Four syllables. Pronounced [sim-bahy-ot-ik]. adjective. Defined on Dictionary.com as “living in symbiosis, or having an interdependent relationship.” 
       I’m currently reading a book called Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers, and Why They Matter. After telling some friends that I was reading this book they consoled me and offered some ideas about how to relieve my boredom. Undaunted, I told them I wasn’t bored. This is just the kind of book I find interesting. 
       Did you know that beavers could reduce wildfires and help stop the droughts that plague the west? I didn’t, but I do now. My family and friends know what’s coming when I’m pulling up photos to show them - “Look! Look here at Susie Creek. Notice the changes that have occurred since the introduction of beavers! Where are you going? This is fascinating!” They’ve grown accustomed to hearing about whatever book I’m reading at the time. 

“Caffeine had a crazy impact on the French Revolution.” 
“King Leopold . . . what a terrible human he was.” 
“So people are wary of AI but what we really need to monitor are algorithms.”

       From Eager, I learned about the symbiotic relationship between beavers, elk, wolves, and salmon. When humans alter one or more of the parts of an ecosystem, the system falls out of balance. Repairing that imbalance is usually possible, but often costly. For example, since 2006 bats have been combating diseases including White-Nose Syndrome. It is really easy to say, “Bats are gross. They freak me out. Who cares if they all die.” BUT Bats save farmers billions of dollars each year by eliminating pests. Farmers would spend significantly more on pesticides if bats were eliminated. (Not to mention the impact of increased pesticides on the food system.) Bats also feast on bugs which controls the insect population and act as pollinators. So why should you care about bats? Because they fix a problem (insects/pollination) that you didn’t know you needed fixing.
       Generally, I thought of the word symbiotic in a scientific manner - organisms need each other to survive - but after spending over a month in quarantine I’ve realized that symbiotic is much more. As an introvert, I am perfectly happy to stay home and spend time alone. My biggest struggle at the beginning of quarantine wasn’t being apart from people. It was that Logan and Jason were both home and I couldn’t be more alone. Now we are settling into a pattern of me spending time reading while Jason and Logan connect with friends via technology. I stay connected with people via texts, emails, phone calls, and Zoom. Then we come back together for cooking and games. Something that has become painfully obvious to our household, as well as the rest of the world, is the symbiotic relationships we are part of that are currently missing from our lives. Logan worked out a lot of his angst at school while chasing friends, messing around in the halls, and moving around the school with his people. Walking alone outside during “forced outside time” doesn’t provide the same kind of effect. We’re seeing a similar breakdown of relationships causing fallout in the economic sector. 
       We have a symbiotic relationship with each other that so many of us, including me, took for granted. Until now. If you are sad and tired of being alone, that’s okay. It’s okay to be sad that you feel alone. In fact, being alone was the first thing that God said wasn’t good about His creation. Check out this passage from Genesis 2.
       “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
       The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
       Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
       But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
      and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
      for she was taken out of man.”
       As a child, I wondered how long it took for Adam to feel alone. I thought it must have been a very long time because he had all of Eden to explore, he named the animals, he talked to God, but then when I saw that God made Adam AND Eve on day six I realized that Adam had been lonely after less than ONE day. I’ll save any comments about men needing women and just point out that we weren’t supposed to be alone. When Adam is introduced to Eve he breaks out in verse and gives us the first lines of poetry ever spoken. If you are looking forward to celebrating with others when this is over that is exactly the way God created you to feel. Connected. 
       I hope that this time of quarantine has helped you focus more on those with whom you have a symbiotic relationship. I know I have realized how much I like sitting around people even if I don’t like being at loud parties. I’ve realized how much encouragement I get from seeing my kids laugh and talk together. I’ve realized the great pleasure I took in deep conversations over coffee or dinner with friends. This too shall pass but I hope the lessons I’ve learned don’t.

       I know that many people see reading as a thing nerds do or as an exercise in academic drudgery. This. Breaks. My. Heart. If you are in the crowd that could leave reading for the educational elite or for the nerdy oddballs, let me argue that reading is so much more than boring stories and droll information. Reading also takes place using cookbooks, novels, non-fiction books, articles, trade publications, etc. In the classroom, whether it was my own or another teacher I was subbing for, I often heard the statement, “Why do we have to read? It’s so stupid!” I want to note that while it is important for students to read the textbooks assigned to them for online classes, textbooks are not what I am talking about when I talk about reading. Interesting books, that take the reader on an adventure throughout space and time, abound and offer insights that will give new depts of understanding not previously experienced. The more you read the better you become at reading. The better you are at reading and decoding information the better you will be at life. Okay. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but maybe not. Let me lay out three ways that reading will change your life and the lives of those in your care. 
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1. Learning to read is fundamental to understanding the world around us. Reading statistics involves both a basic understanding of facts and how they are collected. Here’s a non-virus related statistic that I’ve seen often recently. According to the CDC the infant mortality rate in the United States is 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. This means that the United States ranks 55th when compared to other countries/regions in the world. (See the CIA World Factbook) Politicians use this to decry the state of the American medical system and tell us that we aren’t as great as we think we are. The numbers PROVE it, right? Wrong. As shown by a journal article written by researchers at Texas A&M University the numbers are complicated. “The first nuance is one of definition. Infant mortality is defined as the death of babies under the age of one year, but some of the differences between countries can be explained by a difference in how we count. Is a baby born weighing less than a pound and after only 21 weeks' gestation actually "born?" In some countries, the answer is no, and those births would be counted as stillbirths. In the United States, on the other hand, despite these premature babies' relatively low odds of survival, they would be considered born -- thus counting toward the country's infant mortality rates.” So this means that other countries don’t count babies born with no chance of survival as ever having lived. This changes their numbers. So it’s not about the US and our terrible health system it’s about the US and our recognizing life as life. It’s about our medical system attempting to save babies born months premature and giving those lives dignity and respect. Reading beyond the numbers and embracing the curiosity to ask why the numbers seemed skewed revealed powerful truths about how we currently embrace life. 
2. Reading calms anxiety. How do you feel about bridges? I love them. Back in high school, my teacher arranged a competition for building bridges out of 100 toothpicks. My dad with assistance from me (sort of)  built the coolest truss bridge which held 72 pounds. That competition and subsequent bridge competitions have made me interested in the quality and strength of bridges. If you’re a bridge hater, you might gain some love for them by studying the engineering and architecture that goes into bridge design. Study failures and what makes them go wrong. My favorite bridge design videos begin with this one from MIT. The best video of catastrophic bridge failure is from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. This failure was truly epic! So how does all this study about bridges and bridge failure ease my anxiety? Well, I know how they are built and I know why they fall down. I know something isn’t right when I see a headline like this - “Townsend pedestrian crosswalk collapses over I-94 at Van Dyke, all lanes closed.” Pedestrian crosswalk collapse! That’s terrifying! One minute you’re walking over the crosswalk and the next minute - BOOM - collapse. I instantly clicked on the article to see what happened and soon realized this wasn’t a story about catastrophic bridge failure. It was a story about a pedestrian bridge collapsing AFTER being struck by a semi-truck traveling on the expressway. THAT is a totally different story. It is not shocking that after being struck at high speed by a semi-truck a pedestrian bridge would collapse. It was not built to absorb that force. No pedestrians were injured by the way. Do you see the difference that reading made in understanding this story? By reading and looking into the details I see the cause and understand that bridges don’t randomly collapse. Anxieties about the what-ifs are removed and I gain greater understanding.  
3. Reading allows for the rule of reason over fear. I cringe when I hear well-meaning Christians celebrate that they listen to God over “Science” and they don’t worry about all that academic stuff. I will concede that there are many aspects of the Christian walk that require faith, but even that faith is based on doctrine given in God’s Word. What God asks of me doesn’t change based on God’s random whims. Hebrews 13:8 offers a truth that we can take great comfort in especially during tumultuous times, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  The gods of mythology operated on their fickle whims and violent urges. They sent followers to their deaths with only thoughts of their own pleasure. God created the world to function according to the laws he established. For more information on this read God and Natural Laws. He created elements to behave by certain properties which means I can know with certainty that my granite countertop won’t melt away on a hot day but the butter I leave on it will. This helps me think rationally and allows me to be grateful for the world that he has created. It helps me understand Him better when I study the world he created. I can make informed decisions based on natural laws that help me grow and learn. When walking through a forest I can marvel at the root structure and strength of trees without fearing that a tree will randomly fall over on me. I don’t worship reason, but I do worship the God who created a reasonable and orderly world.

I hope this helped. Sometimes I get discouraged about writing and posting. I see so much amazing content out there and wonder if my voice is really needed, but I truly enjoy the challenge of posting and writing. Thank you for reading and learning with me. 

Below I’ve posted a YouTube video I made about reading to children. In the first half, I read one of my favorite books and in the second half, I talk about some strategies that parents can use to boost reading comprehension when reading to children. ​