – I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit in which I saw my own version of the story. Here I was being introduced to a small, somewhat insignificant plant, the type of plant we all step on while walking through a field without a second thought. Perhaps a dandelion growing in an abandoned parking lot. My professor explained to the class, in true amazement, all the steps that “randomly” happened to create this flower and how natural selection, through a series of errors and impossibilities, led to this exact plant which can reproduce in a very specific way to have its offspring picked up and/or carried by the wind, to a new destination where it will hopefully land on some dirt and create a new flower. Perhaps you were once that young child picking up a dandelion blowball to make a wish and watch as each pappus floated off with a little seed in its cargo.
I sat in that class and saw the hand of God. All of the scientific explanations for how this one single plant exists made it perfectly clear to me that the existence of this single plant in front of me is an absolute miracle. The number of things that could have gone wrong, the number of ways it could have been stopped, the immeasurable obstacles present between a single cell organism to this one flower made it perfectly clear to me that there must be an intelligent design to all of this. However, there was something in the story that stood out to me the most. This miniscule parking lot weed would spend its entire life doing the impossible of surviving without tools, speech, or even the ability to move, with only the hope that their offspring would survive long after they are gone. I could not explain why any organism would risk it all for something they would never get to themselves experience except of thinking of it in one word, faith
.
Furthermore, it turned out that this plant most landscapers are paid to kill with herbicides and other toxic chemicals, is in fact capable of serving as food and medicine for humans and other animals. How could this possibly be true through a random pattern of events? No, this is God showing His power and love to all of His creations. For each has been made to worship Him and know of His love, from the smallest to the largest.
When I first started to believe that there was something greater than myself, I didn’t know how to worship this loving being that had rescued me from the darkness. At that time, I still didn’t know to call Him Jesus or how to love Him again after all the hurt I had been through with churches and so-called Christians. Then He told me one of the most beautiful things, He said learn from the plants. Be like the plants and learn to worship Me as they do.
Want to try an experiment? Go outside, pick a plant (I suggest a tree) and spend some time with it. Really take a look at the being that is in front of you and see how it is in its own way worshiping God. In the teachings of Jesus, He would often use plants as a way of teaching us about the Kingdom of Heaven. He even describes Himself as the true vine and God the Father as the gardener. John 15: 1-17
When we hold on to Jesus as our true vine, we are able to produce fruit. This is what the Lord calls for us to do. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to learn to worship from the plants. Here are some of the lessons they taught me about the Lord.
1. Fully trust in the Lord.
Plants cannot move, they are stuck in one single place, they cannot call for help, they cannot force anything to come to them. They fully trust in the Lord to provide for them everything that they need, even sometimes He uses us to care for them, but many plants are able to grow and thrive fully by the care of the Lord with no human intervention.
2. Worship as you are.
This was probably one of the most important lessons. I often struggled in connecting with the Lord because I had an image of what it meant to walk with God based on what religion had taught me. I thought it would mean having to change myself into a new mold. It is true that when you are born again, things in your life do change, however this does not mean that you should force yourself to fit into a “religion’s” mold. The Lord made you as you are, and although you will start to turn away from sin when walking with the Lord you will see that this is because you no longer derive pleasure from these sins. The essence of your personality, your talents, your gifts are from God and He is very much calling each of us to serve Him as we are. A fig tree cannot become an olive tree. Each has their own purpose and beauty.
3. Your gifts/talents are meant to be shared with others.
One of the most beautiful lessons a learned from specific plants was their selflessness. They are the source of energy and food for most beings, they can be medicinal, they give us all of the nutrients that we need, they convert sunlight into an edible energy source, they served the Lord by making the planet habitable for other types of beings that needed more oxygen and many of them sacrifice everything for the life of their offspring. They give everything they have and ask for very little in return.
4. Everything we have comes from the Lord.
This one may be harder to explain because it very much came to me in prayer. While sitting with my plant friends I started to meditate on the fact that the entire miraculous existence of these plants, and of myself, was due to the Lord. Yes – other individuals, circumstances and situations might have been involved but through each of those the Lord played a role and allowed it to be exactly right for these plants to be here with me in this moment. I could see the love these plants had for the Lord, and I know fully that their fruits are in gratitude for all that God gives to them. I too am to live my life this way, constantly in awe and constantly in love with what the Lord has done for me.
This earth day is a particularly important one because it also marks the start of Passover. Through the story of Passover, the Lord shows us that it is on Him and only on Him that we must rely. He shows us that he has dominion overall and that all He asks for us is to love Him and know Him. I am thankful to the plants for everything they have shown me about consciousness and how to focus my attention on God. I leave you today with one last scripture to consider as you close out this day.
“Go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to every creature.”
- Mark 16:15
You articulate how I have felt for many years. Beautifully done
This post is beautiful