A Lesson from Mangroves and Banyans:

Breathing Roots

Sometimes, breathing requires thought, intention.

Sometimes, we need to find reasons for its natural ebb and flow or catch it when there's a pause like a stomach punch or a slap to the emotions.

January had some breathless moments for me, moments that required reflection, regrouping, reconsidering. Time to breathe. God knows our gasp, the skipped heartbeat, the need to intentionally inhale life when the wind has been knocked out of us.

"Breathe" has become a popular cultural admonition, bandied about often when someone is overexcited, stressed, or depressed. I've heard friends advise each other to "breathe." Not because they've stopped breathing, but because life caught them off guard, and mind and emotions needed to catch up with their changing climate. One local yoga salon even calls itself "Breathe." The idea behind the word: Slow down. Contemplate.

In January I went to Florida, a haven for America's elderly who are all contemplating ... their next breath. I needed to take some deep breaths. To "breathe," my old friends and I walked, each day, through one of the lovely parks in the Sarasota-Tampa Bay area: the Robinson Preserve, Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island, Emerson Point Park, Selby Botanical Gardens, Myakka State Park, Ringling's Ca' d'Zan grounds.

The Creator draws powerful lessons for us from His Creation. Walks in these Florida parks left me with one overwhelming impression: ROOTS RULE. It is the incomparable power of roots that enables survival in the face of destruction. Roots, God reminded me, enable breathing.

Mangroves and banyans dot and edge these parks. The secret to their endurance and survival in a harsh environment is their roots, roots the Creator has groomed to breathe in the most difficult circumstances.

Mangroves are a twisted jumble of trees and shrubs, growing along rivers and shores in the topics. They are distinctive because they flourish from a tangle of roots. One mangrove seedling sends many roots into the soil eventually spreading into an entire thicket that becomes a birthplace and home for all kinds of creatures. The mangroves spawn a rich ecosystem along the coast.

Leaning into our roots ... Mangroves on Tampa Bay.

They are also remarkably tough, primarily because of their incredible capacity to put down roots that provide oxygen for respiration. Some mangroves grow pencil-like roots that stick out of the mud like snorkels. The roots are covered with breathing pores that can close to keep them from drowning.

Despite the twice-a-day flooding by tides that would kill any other tree, despite the salty water that is 100 times saltier than what other plants can tolerate, despite ocean storms and hurricanes, the mangrove thrives and multiplies, remaining remarkably resilient and strong in the buffeting, battering circumstances of their environment ... because of their unique breathing roots.

Banyan roots.

Banyan trees reconfirm the power of roots. Banyans are the world's biggest trees in terms of the area they cover (the world's largest in India covers 4 acres!). A banyan's roots are breathtaking! The Ringling grounds in Sarasota boast 14 banyans, and some are over 100 years old. They drop roots from their branches, like multi-armed monsters, until one tree becomes a forest of hanging roots. As the tree ages, the stilt roots improve its stability by providing a broader anchorage and support in unstable soil. The aerial roots also help the plant breathe. Like the mangroves, banyans become an ecological phenomenon, sustaining a vast variety of creatures.

These marvels of nature would fail without the roots that sustain, strengthen, and support them.

So what do we do when our grounders are ripped out? When some of our roots are gone? When our breathing is hampered or the things that make life breathable disappear?

Some of my important roots were lost recently. Within one week in January I watched my father step into eternity, followed immediately by a milestone birthday which our society uses as an old age marker. Our culture values roots like family and youth, but these roots are fragile and fleeting. They fail.

Stop and breathe.

But these are not the only roots that hold us in life's coastal hurricanes and twice-a-day tidal flooding. These are not the only roots that support us in old age, help us to become a rich social and spiritual system to enrich our world, sustain us in storms, and cause us to thrive in hostile environments. For roots like family and youth fade and die.

There are deeper roots, roots that won't rot, weaken, or succumb to change and upheaval. Put down in the rich soil of faith, our roots, linked daily to God, to eternity, to purposes beyond our selfish desires, to divine fulfillment ... these roots remain when all around us fails. Strong and tough like the mangroves. Stable and enduring like banyans.

A timely January trip to Florida was God's way of reminding me that my roots to youth and to generations of family here on Layton may disappear, but my roots in God's love, presence, and promises will thrive and survive even when I am 100, even when tempests circle.

Yes, ROOTS RULE, 

and I breathe today

with roots ...

On Layton.

"Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 1:7-8