rambler, Author at ironmaneden.com

Blog #14: Tree on Fire on a Mountain

by rambler on Jul 4, 2022 category athlete, bible, coinhabit, Creation, elohim, Genesis, god, hebrew, medicine, order, plant-based, renewal, sacred mountain, triathlon

My wife was telling me about a podcast she was listening to while coming home from work one day, She Explores, which in general highlights stories of women’s experiences in nature and how these relate to life experiences in business, equality, family, etc. This particular piece was about the Cairn Project, who in their words, “expands outdoor access by supporting community-based wilderness and outdoor education groups around the country through a small grants program for girls and young women.” One of the groups they support, Embark, is involved in providing outdoor mentorship to refugee girls who are resettled within Utah. Through exposures to the mountainous natural world, whether it be camping, rock climbing, or other wilderness adventures, the organization gathers recently resettled girls from various countries around the world, including from Asia and Africa, and provides an avenue to test themselves, learn new skills, and develop self-confidence. Their idea is that learning to conquer physical challenges in this environment will give them the belief that they can also conquer the numerous other challenges that come with being a resettle female refugee. Having to learn a new language, a new order to basic community infrastructure, a new way to travel and collect daily items is something most of us have never had to do. Hopefully, challenging oneself in the shared outdoor environment, in physically difficult situations, will lead toward growing resilience and leadership skills that many of their participants have yet to uncover in their life journeys.

Since moving to western North Carolina 13 years ago, I have called the mountains home (excluding a year living in northern Ghana). Between the Blue Ridge and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, our back doors have been the first step toward individual and family adventure, whether it be running or cycling on the Blue Ridge Parkway a few miles or a few tens of miles, hiking the narrow trails in the crevices of the Hoh River rainforests towards Mount Olympus, or taking one of the numerous trails at either place for a day outing. Among my first memories of northwest Washington is the mountain range on Vancouver Island sitting atop the Strait of Juan de Fuca and hovering beneath a clear blue sky. Later memories include the same mountain range peaking out from low fog over the strait, as well as those tops covered in clouds and the green bases staring at us across the water, dwarfing the freight lines headed for the ports of Seattle and Vancouver. There never seems to be a shortage of fun and inspiration from our local environments, no matter the season. As summer approaches, the return of tourists on the Blue Ridge Parkway will be a reminder of the draw to the mountains, for vistas, fresh air, physical activity, serenity, challenges, etc.

We are drawn to mountains for several reasons. The grandeur of them towering above all surroundings is breathtaking and can make us feel small and in awe of their massiveness. The different ecosystems they house provide delicate complexity to the balance of the greater environment and draw curious souls to come observe them meticulously and artistically. The ways they affect local climates draw people to live under their rain shadows. The ways streams and pools interact with rock and slope create some of the most beautiful and dangerous meetings of earth and water on the planet. We are drawn to them for their beauty and their challenge. A level of physical strength and endurance is required to explore and intimately learn these places, whether it be through scaling peaks, crossing glacial fields, or hiking on primitive trails. Several mountains are easily accessible with day hikes on tamed paths, but by far the majority demand a deeper commitment and focus to get to know. We often go to them to test our mettle, to build strength, whether it is mental, physical, spiritual, or social.

It should be no wonder that these places feature frequently in the Hebrew Bible, as places of challenge, places to meet the divine, places of uncertainty. In the first reboot of creation, the ark that contained all the preserved land animals comes to rest upon Ararat, which also hosts the first burnt sacrifice on an altar. Mount Moriah is where Abraham takes his son to offer as a sacrifice, only to have a provision in his place, hence passing his test. The story of Elijah calling upon Yahweh to ignite a water-soaked sacrifice and prove His power to the Israelites happens on Mount Carmel. The transfiguration of Jesus of Nazareth is said to have happened on Mount Tabor, and the Mount of Olives is where Jesus has his final test in the Garden, where the Jewish scholars and Roman soldiers seize him.

All the above stories have an element of danger in them, points of uncertainty of what is happening and what is coming next. Symbolically and physically, mountains represent danger, places where the weather can change lethally and without notice. Add the presence of God in the mix and that aura is increased exponentially. In three of the above stories, fire is present, just as on Mount Sinai in the tree where Moses first speaks with Yahweh.

While Eden isn’t explicitly stated to be on a mountain, we can surmise that the garden is in fact on the top of a mountain. Four rivers flow forth from Eden in Genesis 2: the Tigris, Euphrates, Gihon, and Pishon. Scholars debate the location of the ancient Gihon and Pishon Rivers, with several believing the Gihon flowed through Ethiopia, making it physically impossible for all four rivers to come from the same source. Again, reading the Bible in its context, the point of this description is likely to say that all of life, all of civilization, flowed forth from this cosmic mountain. In the metaphor of all life-giving rivers flowing from a single source, that source would have to be higher than everywhere else, hence a mountain. Several ancient religious traditions have the idea of a cosmic temple mountain, like Eden.

Many modern Christians probably think of Eden as a lavish, peaceful, perfect resort garden where everything was at its pinnacle. I wrote earlier how this was unlikely the case in reference to human work being part of our calling. If Eden is a cosmic mountain, where God lived, would its presence in the garden appear as a peaceful, serene singularity? Or would it be expressed more so how it was elsewhere in the Bible, as fire in a tree, a storm cloud upon Sinai, or fire raining down from heaven onto an altar? This brings us to the point in the garden where the presence dwelled: the Tree of Life. God-Elohim commanded humans to eat from every tree in the Garden, including the Tree of Life, and not from one specific tree. Why did Eve and Adam not eat from this tree, which was right next to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? The latter was “good to the eye”; was the former not?

The burning bush (s’neh tree) on Mount Horeb was fear-striking to Moses; the entire mountain (s’neh  Sinai) was fear-striking to the Hebrews. Could the Tree of Life have appeared similarly to the Adam, as a tree radiating with fire, striking fear into the hearts of humankind? God’s presence must have appeared impossibly powerful and challenging. It didn’t appear safe in their eyes, and the alternative tree did. Likewise, the Tree of Life on top of the mountain garden is not safe in our eyes. It will strike fear in our hearts. Its future revelations in the Bible appear equally deadly, even shameful, whether it be on Sinai, Mount Carmel, or on Golgotha where Jesus of Nazareth hung from a Roman execution rack, also referred to as a tree by some Christians. Synonymous to eating from the Tree of Life, approaching God and submitting to his wisdom appears counter-intuitive and treacherous. It means exchanging our version of prudence for one that is hazardously foreign to our comprehension of the world. It is here, on top of a mountain, where humans can come near to the spirit and decide whether to take from the tree that appears perilous but ultimately leads to the vision of the same tree in Revelation 22, which provides fruit continuously and medicine for the world.

Humans have looked to mountains for millennia in search of something, whether it is God, themselves, or nature. I have yet to climb a mountain and see a tree on fire. Odds are I won’t. Not physically. Recently I participated in an Ironman race in Tulsa. While not known for mountainous terrain, the last mile was an uphill shot to the finish line. Lucky for me I didn’t see a burning tree at the end, otherwise I would have questioned a turn I took somewhere on the course (Tulsa was busy that weekend with several events going on. There may have been a gathering of folks burning trees to celebrate or denote something). But I did get a rush of joy and satisfaction at finishing the event. It reminds me of all the Eden hot-spots around us all the time, whether at the finish lines of grueling athletic events, in personal or community gardens with veggies percolating under the soil to create life for several organisms, or sharing coffee and conversation with someone. Somewhere in all those places perhaps is the semblance of a tree on fire.

Blog 13: coronavirus: apocalypse or new creation?

by rambler on Jun 21, 2022 category animals, coinhabit, coronavirus, covid, covid-19, Creation, Genesis, grass, renewal, working the earth

Several media pundits and commentators have compared the novel coronavirus outbreak with a catastrophic apocalypse, an end of times event not seen for a few generations. Since the initial outbreak, this globe-changing particle has spread rapidly throughout our interconnected world at a pace never seen before in human history. It has infected people of all ethnicities, with small, but present, regard for social status or individual notoriety. Hospitals all over the world have been overrun with patients, equipment needed to treat the sickest has dwindled rapidly, and body bags have been in high demand for many of the more advanced countries. At the time of this writing, as we all remain at home at this point several weeks into quarantine, with the end nowhere in sight, the feeling of societal catastrophe continues to set in, knowing that neighbors are dying, social isolation is the norm, and economic recession will likely greet us whenever the rates of infection have dwindled enough to allow us to return to our prior way of living. No wonder many have used the term apocalypse to describe our world in 2020.

While many people have been either out of work, furloughed, or working from home, I continued with my daily commute to the clinic. During this grim time, I couldn’t help but juxtapose what I would hear on the radio on that drive to work with what I saw all around the Alleghany County countryside. Spring had arrived. Skies were blue, the air crisp, leaf buds popping out of the ends of tree branches, and birds singing their ruach to the wind. Bees swarmed out ready to pollinate our flowers and grasses. Trees were actively sprouting new branches. Deer returned back up the mountain for the springtime migration. In this sense, the earth was cycling on annually as it has for time immemorial, not knowing that that humans are dealing with something that cycles every century.

Through all the chaos and heartbreaking stories of young and old getting sick from this virus, there are redemptive stories of what is happening to the earth since global lockdown went into place. The canals of Venice became suddenly clear, with fish visibly meandering through them without having to dodge gondolas. The globe was no longer physically oscillating, as it had been when human activity was at its peak. Pollution levels were drastically cut everywhere, with visibility at levels never seen by this generation throughout the most populous cities on Earth. Some animals were found venturing into human habitat, where fields and forests once occupied the space. Humanity’s detrimental footprint was, for the time being, quickly beginning to be filled in with the healing processes that push Nature back toward homeostasis. This sounds like the opposite of an apocalypse from Nature’s perspective. This is a renewal, a return of our environment to its prior functionally pure state. Our bodies have unimaginable means by which to heal themselves. The Earth does as well.

This picture of the earth returning to what it was brings up ideas of a return to New Creation, a revival from the apocalypse the earth found itself in. This obviously is not the first time an event like this has happened which lead to a renewal of the earth from the hands of people. Plagues, wars, any event that lowers the human population burden of the globe may end up creating an opportunity for a natural revival. It’s a cyclical phenomenon of destructive humans being removed in order to maintain some integrity of the order by which the world works. In the Hebrew Bible, the flood narrative is one of the earliest examples of this event. I cannot help but think the coronavirus has played a similar role, a natural result coming out of human indifference for the functionality of our planet as told by both the science of ecology, human physiology, and Genesis 1. The natural correction is this: by targeting the factor causing chaos, the natural order now has a chance to return itself to what it was meant to be, the glorified reflection of the creator being.

In the last posting, I wrote about the direct link between humans and coronavirus and the practices that led to the global infiltration. This perhaps could have been prevented if we were able to live according to the paradigm laid out in Genesis 1. We were not. So a natural cause-and-effect judgment has come, a judgment similar to what typically happens when years of poor health choices lead to chronic diseases. A similar story is outlined in the book of Revelation, in which the writer sees a series of images that represent the powers of the world that have risen prior to their great fall, namely Babylon in the guise of Rome, the modern worldly player of the time of the book’s writing. And the author John describes his lamentation of the fall of this beast, seemingly the opposite of what we would expect the attitude of the reader/writer to be, until we realize we are to put ourselves in John’s perspective, in the role of propping up Babylon. The destruction that is occurring is of that which we have built up in the world. The book Let Creation Rejoice by Jonathan Moo and Robert S. Smith gives a great guidance through this part of Revelation. The described “babylonian” world in Revelation 18 portrays a queen who enjoyed the goods from the merchants of the ends of the earth, things which many of us moderns enjoy currently which may not in itself be bad except that it comes at the cost of “the bodies and souls of human beings.” A human structure of the epitome of Good at the involuntary expense of others. It could be construed that Babylon may even have been built on the involuntary expense of creation, removed from its purpose to meet our desires. As I mentioned earlier, even the author John is mesmerized by our created order and laments at its fall. However, there is a way out of this fallen idol in which we dwell, as a voice from heaven calls people to “come out of her, so that you may not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”

What follows after the collapse of Babylon is the celebration from the “multitude in heaven…representatives of the created order” (Rev 19:1-4) for the reclamation of creation by God, with the time for “destroying those who destroy the earth.” This may be done with the created order wreaking the havoc that was asserted against itself. In time, what is left is found in Rev 21-22, a new heaven and earth, with the holy city coming out of heaven to earth, for God to live among the people in this new earth. God has made all things new, not all new things, an important distinction to tell us that his purpose is not to scrap the earth and have followers enter a new pie-in-the-sky heaven, but rather to reclaim this creation for what it was meant to be: a place for God and human to work and live together for industrious beauty. A reminder of this is the return of the Eden Tree of Life, from which the River of Life flows. The Eden tree is there to provide the fruit for humans and leaves to “heal the nations,” presumably from the disaster of their version of good and the aftermath from that. Curiously, the new city has descriptors of earthly valuables and the “splendor of the kings of the earth.” That seems contradictory with the description of Babylon, coated with merchant goods from around the world. However, in reflecting back to Genesis 2, humans were created to do something with creation, not merely sit around streaming online content. Creative human culture is a good thing and it is reflected in this image of the new Holy City. But when those things become idols, or are acquired at the expense and dignity of the created order, we are in Babylon, not New Creation.

Since coronavirus brought our world to a screeching halt, with suffering to an extent our generation has never seen, we have found nature in a state approaching, though not necessarily very close to, that which Eden would have represented. Rivers with visible life in them. New heavens free from smog and carbon particles. A world that was meant for us at the beginning of human history, perhaps a distant relative of what Revelation 21-22 is depicting. My observations of a healing natural order in the midst of this human crisis may sound crass from the perspective of our species, and it is. Many of us will die and have long-term sequelae from this viral beast. Out of all this, though, is some glimmer of hope. The hope of the Bible is that we may arrive at a point of this New Creation, where all things become new, functional in the way intended by God. This idea is a mirror image between the Ideal of Genesis and Revelation 21, with the new heaven and new earth replacing the old version which has been corrupted and is now gone. We were placed in the world, chose our own means by which to govern it, and created a mockery of our home. One way or another, this has continued on through millennia, with new generations finding new ways to wreak havoc. The results have been the raping of our world, mistreatment of the vulnerable among us, and a loss of our identity. We see this through the generations of characters in the Israeli history, until they are utterly conquered and distributed to various ruling peoples. Within this history lies the hope that someone can lead us out of this pattern, showing us what the rule of God looks like within us and our surroundings. If we could somehow follow this example of ruling with God, and revisit our vocation as described in Genesis 2:15-17, we may be able to mitigate things like our current plight from recurrence.

Blog 12: Coronavirus (from perspective of spring 2020)

by rambler on Jun 10, 2022 category animals, coronavirus, covid, covid-19, fruit-bearing trees, plant-based, Uncategorized

In late 2019 and early 2020, the human population of the world has come under attack of a novel viral infection with a combination of being more contagious, hardier, and deadlier than any recently known illness. As our world has grown more interconnected economically, culturally, and politically, it has done so similarly from a public health standpoint. Infectious particles are shared more readily due to ease of travel today than at any point in history. Like it or not, our technology has connected us so intimately that the phrase “we are all in this together” applies to all borders of our world.

The damage to our communal health has already been poignant at the time of this writing, with the likely potential that we remain far from the worst of what this virus will bring. Globally, thousands of lives have ended, and healthcare resources are past their breaking points as Italy has exempted graduating medical students from boards in order to push them into the front lines immediately, regardless of how under-prepared students are coming right out of school. Our societal norms have come to a screeching halt as schools, restaurants, and many retail stores have closed doors for at least a few weeks, with probably longer to come. As many of us already suffer from social isolation, many more now join those ranks, cut off from our daily habitual stops at coffee shops, the workplace, artistic and musical displays, sporting events, etc. For a species meant to live in community, we have had to essentially strip that identity from ourselves in order to persevere to a day where we can resume life of old.

Coinciding with social isolation is the economic fallout. Our service-based economy depends on social interaction, whether it be food service, entertainment venues, personal care appointments, travel, or leisure. Self-isolation allows for much of the economy to continue functioning as more of us work from home, but it leaves a major part of it workerless. As markets plunge in ways not seen for many decades, one prominent investor, while suggesting the USA “shut down” for a month, used the phrase “hell is coming” to describe the financial prospects in the near future. That may not be hyperbole for many people who find themselves out of work, unable to pay routine bills or debts. In North Carolina, applications for unemployment benefits have shot up in a matter of days. The uncertainty pertaining to the length of mass isolation has an exhausting, nerve-racking effect on all of us, but much more so on those of us who haven’t a clue when the next time they can go to work may be.

For many people, hell is not coming, but rather it has arrived. Lost human connection, lost daily purpose of work, lost security in a reliable income, and unknown concern for our health and our neighbors’ would be a form of hell. All this from a particle measuring 120 nanometers, only seen by an electron microscope. How did this thing get here? Pandemics as this one come around every several years, usually not lasting long enough to make the whole world stop in its tracks. This one has.

Many of these contagious viruses originate in animal species. Humans have a routine collection of coronaviruses that circulate only among humans and cause common colds, and many animals have their own sets of coronaviruses. Very rarely, a virus that is specific for an animal species will mutate into a form that can infiltrate human populations. That is what happened with the MERS and SARS epidemics of recent decades. Per the CDC, all these viruses have their origins in bats. In this case, many believe that the outbreak began in a large animal market in Wuhan, where many live animals are caged in close quarters, ready to be sold for food or medicinal purposes. While common in China, these markets are not solely found in China, but can be found in other parts of Asia and Africa. While first world countries do not organize animal markets in a similar style and setting as other poorer nations, they still maintain animal trade as a significant contributor to the economy. So essentially all nations participate in some form of animal market. The idea that this virus came from a bioterror lab, rather than an animal market, is not ruled out as the WHO tries (and fails) to get to the bottom of the origins of the virus. The fact is, whether harvested from a lab or a market, the virus originates in bats and then “jumps species” to infect humans.

If one is following the storyline of the first few pages of the Bible, it should come as no surprise that there is a direct link between the arrest and utilization by death of animal species and what we find ourselves in today. We opt for our own understanding of what is best for us and our families and neglect what has been provided for us as the ideal Order in which we were placed. We decline the vision of a place where the fruit-bearing plants are the only things we need to live the lives we were meant to live. We decline the role of being caretakers of the animals and their lands, which were meant to provide their nourishment. Instead we choose their blood to immediately satiate our appetites. The Ideal state is given to us as long as we choose God’s wisdom and decline our own version of what appears good in our eyes. Just like the innumerable times before us that humans have chosen their version of the Good, so have we.

As I have stated before, I don’t think Genesis 1 is meant simply to give us a direct, clean portrayal of what we should be doing within our cultures. That is what we would want of any written piece as modern readers. That is what makes good communication to us: concise, direct statements of what is expected of us and what we can expect. The primary purpose of the story is directed to the critical point in the Garden of humans having to choose between God’s wisdom and their own. I think, beyond the crucial test in the middle of the Garden, there are things being told to us in this story about how we are to interact with the earth on which we are placed. The wisdom and knowledge of these writings permeates all times and cultures, because they speak to the essence of the human experience, which doesn’t change, no matter what point of technological advancement we have achieved. The manner in which we interact with animals, whether by God’s standard as co-dwellers of the earth, with animals and humans providing for the other so they may live out their true created identities, or by our standard of taking what we see as good and manipulating it in whichever manner we see would best suit our desires for control and comfort, will go a long way in determining whether we can maintain a functional ecosystem for continuing existence, or whether we decide to bring hell directly to us.

On a recent reading of Genesis, I noticed that the Garden inside of Eden wasn’t created until the second chapter, after the symmetry of Genesis 1 had already been laid out. The second account has a more specific narrative pattern to tell the story of the first humans and their created home in this garden in Eden, which we frequently assume to be the perfect, ideal situation for us that we screwed up by taking from the wrong tree. The first account seems more distant from the specific story. It rather has a more general tone to it, describing the common creation outside of the proper place of Eden. We may tend to think that the Eden ideal is not worth trying to get back to, as we have and will fail to reach that goal of complete unity of mind with the creator god. One may argue that we ought still to strive to this goal for myriad reasons, though let’s say it isn’t worth the effort to go for this level of “perfection” in our world with inevitable failure in the shadows. We are still left with the creation model of Genesis 1, outside of the garden temple, yet still within the confines of our surrounding world. As we surely find ourselves outside of Eden, we might be able to relate to the Genesis 1 creation narrative more so than Genesis 2. That is a more direct instruction on the structure of life within the created world, clearly stating humans are to eat seed-bearing plants and animals are to eat the green grasses of the field.

Following the guidance of eating the seed-bearing plants can improve our chances of leading lives free from heart disease, various cancers, diabetes, etc, and it can enable us to have bodies capable of amazing feats of strength and endurance. These ideas are commonly conveyed in books on the subject. What we don’t often think about are those zoonotic infections that arise from time to time in our environments, which are commonly derived from improper use of animals by humans. They don’t come around very often, but when they do they can create complete chaos and destruction of what humans have built up. This can be seen as a consequence of inadequate relationship within creation, failing to live according to what has been arranged for us. We can create hell as a present reality in which we may wander around hopelessly. We can also allow for the creation of heaven similarly.

Blog 11: Daunting Invitations

by rambler on Feb 25, 2022 category athlete, bible, bike, hebrew, plant-based, run, sacred mountain, swim, triathlon

I have been fortunate enough to have the health for participation in several endurance events, notably marathons as well as a handful of triathlons. Finishing my first marathon during my last year of medical school actually may have been the most impressive thing I did in those years when putting that next to my transcript. After a brief hiatus during the training years of residency, I was able to get back into the habit. As my wife participated in a couple of triathlons, she encouraged me to try it. I am really glad that I did, as it was an incredibly rewarding experience, both the training and the actual event. Having an organized schedule off of which to check workouts was helpful in providing a sense of completion of something. After doing a couple of smaller triathlons, I signed up for and completed an Ironman race in Quebec. The training was intense but gratifying, and by race day I felt well prepared. I had imagined what crossing the finish line would feel like. I looked at some pictures of people who did cross the line. Several people were pumping their fists in the air. Others were tearful as they completed what was likely the most grueling physical event of their lives. Some were just plain exhausted. As I came running down the final quarter mile chute of people cheering on the participants, I remember getting goose bumps and having an overwhelming feeling of peaceful focus. Everything just became quiet inside my head. As I crossed the finish line, the serenity of the event persisted as I thanked those volunteers around me for putting on the event. I do not remember feeling that way during any other event in my life.

When people talk with me about Ironman, they are typically in awe of anyone who does it, and they comment on how daunting a task it appears. They frequently say that they could never do that, that the thought of training to those distances is too fearsome. I also remember thinking similarly when I was younger. The idea of running more than 4 miles seemed a scary proposition. I thought going any farther than that would surely cause injury and debility. With experience and pushing the envelope over the years, I eventually got to a point in which endurance activities feel normal to my body, that running double digit miles or swimming more than a mile feels routine.

As in many facets of life, those things that are hard to do regularly turn out to be the most worthwhile experiences. We often feel a remarkable sense of accomplishment when we have completed a rigorous, disciplined schedule of training that has taken several months or years to finish, whether it be an educational degree, advancement in career, or a physical endeavor. Though the journey appeared intimidating, unattainable, and maybe dangerous, it turns out to be the true reward, and the destination provides a reflection back on that journey.

Approaching a frightful, uncomfortable proposition isn’t in our natures. We see what appears to be reasonable, comfortable, and often choose that route. One unique story of approaching that which appears dangerous is the burning tree that Moses sees on Mount Horeb (aka Sinai). He witnesses a sign that is of the divine, and rather than run away he approaches it. Soon afterwards, he appears to wish he had turn the other way, little did he know he was stepping right into the middle of a seemingly impossible task of playing the primary role in the rescue of the Hebrews from Egypt. He obviously has little self-confidence as he pleads with Yahweh to free him of this assignment, to find someone else who may more effectively carry out this plan. Five times does he bring forth an opposition to Yahweh’s calling for him as liberator of the Hebrews! Nevertheless, he agrees to this role and is spared death shortly afterward. He met God on the mountain (analogous to the Garden of Eden in Genesis), stood in his presence in front of the burning tree (analogous to the Tree of Life in Genesis), and, with initial resistance, accepted a calling. He received an experience and reached a place that his inner being resisted, and it led to the freedom from slavery of a nation.

A closely related story is played out again at the same mountain (now referred to as Sinai) some time later. The Hebrews, fresh out of Egypt and miraculously saved through the chaotic waters which consumed their pursuers, are at the foot of the mountain. Per Yahweh’s initial sign to Moses that he was the one to bring the Israelites out, the same thing that Moses was experiencing at that initial encounter would be available to the entire nation: worship on the mountain, not at the foot of it. As Moses experienced an otherworldly moment before the return to Egypt, so were the Israelites to do so on the mountain after their escape from Egypt. Yahweh invites the people to experience Himself speaking with Moses and hear first-hand on the mountain their communication, calling them to prepare themselves over the course of three days in order to ascend the mountain with Moses. But when the time comes to go up into the Presence, the people end up staying down, and only Moses and his brother go up. On reading the account, it may seem nebulous as to the reason for this. The people are certainly fearful of the mountain and pull back, but Yahweh also tells Moses to warn the people not to force their way into his Presence at risk of death. In the end, the people are not ready for this experience.

Upon reading the few stories prior to the arrival at the foot of the mountain, we see several tests in which the Israelites failed to trust Yahweh’s wisdom and provision, i.e. complaining of bitter water in the wilderness, lack of food. It should be no surprise that if they failed those tests, they would surely fail this one with the thunderous presence of Yahweh hovering atop the mountain. Moses even says, as the people are balking at entering the presence of Yahweh firsthand and instead want to send him up alone, that they are being tested. Will they ascend the mountain and experience something frightening and dangerous yet inherently awe-inspiring and revelatory of their place in the world? It is an uncomfortable, uncertain invitation into a new realm. It is totally unknown to their experience of the world around. They would be safer at the foot of the mountain, tucked away in their own understanding and control of the world. We eventually see what happens when they choose this path: they create gods that they can control and in doing so degrade themselves. In the end they accept far less for their lives than what had been planned for them to receive.

While the story involves roaring thunder atop a high mountain in the Middle Eastern desert, and threats of death for the ill prepared, it remains relevant for just about all of us today. How often do we see opportunities that offer a life-changing moment, and we pass on them because the journey required to arrive at that moment is too risky and ambiguous? Of course we all may be presented with options in our lives that are ill advised, and we need wisdom to discern between risks worth taking and those that aren’t. But I would suspect that all of us have had opportunities in which we knew the chance we could take yielded an overall promising odds ratio, and we opted for the safer option. After seeing how they were rescued from Egypt, and knowing Moses’ story of a similar experience at that same place, the Hebrews should have know that, with the pros/cons balance, ascending the mountain to be in the presence of Yahweh would have produced a result in their ultimate favor.

I see my experience in endurance racing in a miniscule yet relatable model of the Sinai story. I certainly do not mean to equate completing a marathon or triathlon with ascending the sacred mountain, but I think we all have some microcosmic parallel to the Sinai story in our lives, no matter how insignificant we may think it on the grand scheme. Those of us who like to watch athletes perform on television, or in person, may never think about participating in what they do, whether in a school or rec league. We may think we have been sedentary for too long, are in too poor of physical shape, to suddenly change habits and participate in sport. I was for many years, then I found it was much more fun, healthful, and rewarding to “be the athlete” than to sit on the sidelines.

While the idea of being a recreational athlete may not be a curiosity to several people, to many others it would be. What would it take to train for and complete an endurance race? What are some of the obstacles to prevent me from doing that? Exercising more than I ever thought possible? In the dark of morning, or crammed into a lunch break? Wouldn’t that cause discomfort and pain, even if done in a tempered, methodical, and realistic manner? Might I have to change my nutritional habits, ditch the daily soda and chips, in order to help my body adjust to such a rigorous routine?

Yes, doing the above would be very helpful in order to complete endurance sport. It seems uncomfortable, and it is. Initially. But our bodies can do these things. We were meant to be physically active, with a capacity far beyond what we may think possible. It is in us, just as it was in the Hebrews to approach Sinai and enter the Presence. And what awaits us if we were to go through the lifestyle changes necessary to do such things? I found a new sense of accomplishment, health, and belief in my capacity that I didn’t know was there. The exuberance of approaching the finish line is burned into my memory. So are my thoughts shortly after of hoping that I will get to do this again at another stage in life, while in the meantime continuing long-distance aerobic outings as the schedule allows. When Moses came down from Sinai after his encounters with Yahweh, his face had a glow that frightened the people. Moses apparently hid his face from the people, but when he returned to the presence of Yahweh, he removed the veil to face him. I doubt anyone confused my face for a large LED light bulb, though I felt glowingly at the end of the triathlon. Here’s to hoping those moments persist!

Blog 10: Over-abundant World

by rambler on Feb 12, 2022 category Uncategorized

The world in which humans lived several thousand years ago looked little like what we see today, though perhaps more similar than we may initially think. The hunter-gatherers were forced to live in day-to-day mode, rarely assured of the next day’s sustenance or survival. With limited capability to control their surrounding environment, their well being depended on the whims of the seasons, how much yield would the wild trees and bushes provide in a given ecosystem in a particular year, what that year’s climate would do to reproduce migratory patterns in animals of prey, and what pathogens would flourish in those wild plants and animals, waiting to attack the naïve human host. As one may expect, the lifespan of the early human reflected the hostility encountered in the surrounding world, with Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon on average living barely to 30 years (though ancient Romans didn’t do much better than this, making it into their early 30s).

After several hundreds of thousands of years, the hunter-gatherer era paved the way to domestication, harvesting both plants and animals for food in controlled environments. They must have begun to experience at this time a rudimentary idea of surplus. There is evidence of caves used as storage units for harvested grains. While still living in a notoriously uncertain world, humans realized they could exert force into this world to increase the likelihood of creating stability and predictability into their lives with the use of newly developed ideas and technology.

We see in our own period that, over time, technological development and familiarity yield progress. There is always a new updated gadget around the corner to replace what we currently have, though today this happens at a much faster pace than in yesteryear. Through trial and error, with time the ability to produce desirable crops and herds got more efficient and produced a better yield.

God’s expectation for humanity is to thrive, not merely survive by scrounging by on a daily basis. We are told to prosper in our environment, knowing that in the Garden there is more than enough sustenance for all of Creation. Does this not seem as the antithesis of how we see our world? A place of limited resources where we all fight for “what’s rightfully ours”, playing the zero-sum game of the finite? If my tribe is to survive (i.e. family, race, religion, sports team), yours must fall. That is the world according to one wisdom. I highly suspect that all of us have believed this at some point or believe this scheme currently, and for good reason: it’s what we are bombarded with in our culture all the time, whether it’s to buy this car or that shirt or this club membership or that supplement in order to have meaning behind one’s citizenship. There are only so many of these resources, so get yours today!

From our ecological angle, we appear justified in our above sentiment. We have long realized that our Earth has limited resources and we are doing a great job of pushing those resources to their limits. Centuries of deforestation, tech-advance abuse, digging out mountains, draining rivers, etc., has led us to the brink of what our world can take. In addition, we have seen that the way we eat also has a massive impact on our world. The resources needed to sustain animal-based diets compared with plant-based ones are astounding, both in space needed, antibiotics used, carbon compounds emitted, and energy put into them to be transitioned into humans for energy.

Plant-based diets put far less strain on our resources, and they produce far less pollution when compared to animal-based diets. This would seem to permit us to more likely experience “over abundance”, if we can receive all the nutrition we would ever need while preserving the world. This could turn the environmental calculations of what and how much time we have left in the world pointed in a more favorable direction for us. Imagine a planet of natural reciprocity, in which we create civilization in a manner that minimizes any damage or ill-effect on the world around, even enhancing it, and in return the natural world provides us with optimized nutrition that yields good growth and development, prevention of disease, and superb fitness and well being.

This sounds like a world of over-abundance, homeostasis and generosity, the type of place intended for us in the Hebrew Bible. We are supposed to live lives of prosperity, productivity, and creativity, making a place where we all can live up to our divine vocation of making this space more like what God intended us to do with it, a reflection of heaven here and now. What that would do for our relationships, our community, if we did that! More human and global wholeness, less destruction.

There may be no better celebration or inspirational art form concerning the abundant world around than the psalmist’s 104^th work. The piece is dripping with allusions to the creation story of Genesis 1: blanketed the earth with water, then roared the mountains and valleys out of the ocean. The writer celebrates the divinely exerted control of the chaotic waters into “springs of rivers…flowing among the hills.” We see the abundance in the provision of water for the animals, birds, donkeys, livestock, both directly to quench thirst, and indirectly by watering the grass so that the creatures may eat, referencing the diet intended for the beasts in Genesis.

Lucky for us, this extends to humans. And from this, “grain from the land and wine to make people happy” extends “health” (v14-15). We are described as “well-fed and hearty.” We often describe our health in multi-faceted ways like physical, social, spiritual, and mental. If this is meant to describe the well being of a person in the ancient Jewish paradigm, there is no differentiation among these facets of the person; all is included in a single description. So if the “grain and wine” bring health, we can expect all parts of ourselves to experience this health, all from these foods which come from the land as vegetation.

We see a world in which the rest of Creation is under the umbrella of care from its Creator, in abodes for the animals, nourishment for them, time marked by the cyclical moon patterns, and humans participating in daily work, the vocation we were given originally. In these passages, we do not get from them what God is providing the roaring lions or the sea fish or leviathan. Though the lions are looking for prey (other living animals we’d assume), God is providing great abundance here in our present, fallen world as well as the Garden world, in congruence with what we see around us and with the requirements of life for survival and prosperity.

The idea of a world that is overabundant in its provisions likely seems foreign to many of us. We frequently live paycheck to paycheck, just barely getting by on a daily basis, similar to the early humans. The great technological advances of our day benefit, for the most part, a select few who already had the wealth and economic power in place to take advantage of newly developing technologies, and while life for most people has improved somewhat, life for those few has improved vastly. We see environmental crises all over the globe, from catastrophic continental fires, to polar temperature shifts, to massive amounts of trash on beaches and in oceans all over the world. There are waves of migrating people all over the world, people fleeing persecution, poverty, and disease. These conditions causing migration did not happen out of nowhere, but rather they resulted from human decisions to maximize benefit for a few, in turn limiting livelihood for the many and causing them to leave their homes in search of their survival. Things may seem on the brink of collapse, or at least a major uncomfortable reset. How can we say we live in an abundant world with all this around us?

If we continue to direct our own lives and communities in a way that seeks maximum resources for our own tribes at any cost necessary, what is “good in our own eyes,” we may expect the above scenario to play out, and we will remain pessimistic in our view of what our world can sustain for our species. If we adjust our worldview toward one of taking just what we need to live well, and of preserving that which we do not need for other people and Creation itself, we enter into a new mode of thinking that is foreign to our initial natural inclinations. One may refer to this as ruling the earth on God’s terms and not humans’ terms. Of the many facets of what this rule looks like, one of them is the food we put into our bodies to sustain them. Now that we have the ability to ensure good nutrition and health for us and for our environment, we should begin to exert that ability. We may find the world would look much different through our eyes if we did.

Blog 9: Cain’s Agony

by rambler on Jan 31, 2022 category Uncategorized

Cain is the first human known to the earth that we inhabit. As stated in Genesis, Adam and Eve were created from dirt and divine breath from the earth, in Eden. Cain is the first human born of woman outside of Eden, the first human whose experience is theoretically similar to all of ours. As the first human, he maintained the original vocation given to humanity in Genesis 2 as a caretaker of land to produce vegetation from it. So that identity was not taken away from him in spite of the failures of his parents. However, he did remain under the curse of the Fall, having to sift through the thorns and thistles of the field in order to get the plants from it for nourishment, not quite the pleasure of tending a freely producing garden of the best of what’s around without the toil of extraction.

After Cain’s fall, his murdering his brother following his anger from the sacrifice fiasco, and his lie concerning it, this menial dumbed down version of being a farmer of the land is stripped of him, with God stating he is driven from the ground, no longer able to get any crops from it, thistle-filled or not. A major part of the identity of humanity attributed to it in the Garden is now stripped of him.

The second part of the curse is also extremely poignant, God declaring Cain to be “a restless wanderer on the earth”. Humans are intimately connected with the earth as evidenced in Genesis. They are created from adamah, Hebrew for ground or earth. That is the word play for the first man being named Adam, truly an “earthling” with an appropriate earthling name. We come from the earth and we return to the earth, and in between we are intimately connected to the earth. Cain’s version of choosing his wisdom over divine wisdom results in another layer of identity loss, no longer to be connected to his piece of earth from which he came, and cursed to wander it. Cain’s identity is reduced to that of an animal by becoming a vagabond, i.e. grazer of grass, rather than a gardener, another reiteration of God’s plan for humans to work the land for their livelihood. This was Cain’s birthright as the first born of Eve, to inherit the primary vocation that God had set forth for man in Genesis 2. And now it is lost.

This change in relationship with the world is anything but lost on Cain. His agonizing retort to God cuts to the very heart of his former relationship with the earth. It is no hyperbole to state that this cutting off from the land is “more than I can bear.” It doesn’t stand to reason that Cain should be “hidden from God’s presence” as he states will happen if he is driven from the land, for isn’t God all-knowing and omnipresent? The meaning of the statement rests in that this is an irreconcilable severance of the relationship between humanity and God. Humanity is no longer humanity as it was initially. Cain is no longer allowed to carry out his inherent vocation as assigned in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, he loses his identity, which is intimately intertwined with the Creator. All that remains is sure death as a lost wanderer of the planet.

Agriculture had to have formed over the course of thousands of years, rather than over a short period of time. Several factors had to come together over such a long period in order for the harvesting of specific plants for food to work. People had to begin organizing themselves into groups on parcels that may grow crops. They had to find out which crops could be reliably reproduced and under what local conditions, i.e. soil composition, competing inedible plants, growing and ripening at just the right times of year. One of these factors in the Near East was the gradual warming of the climate around 12,000 BC, allowing a new variety of plants, including edible ones, to grow. Certainly, long periods of experimentation were needed to figure out how to make the ground produce what humans needed and wanted.

At this point of societal transition from hunter-gatherer into domesticated, meat eating was integral to humanity, even revered compared with plant eating. It was likely a ritualistic celebration. People gathered together to share in the hunted kill of a wild beast, similar to how wild wolves would hunt and eat. This is not done with gathered foods. Meat was not always available, until the transition into a domesticated order, in which case meat was readily available from the herds that were owned by people. With domestication, an abundance of both plant and animal foods were there in comparatively large supply. Evidence of some of the first agriculturalists has been found in northern Israel and dates back to about 13,000 years ago. Relics of threshing tools have been found that were likely used to cut and gather various grains and cereals. Likely, the consumption of meat continued during this era, as this was the initiation of the experimentation of cultivating plants. It likely took many hundred years to figure out just how to maximize the likelihood of a sufficient harvest, and in the meantime people would have to eat whatever they could find just to survive.

But along with the domestication of plants came the domestication of animals. Initially, domesticated animal meat was likely not immediately eaten, but rather kept for special rituals or sacrifices. If there aren’t many animals to spare in this similarly experimental phase, why routinely kill off what you have? Like plants, this would change as humans selected for those animals with which they could best live. Bovines can live off of grasses and other cellulose-containing plants that humans cannot digest, so they wouldn’t be in competition with humans for food and would be easier to maintain and keep around. Eventually, these animals would be bred, reared, and then slaughtered for nutrition and clothing. Suddenly, what used to be wild beasts turned into captured animals whose lives were dictated and determined by their human captors. As the eating of meat was done only on special occasions, it could now be done more routinely, especially by those powerful few who owned the most animals, thereby further instilling an aura of power around the practice. So despite the newly found abundance of raised plants for consumption, there was still the lure of consuming raised meat as it inherently represented a higher status in society.

woman in blue t-shirt and brown shorts standing on brown dirt road during daytime — Abel Tasman National Park

We may see that these domesticated cattle represent a figment of their wild ancestors. The tamed pig grunting alongside the hut may seem nothing like the wild boar roaming the forests. It may be as though the essence of its being had been lost over the years to breeding, as though its spirit no longer dwelt within it. The ancestors of the domesticated humans revered the wild animals they hunted as evidenced by the beautiful, mystical, and perhaps religious cave paintings of them that are dated back to the time of the hunter-gatherers. What was a beast to be honored and respected prior to their hunt (i.e. Native American practices) is now an equivalent of currency and investment.

With the ability to produce sufficient nutrition from harvested plants, the memory of this reverence of animals must have made some people question whether it was necessary to exert human power over the entire lives of animals as it had been, simply for nutrition that could be acquired otherwise. Another way of putting this is that somewhere in the human conscience resides a respect and belief in the ruach (spirit) of animals. In periods of scarcity, people had to eat those animals that could consume and process humanly inedible foods for us. But in areas of more temperate, stable climates, in which plants and subsequently foods are more abundant, they could make the choice more easily not to eat animals—farming practices making this more realistic, using tech to create food surpluses.

This progress never could have happened without these stabilizing forces of human settlement upon land that had relatively unchanging characteristics of soil composition and climate. This appears similar to the situation in which Cain found himself, and it explains his torment at being ostracized from his settled land. We see all the time and energy spent over thousands of years for mankind to come to this place of relative security in his fate for survival. All this had been set up according to societal development over millennia, for him to have his place in Creation as a caretaker of the land. It is literally in his DNA. To have this innate identity stripped from him would be tortuous, a reverse evolution back to wanderer-gatherer days, comparable to humans throughout the Bible choosing to elevate themselves to deistic status and then finding themselves in beastly status. For us, we carry the same DNA, the same identity. We obviously are not all farmers as our technologies ensure that that isn’t necessary in order for culture to develop. But the heritage is in us. It may be to our benefit to recognize and honor this.

Blog 8: Meant for Us or for God?

by rambler on Mar 7, 2021 category Uncategorized

A common critique of biblical narrative is that it is primitive, simplistic literature. Most stories are bare bones, providing limited details to the reader. We don’t see many descriptor words, the plot patterns come across as basic, and many details about the purposes behind the plot just don’t exist. We are accustomed to our stories containing more verbosities, intricate plots with twists, and an inside track on the inner monologue of primary characters. We may see the difference in style as we would see the difference in language development. It’s easy to think of the origin of the Bible, passed down orally for countless centuries, coming from the earliest humans just beginning to form language skills, families gathered around a fire and listening to the guttural performance of the storyteller. So the argument may go, the reason they are so simplistic is because they started amongst people who had no education, could communicate at only an elementary level, and had no realistic perception as to how the world functions, thus forcing them to come up with contrived explanatory fairy tales.

On initial read, I think most of us would honestly come to that conclusion. We read this through eyes trained in our modern sensibilities in what good literature is. We read something that is written in a foreign style to us and make assumptions about it. That is natural. We have expectations on what the Bible should tell us, and we read it looking for answers that specifically fulfill those expectations.

In order to understand what the Bible is trying to tell us, we have to leave our own predispositions at the door and let it say what it is trying to say to us on its terms. Because parts are written in a style unfamiliar to us does not make it inferior to our standard of communication. We like to have stories told in great detail, in setting, characters, and plot. If a specific part is left out, it may leave us feeling disappointed, even frustrated with the work. I remember this attitude being pervasive in me in grade school. When stories appear incomplete by intention, it forces the reader to do some of the work of interpretation, which I didn’t like academically. I much preferred the story to do all the work for me and I just absorb. The Bible does not work this way. It expects a lot out of the reader if she/he wants to get the most out of it. Many scholars think the Bible is quite complex in its structure based on this fact, that so much is left out that if forces the reader to ponder and reflect on what the meaning(s) of the writing could be. So much is left out that room is often left for multiple interpretations concerning the point of a story. That seems a more realistic motive of the ancients, to talk about things so nebulous and hard to pinpoint down that the best way to talk about them is in similarly nebulous terms that allow for multiple angles of reflection.

A common example of this type of narration is the story of Cain and Abel. We aren’t given much background about either of these characters, except they both came from Eve, and they both had vocations as a gardener and a shepherd respectively (when there is a detail given, it likely is very important to the underlying theme). We are told each of them presented an offering to God out of the productivity of his vocation. One is accepted, the other isn’t, with no explanation as to why. The rejected one becomes angry, is warned that sin is waiting to overcome him, and is told to rule over sin. He doesn’t and kills his brother, then lies about it, and subsequently is banished from the earth’s strength. Yet he still receives compassion and care from the creator by a promise of protection from harm as he is cast out.

This story follows a repeated theme in Genesis in which humans are given a unique place in creation. They choose their own version of wisdom and what is “good in their eyes”, and by acting on it they bring upon themselves banishment and chaos. It happened in Eden, it is happening again in the Cain and Abel narrative, and it will happen again in the flood and throughout the line of Abraham, all of which results in bad consequences for those self-dooming choices. All of these can be traced back to the original creation account of choosing the Tree of Good and Evil over the Tree of Life, choosing humans’ perception of wisdom over the divine, and instead of bring out true human capability in relation to God, there is decomposition of human nature toward that of beasts (i.e. God clothing Adam and Eve in animal hides after the Fall).

There are many ideas as to why Abel’s offering was acceptable and Cain’s was not. The text specifically says that Abel took the first-born from his flocks that were fat, or otherwise to be interpreted as the best he had. The same is not explicitly stated about Cain’s offering: that he took the best fruits that he had, though it doesn’t say he didn’t either. Along these lines, several believe that Abel’s nephesh was in a humbler, more worshipful place than Cain’s. Many believe the animal blood that Abel brought as an offering holds the key to acceptance by God, that he desired Life Blood that had to come from an animal being.

As there are multiple ways to think about the reason behind this verdict, all of which deserve a turn of contemplation, I think another would be the nature of what each was bringing to offer. Cain was a gardener who from the ground grew plants that God intended to be food for humanity. Abel cared for animals, for which God provided a place in the world. If God created the plants to be humanity’s food in Genesis 1, why would he want that gift back from us? Wasn’t it meant for our consumption for living and thriving in the world? Could this be interpreted as humanity rejecting the gift of life as God intended it for us? We see plenty of examples in the Bible, and in our lives, of people giving back part of what God gives them, whether it be a first-born son, our money or time. And we usually look upon such actions with approval. Again, similar plots repeat themselves over and over in Genesis. If we see Genesis 4 as a rerun of the Eden saga, in which the first command God gives humans is to “eat from any tree in the garden” (Gen 2:16), Cain’s action could be construed as rejecting that command by discarding some of the fruit from the earth as inferior for his consumption.

So if all Cain had to offer was produce from his garden, what could he have done to show gratitude? One idea is that Abel could have provided a beast to God on Cain’s behalf. As a human, Abel was also part of the race for which the garden was created to be nourishment. There is no statement that his flocks were used as food; we may suspect they were food, or perhaps their wool was simply used to make garments for humans, which they needed in order to hide their innermost selves as Adam and Eve did once they saw they were naked. If Cain grew plants for human consumption, for both him and his brother, while Abel provided an offering to God on Cain’s behalf, this would be the first example of communal life in the Bible (which we shall see Cain formally fathers later through his offspring).

If our ultimate Genesis vocation as humans is to rule and subdue the earth, to make what God has already created into something more beautiful and ordered than what we found, wouldn’t coming together as communities be more effective in carrying out that endeavor? I think we would all say that is the case. Each of us has different gifts to contribute to the lives of our families and neighbors, and the sum of these talents is exponentially greater than each individual one alone. That was part of the flourishing of civilization: the ability to specialize in different activities once our survival as a species was secured in a food source. In the Genesis 4 story, each brother appears to approach God on his own, bringing what he individually has rather than coming together to ensure the desires and needs for both man and God are addressed. Perhaps Abel is not absolved in the events following the offerings. In the end, brought about by Cain’s choices, we see the result of this arrangement of isolated brothers: the death of one and the banishment of the other.

I have never heard this angle of explanation from this story. Again, the lack of details in Biblical narrative are meant to create work for the listener/reader to ponder, meditate, and help fill in the blanks of what the narrator is trying to get across. One may think this is a stretch of what the text is trying to tell us. If we believe the Bible is more sophisticated than we can imagine, and an all-encompassing truth to explain our situation here, we should be open to various meanings from different points of view. In light of the previous poems from the first three chapters of Genesis, I think this interpretation has value in our past, present, and future social context.

Blog 7: Backward vs Forward?

by rambler on Dec 14, 2020 category animals, athlete, Creation, evolution, evolution, Genesis, god, human ancestors, human ancestors, myth, plant-based, poem, subdue, vegan, vegetarian, working the earth

Is the Genesis story meant to cause reflections and lamentations on the world as it was, in the “good old days”, and nothing more? We often tend to read these stories as reflections on human history, stories to listen to in church or Sunday school, maybe memorize some characters from them for treats at the end of the lesson, then move on to Monday. My general experience in American church is that these stories are reviewed briefly, but almost all focus of teaching is on the New Testament. Maybe that is not ubiquitous in the USA, but I have noticed that. Subsequently, I had fallen into that mindset as well, not really thinking much relevance of the Torah. I would read it as part of a pursuit from the first to last page of the Bible, mostly without thinking of what it may be trying to say.

As Spencer points out, the idea of an era that is void of conflict and violence is common to religion, and that this is suggestive of an era of veganism or vegetarianism, in which life does not have to kill other life in order to ensure its survival. He shares an opinion that this thread comes from a historical memory buried within the make-ups of early humans, who perhaps unknowingly inherited such a history. These legends are meant as a reflection back toward that period of peace and tranquility, and the roles of them in religion are to allow us to have self-soothing visions of such a time and place in the middle of a bloody, aggressive world geared toward taking out animals for food.

I would venture to say that some people brought up in religion might see the texts of Genesis similarly, as a reflection to a better time. It is how we are taught to read stories written in the past, as narratives that happened then, separated from us in our present context. It is how I read the Bible for years, which caused me to feel pretty disengaged. But is this the correct way to read it? Might it have something to say in our current day situation, more than just a memory of old?

Perhaps we should view the creation account as a prospective possibility rather than a retrospective history. There is some idea that the myths of the Ideal Age in many cultures are stories of a paradise never realized rather than a description of a past that is lost. As I stated earlier, God puts people in the Garden to work it, to create something from what already exists there into a better state. We may think that Eden was perfect and complete as it was made, but this isn’t the idea behind it. The mission of God was to rule with humans to progress toward something bigger and better than what they started with. In the intended progression of time, this theme would have continued into the future had humans not fallen.

We take for granted our ability to perceive information as infinite and beyond face value, evidenced in that we see situations, assess them, and inflict an external force into that situation to bring about a new, desired reality. We constantly receive and process data, then we come up with a response that may totally change what we found, often through experimentation. We do not accept our knowledge base as intrinsically bounded. If we did, when we came upon some unexplained phenomenon, we would simply accept it without thought. This likely describes Homo erectus, as the evidence suggests they themselves didn’t change much in their million-year existence. By accepting the world at face value and taking what they could to survive, they remained essentially a stagnant species.

Interpreting knowledge as beyond the immediately observable, something to be discovered with a little forethought, is a big step in the evolution of Homo sapiens. The production of better tools enabled humans to experiment with and exert control over their environment, thus allowing for the acquisition of new knowledge from experimentation. This ability to manipulate the environment, to coerce it to do what one wants it to do, is a game changer in the evolution and extinction of species. Humans now would have been able to cultivate the earth, providing a more reliable food source than a hunter-gatherer lifestyle would have provided. Hence Homo sapiens was moving toward becoming the dominant species, and Homo erectus was moving toward extinction.

That’s not to say that the only thing humans did with technology was cultivate the earth. Obviously, early bands of humans used tools to kill and eat larger animals that they would never have been able to take down on their own physical abilities. What is interesting is the manner in which many groups approached the hunting and killing of animals for their consumption. Growing up in the USA, we learn about Native Americans in school. Most of us may remember that they always used every bit of the animal that they killed (bison is the typical example) for food, clothing, and shelter. They never killed (or gathered) more than they needed to live. Many people have romantic memories of Native Americans and thoughts about that kind of kinship with the ecosystem, using only what you need and leaving the rest to flourish.

With the various crises in our ecological world today, we often question whether the earth can sustain life as we know it, whether the world holds the resources to house all of us. Life has mechanisms of controlling a level of homeostasis, whether it is in sustainable populations and ratios of species, the food chain, or intermittent epidemics or natural disasters. With our ever-progressing technologies beyond simple hunter-gatherer tools, humans have intervened in the stabilizing life cycle, i.e. vaccinations, protective measures against certain natural disasters, best efforts to prevent wars, etc. It appears that the pessimistic answer is the most accurate, that the earth cannot sustain us all. That is probably true if we feel we own the right to ravage it of all resources, above and beyond what we need to survive and thrive. In our current world of overabundance and materialism, it is easy to subscribe to this attitude of “having it all”. If we were to follow a similar wisdom of some of these ancients, taking only what we need, our answer to the question may change. We may find ourselves in a more generous world that can sustain us. Eden represents an abundant world that is enough, but only if we decide that we won’t pursue wisdom on our terms, and rather opt for the Tree of Life.

Some of that sounds like the takeaways from Sunday school, that the world used to be such a great place, and now it isn’t. Like with the Genesis narrative, we can look at Native American history, ruminate over it, and return to our original worldview. In line with the anthropologic purpose of legend, we can take these images and soothe ourselves with them, have a break in our otherwise mundane existence. But, rather than treat these stories passively, what if we approached them as another tool to use toward our evolution? What if they represented what could be in our world today? And now we have the other “nuts and bolts”, both physical and digital tools, to more effectively make that happen. I would hope that our desire is that we as humans are progressing toward something better that what we were. We all have periods of regression, individually and societally. We can choose, in various circumstances, whether we will exert the Genesis 3 human idea of our wisdom in our lives, and dwell in the desert to scrounge out a living, thus finding that our earth, despite all its generosity, is in fact a desert in our eyes. Or we can use our developed brains and tools to mold our world in the reflection of the wisdom superior to our own and maybe begin to realize what was initially intended for us: an abundant world that becomes evermore abundant.

Blog Post 6: Ironman

by rambler on Nov 29, 2020 category Uncategorized

This is an article I wrote for our local county newspaper shortly after completing my first Ironman triathlon:

I did not grow up much of a healthy person, much less an athlete. After-school snacks consisted of Oreos and milk followed by Doritos and Coca-cola. Weekly fried seafood buffets were the norm. Routine exercise was never a thought until leaving home for school, mostly anaerobic activity but some short running. I never started running more than a few miles until the last 10 years or so, a common story among adult runners.

Shortly after we married, my wife Jessica did a triathlon and had great fun in the process, thus introducing me to the sport. We lived in rural Washington for two and a half years prior to coming back to North Carolina. A lot of our free time was spent running in the costal mountains, some cycling on the reservation where we lived, and less swimming (swimming with sea lions seemed too much an insurance liability). The soothing rhythmic meter of running or spinning for minutes to hours got me hooked to those activities.

Upon moving back to North Carolina, we had regular access to a lap swimming pool again which allowed us to reenter training for triathlon. After participating in shorter-distance triathlons, I had the chance to compete in a full-distance Ironman at a ski resort in Quebec, Mont Tremblant. Training began in earnest on the first of April, three sessions per discipline per week, gradually building in length over five months. Starting at about eight hours a week, by the time I was a month away from the event, training was at 16 hours a week. I grew intimately familiar with the Glade Valley section of the parkway on the bike and on foot. There really is no better way to see the countryside than without the barriers of car windows. One notices so much more about the nuances of the roads, streams, fallen trees, road kill, and scurrying critters in the forest.

Upon arrival at the race site a couple of days ahead of the date, I proceeded to check in which was a 2-day process involving both participant registration and checking of gear. This gave us the chance to explore the area just beforehand. Mont Tremblant is similar to the Alleghany County landscape except smaller mountains at 1000 feet above sea level. It is really a tourist destination for all seasons, providing downhill and cross country skiing in the winter; lake boating, canoeing, hiking, golfing in the summer, with a European-themed shopping village and casino. Since the Ironman arrived about ten years ago, it has become a destination for professional endurance training with a world-class aquatic center and permanently marked cycling lanes used in the Ironman race.

Race morning began at 3AM with breakfast about four hours before the starting time. For the most part my diet was and continues to be plant-based, having given up dairy, eggs, and meat other than fish in the past year, except on occasion. Afterwards, we drove to the airfield that acted as the massive parking lot from which participants were transported to the race site starting at 4AM. Everyone arriving so early allowed plenty of time for nervous energy to permeate everyone’s gait and mannerisms, not that people were rude but one could tell folks walked around briskly in the transition area where the gear changes between exercise disciplines occurred, and with other things on their minds. The transition area was dominated by a couple hundred or so rows of racing bikes on long racks, with people pumping air into tires and applying Vaseline to their necks to prevent chaffing from the wetsuits which they were putting on. Many people there had the physiques of seasoned triathletes, as expected, but also several people competing looked more like novices or simply less athletic. I thought this was really encouraging for all of us who think something like this is out of reach for anyone who hasn’t been a lifelong athlete, or even exercising regularly for years on end.

The start at the lakeside beach was delayed an hour, from 7AM to 8AM, due to fog, which helped to fuel the building anxiety among the crowd. A fellow in our starting area was giving first timers like me advice about taking time to enjoy the process, not concerned with speed but soaking in the surroundings of hundreds of people cheering you on, mostly at the end when trotting over the finish line. That did turn out to be good advice, probably the best of the day.

The swim 1.2 miles out into an open lake, followed by the return of the same length, was the least lonely part of the race, which was helpful as looking toward the bottom of a bottomless lake between breaths is a lonely proposition. Initially it was hard to find space to swim without kicking or hitting someone, especially as my underestimation of my pace resulted in me starting among slower swimmers and trying to pass people for at least the first half of the swim. A buoyant wetsuit making sinking almost impossible was also reassuring. As the shore came into view at the end, the loud music, which would be present at all transitions and aid stations, became audible. As did a few hundred cheering spectators and volunteers ready to help rip off swimmers’ wetsuits and lead them to the transition area to prep for biking. The seven hours on the bike riding 112 miles was easily the longest activity of the day, longer for me than most as tons of people got a morale boost blowing past me, in part due to training, in part due to inferior equipment; during the bike a French fellow I passed told me he didn’t think there was another “regular bike” in the race before he saw me! The bike was the best time for replacing fluids, calories, and salts. By the time the ride was over, I was ready to loosen up on foot. I made up some time here simply by trotting as maybe half the participants were walking. I learned that this was a common strategy for many people: get through the swim and bike fast, and briskly walk the marathon to finish under seventeen hours. I thought it showed how focused people were on finishing the race rather than going as hard as they can, risking injury or muscle failure. As the finish in the Mont Tremblant village came into view around 9PM, with the last half mile lined on either side with cheering people, and bright lights at the finish line, I made a note to slow down and look around, high-fiving people just before crossing the finish, with blaring music, bright flashing lights, and an MC calling out every finisher’s name and knighting them as an “Ironman.” Eating immediately afterward was pretty uncomfortable as all my blood was still in the limbs. A couple of people even passed out while sitting and eating and needed mild medical attention. It took about two days to feel as though the nutritional deficit had been filled.

In the couple of weeks following, I kept reflecting on what a great day and overall journey starting in April culminated there! The race provided a great reason to swim regularly in the pool, which I grew to like, and a great reason to get out to the parkway to enjoy what we have around here. The memories that will stay with me are the vibrance of the village during the week of the Ironman, and the different types of people who competed, age 20s to 70s, women and men, ultra-fit and weekend warrior physiques. What a gift to know you don’t have to be a seasoned athlete in the prime physical moment of your life to participate in such a special event. It has given me hope and motivation for the upcoming years of life as it already has for others and will continue to do so for some unsuspecting people who have thought activities like that were beyond their reach.

Blog Post 5: Human Choice

by rambler on Nov 22, 2020 category animals, Creation, disorder, evolution, evolution, fruit-bearing trees, human ancestors, human ancestors, myth, plant-based, Uncategorized, vegan, vegetarian

An anthropologic approach may be helpful to shed some nuanced light on Genesis wisdom. Many people feel the two vantage points of science and religion are inherently antagonistic. But if they are read and interpreted on their terms in their contexts (not on our terms or our expectations on what we think they should say), I think we would find that utilizing both together could shed much light on understanding our present situation. The archaeological records provide some clue as to the diets that human ancestors consumed, though because those records have holes in them, a lot of what we deduce from them is conjecture. But that is how we use science: taking available information and explaining the story that correlates with the data. So it would be a worthwhile exercise to consider the different relations between what the fossil record indicates and how those conclusions relate to our world today.

The fossil records indicate that hominoid ancestors lived as vegetarians over 20 million years ago. One of the more obvious indications of such is their dental structure. They had flat molars with a large grinding surface and thick enamel, and large incisors, which are good for grinding nuts and plants. Carnivorous animals had sharp molars and underdeveloped incisors, which is more suited for tearing into flesh. Later hominoids (Ramapithecus) developed the ability to chew laterally and vertically, as opposed to the strictly vertical movement of the ape jaw, which is also a noted feature of carnivores. This would suggest more specialization in the ability for rotational chewing which would be even better suited for crushing hardier plant foods, likely more abundant than softer more exotic foods during the Miocene Ice Age. So that development perhaps was more a result of a climatic shift forcing adaptation for available foods or extinction, the appearance of hardier nut- and grass-containing savannah lands and less forested ones.

Other differences between hominoid ancestors and carnivores exist. Hominoids did not have the clawed structure that carnivores did, neither the ability to sprint at 60 mph for brief spurts. Their gut, like herbivores, was much longer to allow slower digestion required for the breakdown of fibrous foods. That of carnivores is notably shorter, which is quite important for them in order to expel waste promptly through shorter bowels, as animal is more toxic than plant waste. Carnivores also had smaller salivary glands, good night vision, a rasping tongue, and skin without pores, features that would aid in the hunting, consumption, and processing of flesh for food.

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As time progressed, some of our more recent ancestors continued to rely on primarily, if not solely, various plants like fruits, roots, and leaves. A very famous fossilized hominin, Lucy, was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. She is estimated to have lived around 3.2 million years ago, and her scientific name is Australopithecus afarensis. Her structure suggests she was bipedal, which would be more important for leaving the forests to live in the expanding African savannahs around this time in history. A similar relative, Australopithecus robustus, arrived almost a million years later and was similar to afarensis except that it was larger and had a remarkable crest at to top of the head, allowing for powerful jaw muscles to originate from that ridge. That plus the fact that it had thick, large molars suggest it also ate mostly roots, bark, seeds, and grains, which would have required such an oral structure for pulverization. While meat could have been a part of their diet, it likely would have been miniscule as there is no evidence that they used tools and did not have the strength to kill other beasts (Lucy was 3’7” tall). The dental remains strongly shows they consumed a varied plant diet.

Around 2 million years ago is when homo habilis arrived, the next of kin so to speak of the genus Australopithecus. Remains from this species reveal a larger brain and primitive small tools, mainly axes. They were likely scavengers rather than hunters, feasting upon the remains left by more adept killers like felines, and they could climb trees to reach the remains left by cat predators. From habilis came Homo erectus. Evidence reveals they utilized more varied tools. Fossils of both smaller and larger animals have been found at H. erectus excavation sites in East Africa. These appear to be the first hunters and regular consumers of meat, and their dental records show that the large grinding cheek teeth are gone, and the front teeth are sharper. The fact that meat became a more regular dietary staple may in fact have enhanced both brain development (though encephalization was already advanced well before evidence of hunting was found in the fossil records, putting that idea into question), and provided a highly dense energy source that would allow them to develop skills other than food gathering. But food gathering was still a significant portion of the diet, still more than half, according to Rosalind Miles Women’s History of the World.

This jump from eating plants to hunting animals may have initially come not from the desire to kill for meat, but from the need to kill for plants. In some archeological sites, baboon bones are found alongside Australopithecus bones, with the idea that Australopithecus killed baboons according to Peter Wilson (Man, the Promising Primate). The idea is that early humans had to kill competitors in order to secure a food supply. As they were not nearly as strong as their competitors, they had to use their developing brains and work together, with assistance of newly developed technologies, in order to have food. Based on their biology, humans are built more for plant eating and not for direct competitions of strength with larger animals. But because of the pressures of the environment, competition for food, and the attributes of encephalization, they were able to come up with ways to kill other animals in order to preserve their diet.

Other than simply taking out competition, early human precursors Homo erectus and, to a more advanced degree, Homo sapien neanderthalensis also began migrating off the African continent. As they could take advantage of more varied environments than other animals, yet were in many ways inferior in direct one-on-one combat, they were more suited for migration than other more specialized species. Their developed brains permitted them to retain the necessary skills for successful migration. Herbivores are committed to a specific niche, needing only to remember the seasonal cycles of blooming and ripening. Nomadic life demands adaptability, extensive use of memory, acuity of senses, recall of detail, assessment of new landscapes, acquisition of new technologies (including fire), and sharing that data with others of the group in order to be successful. The processing of large amounts of data is essential to surviving in an ever-changing environment with the ebbs and flows of migrating food sources and unfamiliar seasonal patterns of new plant life. I like how Colin Spencer puts these new phenomena in the perspective of the developing mind:

Nothing is more comforting than the thought of power and control over one’s environment. Not to make tools, not to migrate and trek, not to hunt and kill other creatures, would seem like a return to a lesser, more primitive state of development.

Such a perspective would be essential for Neanderthals to survive in the cold, barren northern wastelands during the Ice Age. With limited plant life to consume compared with the temperate regions of Africa and the Levant, they would have to assert their will over their environment in order to survive. A failure to control their environment would result in death.
While obviously not a direct correlation, it resonates ideas of Genesis 3. Humans are in the Garden, not in competition with other life forms because everything they could possibly need to thrive is set before them. They are given a role as caretaker and meant to create order in the world. Then the Fall happens when they see something that they consider good, despite being told it will kill them, and rely on their own wisdom and take the forbidden fruit, exerting their authority over their lives, and resulting in expulsion from the Garden out into the wastelands of the earth to wrench sustenance out of the ground. It is as if humans were banished to the outer edges of an Ice Age world, out of a paradise and into a desert with severely limited food options and a requirement to in fact exert their superiority over the rest of creation in order to survive.

This is certainly not an attempt to explain how early human ancestors ended up in the higher latitudes during a prehistoric Ice Age, or why they ended up living a lifestyle of meat consumption over plants. Both the religious and scientific narratives are created from different sources and have different expectations of and from the reader. But I think there are many areas of overlap between them, with this being one of them. When we try to exert our will, our definition of what is good and bad for ourselves, and rule the earth according to our own wisdom, we end up where God never intended us to: in the proverbial desert struggling to survive, in our own version of a barren Ice Age, a place where we continue to reinforce our own law if we are to survive there. To us, that seems like progress. From another point of view, that seems like regression. Is it better to live in the Garden under a better Wisdom or to live in the desert under our wisdom? We see many examples in the Bible in which humans, in attempt to become God, become like the beasts of the field, the first example being when God covers humans’ skin with the skins of animals in Genesis 3:21. Neanderthals did not result from reverse evolution; rather they were more advanced from those previous species that ate the plants. And I don’t think the Bible is saying we need to be more simple creatures like the plant-eating precursors of Neanderthals. There are some ideas that Neanderthals were not precursors of humans, but rather the end of a line that died out with no long-term progeny. If that were true, it would make the correlation with the Genesis narrative even more curious.

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