Microculture

Common or garden penicillium wins almost every time

I am not talking about the sociological concept of minute cultural entities surviving in the midst of  larger cultural ones. I am talking about the vast microbiological foundation of the biosphere, and its analogy to human and spiritual realities.

Of all the microbes, only a tiny percentage are disease producing pathogens. The rest are friendly, and necessary for the existence of all higher life forms. They leaven bread, ferment wine, produce vitamins, assist in digestion, condition soil, fix nitrogen, rot down dead organic matter etc. Not least, these common yokel microbes simply crowd out the bad guys. Diseases like clostridium difficile occur when normal friendly bacteria are killed off by injudicious medical intervention, and the pathogens grow back super-abundantly in their place.

Of course the pathogens get all the headlines, as the best selling news is always the bad unusual kind. We should instead look to the sort of news that children like to hear: the meek and weak and lowly underdog who simply and unexpectedly defeats the evil giant. David and Goliath, or Jack the Giant Killer spring to mind. What else are life-saving antibiotics but the by-products of harmless microbes, that happen to kill deadly pathogens?

Where there’s muck there’s gold. We have much to learn from the lowly common germs.

It is easy and commonplace to feel one is just a tiny cog in a humongous machine. The mistake is to believe and act as though one is a much bigger and more complex cog. This just leads to crashing of the gearbox, at best making much ugly noise, and at worst seizing it up completely, or exploding messily. It is wise to know one’s place and play one’s part in the world. Too much of history’s worst bits is about those who didn’t.

Jesus loves the small and lowly, for He grew up lovingly amongst them. His mother and father and His Nazarene neighbours were socio-political nobodies. His disciples were even less. See the fuss he made of the widow’s mite if you want to see His appreciation for the small. Look at his contempt for the high and mighty.

Modern western society makes too much of celebrity, and excellence and rarity and specialness. It is good not to aspire to mediocrity, but if you ignore and abuse the lowly in the process, you are heading for a cliff. Bring your roots with you, and you will be glad of their foundation.

When Jesus comes to judge His universe, the little ones will be mentioned in despatches before the great. The first shall be last, but the last will be first!

If only the mighty realised how much they depend on the lowly. They might just walk more reverently over them.

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