If you have read Refugia Faith, you know that the book begins by describing the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980. After this devastating eruption, sooner than expected, the ash-covered mountainside began greening up. How did life come back amid all that death-ash? The answer is, basically, refugia—little pockets of life that survived even beneath the layers of super-hot ash.
Here’s something I only learned this week, though: In 1983, when much of the mountain was still a moonscape, a group of researchers wanted to figure out how to help the renewal process along. One study included releasing northern pocket gophers for just 24 hours in limited areas. Well, an article released this month in Frontiers in Microbiomes reports: the gophers made a huge difference in speeding along the greening of the area. Decades later, we can still see the difference they made.
According to an article on the study by Alexa Robles-Gil for Smithsonian, “the gophers played a key role in restoring fungi and bacteria in the soil—and the health of gopher-inhabited areas stood in stark contrast to areas where the gophers had never been.”
Robles-Gil explains that this gopher magic has to do with creating the conditions by which the very foundation of life could repair itself:
The secret to life was mycorrhizal fungi. These organisms are essential to plant growth: They form symbiotic relationships with roots, allowing them to access more nutrients from the soil and protecting them from diseases. The gophers promoted growth of the fungi by burrowing and moving the soil around, which brought buried fungal spores to the surface and introduced new microbes.
Good job, little critters! By digging around and making a mess, they actually jump-started the renewal of a healthy ecosystem.
Gophers do what they do, but in this case, they didn’t necessarily enjoy the assignment. According to another article on this study, by Bill Chappell for NPR, the researchers reported some moodiness among the gophers: “The gophers were grumpy about being taken from Butte Camp, their home on the southern side of the volcano, to the northern area known as the Pumice Plain. Sharing a photo of one, [Mia Maltz, lead author of the study] says, ‘She/he was not happy about being stuck there, or being recaptured for transport back home.'”
I have so many questions. How do you know when a gopher is grumpy? How do you gather them up again once you’ve set them loose? And for our purposes here at the Reformed Journal, could all this be a metaphor?
Why, of course it could. Amid all the disruption and devastation we face, not only in our actual ecosystems, but in the church and in American social and political life, what might it mean for the RJ community—writers and readers—to act as gophers and stir up some soil? Even if we’re feeling especially grumpy right now, could our shared community be a way to keep digging and digging in order create conditions for life-giving networks to mend and grow?
I have no doubt that all of us in the RJ community understand that now more than ever, we have to focus on ground-level networks of caring, faithful, like-minded people, strengthening those networks for the health of our cultural soil. So let’s keep investing in this space, where we engage in thoughtful reflection, offer incisive cultural commentary, ask big questions, share griefs, and have some fun—all to help us keep living faithfully in this difficult and beloved world.
It only took those gophers one day in one small area to demonstrate what some healthy soil-stirring can do, with long-lasting effects. The RJ has been digging away for decades. Will you continue to support us as we do our gopher-work together? Our articles, book reviews, daily blog posts, podcast, and newsletter all come to you free, with no surprise invoices, annoying ads, or niggling fees. Most of this operation runs on volunteer labor, because we believe this work is important. However, it does cost money to sustain our website with professional support and to provide opportunity for long-term planning among editors and writers.
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(Note: As always, I credit Kathleen Dean Moore’s wonderful book Great Tide Rising with introducing me to the refugia idea through the example of Mount Saint Helens.)
* But Wait…There’s More — three new books from Reformed Journal Press in 2025 as thanks for your gift
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- Grounded by Christy Berghoef, spring 2025
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Image credit: Northern pocket gopher, Matthew L. Miller
Gracious grumpy gophers – we’re in. And eager for the books. Thanks to you and everyone.
Life is messy. But we all need our gophers. Thanks, Debra, for the reminder.
Loved the gopher story! Thank you.
I’m witnessing how our “gophers” in my local church have begun to “stir the ‘Lord’s soil'” by getting more involved in the life of and the building of the future church. We are watching as the neighboring RCA and CRC congregations are slowly dying as members leave for the new mega churches that grew out of our discontented members who seem to crave a Bible lesson combined with 30 to 40 minutes of religious entertainment. We on the other hand have never been the largest church, even in our classes, but we have always engaged in community outreach, viewed ourselves as being not only a congregation [we’re in Michigan] but also as a parish who welcomes in our neighbors no matter from what tradition they come from. Our outreach programs are run by our gophers who go out into the community and meet our neighbors where they are. The result: we are gaining new members at a steady pace.
hello here