renewal

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.

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