The Parable of the Gut Bugs
Lately, I’ve been contemplating the tiny multitudes that live within me — my microbiome.
A bustling metropolis of creatures, hard at work pulling nourishment from impossible fibers, manufacturing mysterious chemical signals, and ensuring I remain comfortably bloated and occasionally musical.
But beyond their noble work ethic, they also whisper to my brain — through the ancient gut-brain expressway — nudging my moods, tweaking my cravings, gently sculpting my personality into whatever odd shape it currently holds.
Without them, I’d perish.
Without me, they’d perish.
A perfectly ridiculous marriage.
And yet… I wonder:
Do they have any inkling of what I am?
Do they imagine the vast universe beyond their warm, intestinal Eden?
Do they sit in tiny gut-bug churches, praying to the Great Digestive Spirit?
It’s absurd, of course.
Their reality is small, local, immediate — and blissfully ignorant of the host they help create.
Just as we — proud and puzzled creatures — stumble around, pretending we grasp the nature of God, the universe, or our place within either.
We are gut bugs in the belly of existence.
We are Russian nesting dolls wearing smaller dolls and being worn by bigger dolls, endlessly.
Maybe “God” is as oblivious to me as I am to my probiotic citizens.
Maybe, unknowingly, we are shaping the cosmic gut just by existing, just by living out our tiny lives.
I am my gut bugs, and my gut bugs are me.
I am God, and God is me.
We are made of star dust… and we are the builders of stars.
Gnomeaste, dear friends.
(May your microbiomes be ever flourishing, and your farts ever righteous.)
