The Interstitium
The Interstitium: 15 June 2024
Jack and Emma declared our Florida trip the best vacation ever. Disney World, Universal Studios, and time with friends in Florida. It really was fantastic and I’m so glad we (past tense) went. It was a lot of work for me—beginning in October when I first started researching tickets and resorts. Even harder was figuring out the rides/shows/strategy for each park. It went as smoothly as it could possibly go, our only hiccup being the unseasonable heat. But hey, no flooding or hurricanes, so I’m grateful. The heat did ruin Epcot for us; it was 99 degrees that day, the real feel hovering around, say, burning lava. We felt a little gypped that we couldn’t enjoy all the international stuff because so much was in direct sun. The summary of our disappointing Epcot day was that, surrounded by international pavilions featuring native foods, we spent 90 minutes in the America pavilion BBQ place because it was a large indoor dining area with air conditioning. America.
On the last day we played at Universal’s water park, Volcano Bay. There was a 125’ straight drop plunge ride, various multi-person raft slides, a lagoon with sandy beach, kiddie rides. But our favorite was the fearless river, which was a lazy river with a stronger current and an occasional big wave that created rapids. It took about six minutes to circulate. We circulated a lot.
I’ve been thinking about the fearless river this week as I’ve been learning more about the Interstitium. Have you heard of it? It’s an organ in the body that has just been identified, one might say noticed, in the past decade, at least in Western medicine. It’s the system of connective tissue surrounding everything in the body and, we now know, providing a constant flow of information. We knew about the connective tissue, but because scientists only viewed it in dissecting slides, it had always only looked like cracks in the desiccated tissue. But thanks to a new endoscope, scientists have seen it in living tissue, and eventually realized that far from being a solid wall, it is a spongy, honeycombed structure filled with fluid, an astonishing 25% of all bodily fluid. That’s about four times more than the body’s amount of blood! It’s the unsung, unnoticed connector that, literally, holds it all together.
It's very new. It needs more study. Its implications multiply across all pathology. It’s probably the way that cancer metastasizes and why it can travel so quickly throughout the body. It could be the structure that Eastern medicine has identified as meridians, channels of energy flow, and sometimes blockages, in the body. It’s an astounding discovery of something that’s been in plain sight for millennia.
Listening to the Radiolab episode about this, which you absolutely should do today, I was struck by something Dr. Neil Theise, one of the doctors who first discovered this, said. That everyone who’s ever gone to medical school has learned, and he, himself had taught, that connective tissue was a dense wall. So, when they saw it under microscopes they never questioned what the living tissue might look like. Those cracks? That’s just connective tissue.
But the story ends with Dr. Theise quoting Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder of San Francisco's Zen Center, who said that in the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities, in the mind of the expert there are few. Dr. Theise reflects, What had I been taught that got in the way? What am I missing now?
Or, as Alan Kay said, A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
Alan Kay is the computer scientist who, among many achievements, helped create, and name, Object-oriented programming. Bear with me for a little technical interlude. From Wikipedia: OOP is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects which can contain data and code: data in the form of fields (often known as attributes or properties), and code in the form of procedures (often known as methods). In OOP, computer programs are designed by making them out of objects that interact with one another.
But, in 2004 Kay said, “I'm sorry that I long ago coined the term objects for this topic because it gets many people to focus on the lesser idea. The big idea is messaging.”
From this foundation Kay went on to create the first Windows-based operating system, as well as pioneering early mobile-learning. He created the paradigm and language for a system with interconnected parts functioning as a whole, connected by constant, usually unseen, messaging. I like to think: a system held together by the Interstitium.
Last night at the Montreat square dance I got a little teary doing the Alleycat novelty dance. I remember practicing the steps with Mama on the brick patio that, until recently, was the foundation for the current porch. Right foot front twice, left foot front twice….clap, turn. I was in a line with Jack, and Emma was in the line behind, but they were with their own friends and not wanting to be with mom. I’m so happy that I’ve been able to create for them the childhood I wanted, but I also still mourn that unlived life.
Multigeneration square dances, Sunday worship, hiking trails, ongoing friendships, conferences, 4th of July parade: these are the Interstitium of Montreat summers. This is the connectivity that holds the institutions together, the unnoticed fluid that swirls around the community, creating a functioning system of disparate objects, united in love of a place. A place that connects us to God, the Source, the Flow.
So I’ve been playing with a new symbolic image of the triune God. God the organs, God the honeycombed fractal cells of the Interstitium, and God the fluid swirling through the highways of the body, animating and nurturing the Whole. It’s not perfect. But it speaks to God as both noun and verb, which is what makes most sense to me.
I also like remembering our little family circulating in TeAwa, the fearless river, propelled by the current, flowing through the volcano, making room for fellow floaters and exiting onto the sandy beaches. I wish I’d known, then, about the Interstitium. We could have pretended to be fast cancer cells infiltrating another part of the park. Or the treatment cells that break the running feet off of those cancer cells. Or the unblocked energy flow let loose by an acupuncture needle. Or the Holy Spirit, connecting everyone and everything to the Source, reminding us that we are loved. Reminding us that we are Love.
What have we been taught that gets in the way? What are we missing now?
