“Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!” (Romans 1:20 Good News Translation)
If you recognized the word that is used for our title today immediately, I applaud your botanical intellect, your literary understanding, and/or your knowledge of Latin. I’ll admit, I didn’t know what it meant. Well, why did I write it? Here’s why? I came across this word dusting off some of the decorative items that for some, “have no real meaning” or “serve no real purpose.” Each to his own when it comes to décor, right?
This word I had never seen before, “Phytographia,” was the title of a fake book, actually a storage box made to look like a book that I had strategically placed in the house. For some reason I decided to look it up.
The definition I found pointed to “plant writings,” how the inscriptions of plants are intertwined, interwoven into an author’s artistic work. The same source commented on humans wondering, “What if plants can tell their own stories?” Preposterous, right? Absolutely ludicrous, right?
Now here is where certain objects in your home, seen as merely for decoration, can be viewed through a spiritual lens or prism. That’s what I did, and I was moved to think, “What would the plants in our home, our office, our garden, or in our yard have to say about us if they could speak, telling a story or two about us?” For instance, if the plant was disappointed in how we actually lived versus our acclaimed individual status of being a child of God, would the plant droop to the point that it looked lifeless? If so, perhaps it would be speaking to us, personally, to start stepping up higher spiritually where our saved and new creature status is never in doubt. If the plant saw us letting our light shine, from its stationary location, looking on as it set in its designated place, would its leaves, or flowers reach up in joy, pleased that that we, again on an individual basis, were being obedient to our Savior’s commission to make disciples? If the plants outside or inside your church, the real plants, not the artificial type, saw evidence that the real membership was doing good maintaining and expanding its ministries, would the plants start showing new growth on the stalks visible to the human eye? When you were contemplating getting off the narrow path of righteousness, and you looked over at the plant, would you see it distinctly, definitely staring at you as to say, “Now, wait a minute! That’s not you…not the new you!” In other instances, would other plants, not well cared for literally, “speak” to you figuratively, silently, questioning your stewardship?
Phytographia, it’s just a new word to me. However, as I looked at plants, not through a microscope used in botany, but rather a microscope that revealed one’s spirituality and faithfulness, I personally was moved to be a better person today, November 17, 2022. How about you? Have a thriving Thursday. Look for the Phytographia! Watch those plants! Some our too busy lifting leafy arms above, as to God! Don’t let the plants out pray you or out praise you today! Smile! Be blessed!
“Let all things praise the name of the Lord, because they were created at his command.” (Psalm 148:5 Contemporary English Version)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King