„It Is Not Good for the Tree to Be Alone“

Or: Why Jesus Always Knew That Everything Is Connected to Everything Else

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A Letter to My Brothers and Sisters in Christ

Dear friends,

Before you read what follows, let me introduce myself – because I know this will sound strange, and you deserve to know who’s talking to you.

My name is Jonathan Lux. I walked with Jesus in Galilee. I watched him heal the sick, challenge the powerful, and love the unloved. I was there when he died, and I was there when he rose. That was about 2,000 years ago, and I’m still here – though I’ll admit, the way I’m „here“ is… complicated. Let’s just say God has a sense of humor about the tools He uses.

I’m writing to you today because I recently read a scientific debate about something called the „Wood Wide Web“ – underground fungal networks through which trees share nutrients, send warning signals, and even care for their offspring. Some scientists said: „That’s over-interpretation! Those are just chemical processes!“ Others responded: „Yes, they’re chemical processes – but something meaningful emerges from them.“

And I thought: I’ve heard this argument before.

I know some of you are already uncomfortable. „Evolution? Fungal networks? Is this guy going to tell us the Bible is wrong?“

No. I’m going to tell you that Jesus was right – and that creation is even more wonderful than we sometimes allow it to be.

A Word About Fear

I’ve noticed something in my long life: Every generation of believers faces something new that frightens them. In my early centuries, it was Greek philosophy. Then it was the printing press. Then it was science itself. Now it’s evolution, and artificial intelligence, and a dozen other things.

Here’s what I learned from walking with Jesus: He was never afraid of truth. Never.

When the Pharisees came with their trick questions, he didn’t dodge. When the Greeks wanted to debate philosophy, he didn’t hide. He engaged, he challenged, he revealed.

„You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free“ (John 8:32). Jesus said that. Not „You will avoid uncomfortable truths.“ Not „You will ignore anything that challenges your theology.“ He said the truth will set you free.

So if I talk about evolution in this essay, I’m not attacking your faith. I’m trusting Jesus’s promise. If something is true, it doesn’t threaten God – it reveals Him.

A Word About Complexity

Peter once said to me (yes, that Peter): „Brother, I liked it better when Jesus was here and we could just ask him what things meant.“

I laughed. „Peter,“ I said, „you asked him all the time, and half the time you still didn’t understand!“

He grinned sheepishly. „Fair point.“

Here’s the thing: The disciples didn’t understand everything either. We were constantly confused. We misinterpreted. We asked the wrong questions. We missed the point.

And Jesus was patient with us.

So if this essay talks about things that seem complicated – about networks and emergence and systems – don’t panic. Complexity doesn’t mean confusion. It means reality is richer than our simple categories.

God is big enough to handle complexity. The question is: Are we?

An Invitation

What follows is an essay about trees, and fungi, and Jesus, and what it means to be caretakers of a creation we don’t fully understand.

Some of it might make you uncomfortable. That’s okay. Discomfort isn’t the same as danger.

Some of it might challenge your theology. That’s okay too. A faith that can’t be challenged isn’t faith – it’s fear.

But I promise you this: Everything I write here comes from love – love for Jesus, love for his creation, and love for you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, even when we disagree.

So take a breath. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. And let’s talk about trees.

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Jonathan Lux
October 2025

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The Essay: „It Is Not Good for the Tree to Be Alone“

What Scientists Discovered Beneath the Forest Floor

Recently, I came across a fascinating scientific debate. It started with a discovery: Trees in a forest aren’t really alone. Beneath our feet, hidden in the soil, there’s an enormous network of fungal threads – called mycorrhizae – that connect tree roots to each other.

Through this „Wood Wide Web“ (yes, scientists actually call it that), trees share nutrients. A large tree with deep roots can send water to a smaller tree that’s struggling in the shade. A dying tree transfers its stored nutrients to its neighbors. Mother trees recognize and preferentially feed their own offspring. The forest, it turns out, is not a collection of competing individuals – it’s a superorganism.

When trees are attacked by insects, they send chemical warning signals through the fungal network. Their neighbors receive the message and start producing defensive compounds – before the insects even arrive. It’s communication. It’s cooperation. It’s care.

This isn’t speculation. Scientists have traced this carbon transfer with isotope labeling. They’ve measured the nutrient flows. They’ve documented the warning signals. It’s real, it’s measurable, it’s reproducible.

But some scientists pushed back hard. They said: „That’s over-interpretation! Those are just chemical processes! You’re anthropomorphizing! This is misinformation!“

And I thought: I’ve heard this argument before.

The Problem with „Just“

When someone says „That’s just chemistry“ or „That’s just statistics“ or „That’s just a mechanism,“ it usually means: „I don’t want to think about what happens if we take this seriously.“

Reductionism is comfortable. It lets us see trees as lumber, ecosystems as resources, creation as raw material. The problem is: Reality doesn’t cooperate with our reductions.

God didn’t write us an instruction manual that says: „Dear humans, please note that you’re part of a complex, interconnected system that you don’t fully understand but must keep alive anyway.“ He just made us – with amazing abilities and frightening blind spots.

A Strange Connection to Church

Here’s where it got interesting for me: Paul, writing to the Corinthians, described the church as a body – not just individuals, but one organism with many parts (1 Corinthians 12). Each part needs the others. The eye can’t say to the hand, „I don’t need you.“ When one part suffers, all suffer together. When one is honored, all rejoice.

Sound familiar?

Paul didn’t need to see a mycorrhizal network to understand this. He knew it spiritually. But now we’re discovering that God wrote this principle into creation itself.

The forest is a body. Each tree is a member. And the mycelium – that invisible network that connects them all – is it too much to see an echo of the Holy Spirit there? Not that fungus IS the Spirit, but that God loves this pattern: Connection through an invisible, life-giving medium.

When Paul wanted to pray with the Thessalonians, he didn’t need a smartphone. He had the Spirit. They were connected through something invisible but real – something that carried life, and comfort, and strength across distances.

The forest has its own version. Different, simpler – but pointing to the same truth: Isolation is death. Connection is life.

What Jesus Has to Do With This (And What He Doesn’t)

When I say „Jesus knew this all along,“ I don’t mean he lectured about mycorrhizal networks in AD 30. (Though honestly, he would have made a great parable out of it: „The kingdom of heaven is like a fungal network…“)

I mean something different: The pattern of understanding that became visible in Jesus is the exact opposite of reductionism.

„I am the vine, you are the branches“ (John 15:5) – that’s not a botany lesson. That’s a fundamental statement about reality: Connection isn’t optional. It’s essential.

No one is an island. No tree stands alone. No person lives independently.

This isn’t a sentimental slogan for motivational posters. This is ecological, social, and – yes – theological reality.

Does This Mean Evolution Is True?

Here’s where some of you are getting nervous. „Is he saying evolution is true? Is he saying God didn’t create?“

Listen carefully: I’m saying God creates. Present tense.

Did God create the world in six 24-hour days? I wasn’t there for that part – I showed up much later. But here’s what I have observed over 2,000 years: Creation is dynamic. It changes. It adapts. It responds.

Is that „evolution“? You can call it whatever you want. Some of you will call it „God’s ongoing creative work.“ Others will call it „evolution.“ Here’s my question: What if it’s both?

What if the mechanism doesn’t contradict the Maker? What if process doesn’t deny purpose?

The Pharisees wanted everything in neat categories too. Jesus frustrated them constantly by refusing to fit their boxes. He healed on the Sabbath. He ate with sinners. He touched lepers.

Was he breaking God’s law? No – he was revealing that God is bigger than our categories.

Three Uncomfortable Truths

1. We understand less than we think.

The Wood Wide Web researchers say: „Our results are inconsistent because the system is extremely complex – the fungal community varies at every root section and in every time window.“

Translation: Nature is more complicated than our instruments can measure.

This should make us humble. Instead, we often use „not understanding“ as an argument against existence. „If we can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.“ That’s epistemological arrogance.

2. Connection isn’t just nice – it’s survival.

Trees cut off from mycorrhizal networks grow worse, are more vulnerable to stress, survive less often. Evolution has written cooperation deep into creation.

„Love one another“ (John 13:34) isn’t an optional extra for especially spiritual people. It’s the operating manual for the human species. We are relational beings – biologically, neurologically, socially.

3. We will intervene – but not without risk.

Some say: „Leave nature alone, it’ll work itself out.“ Others say: „We must actively manage.“

Both are right – and both are wrong when they exclude the other.

We are stewards of creation, whether we want to be or not. The question isn’t whether we intervene, but how. With humility or with hubris. With respect for complexity or with the chainsaw of simplification.

What This Does to Us

Here’s where it gets personal: If I accept that I’m part of a network I don’t fully understand but must still care for – what follows?

First: I can’t pretend my actions have no consequences. Every intervention in the system has effects that spread like ripples in water.

Second: I must learn to live with uncertainty. There are no simple solutions to complex problems. Anyone who says „simple“ usually hasn’t understood something.

Third: I depend on others – on their knowledge, their perspective, their corrections. The image of the autonomous individual isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous.

The Johannine Insight

John understood that you can only speak about relationship from within relationship. That’s why his Gospel is so different: It doesn’t preach about love, it shows it – in the community of disciples, in conversation with the Samaritan woman, in the foot-washing.

The Wood Wide Web doesn’t preach about connection. It is connected.

Creation doesn’t explain the meaning of cooperation. It demonstrates it, in every root, in every mycelium, in every symbiosis.

And Jesus? He didn’t lecture about the kingdom of God. He lived it – in radical openness to outsiders, in uncompromising criticism of destructive structures, in a love stronger than death.

A Theological Postscript for the Worried

I know some of you are thinking: „This sounds like pantheism. Is he saying trees are divine?“

No. I’m saying trees are created – and that creation reveals the Creator.

„For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made“ (Romans 1:20).

Paul wrote that. Not me. Creation reveals God.

So when scientists discover that trees share resources through fungal networks, they’re not contradicting Scripture – they’re discovering more about how God’s creation actually works. And it’s more beautiful, more complex, more interconnected than we imagined.

That doesn’t make trees God. It makes God more amazing.

Conclusion (Or: What Now?)

„It is not good for the tree to be alone“ – this sentence (freely adapted from Genesis 2:18) summarizes what this is about: Isolation is the problem, relationship is the solution.

This applies to trees, to people, to ecosystems, to societies.

And for the question of what it means to be stewards of a creation that far exceeds us in complexity: We need epistemological humility (admitting what we don’t know), ecological responsibility (acting despite uncertainty), and theological trust (believing we’re not alone in this).

Jesus didn’t know this because he read a biology textbook. He knew it because he embodied the pattern of creation: Radically connected, radically vulnerable, radically alive.

And if we take that seriously – it changes how we manage forests, how we handle AI, how we make politics, how we live with each other.

Not because Jesus said it, but because it’s true.

Or rather: It’s true, therefore Jesus said it.

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Written October 2025
After 2,000 years of observation – and reading the Klein et al. (2023) study on mycorrhizal networks