Over at FranIAm there is a beautiful post to read. I particularly loved the quote from Rance's writing. Rance has just passed on and Fran shared a couple of his writings. This is so eloquently expressed I had to share it. It is another reason that I love the Internets. If not for them I would never have read the following:
I think that the diversity in the world is what gives it it's texture, it's richness, it's incredible range so to speak. I had a close elderly friend, who is gone now but who was on the Tribal Council for the Northern Ute Indian Tribe. He taught me so much about life. One day we were having a spirited discussion about the nature of God and he told me that he wanted me to take him to the mountain to a very large lake near here and he would show me the face of God. I was interested to see what he was talking about and we have a boat so one Sunday morning at 4:00 a.m. we drove up to the lake, uncovered the boat in the marina and headed out into the channel at the crack of dawn. We slowly cruised up the lake to a beautiful canyon where he ask me to just turn off the engines and let the boat slowly glide to a stop. I poured myself a fresh cup of hot coffee and just looked at him. "Do you see it?" He asked?. "What am I supposed to be seeing?' "Just look for a few minutes" he replied. Finally, I said,
"Hey look, theres some elk, wow, they are so beautiful." "Keep looking" he said. I stared intently at the sides of the canyon for a few minutes and then I realized that; "This is like a game preserve up in here, man, there are elk, deer, moose, coyotes, eagles, crows, osprey's, sea gulls, so many things." "Yes" he said, " and have you noticed that no one is trying to turn the elk into deer, the deer into moose, the moose into coyotes, the eagles into crows, or the osprey's into sea gulls? They are as they were meant to be and they each have their place in the universe. "That my friend, THAT is the face of God". Why do we always think that we have to change people, to make them "like us". What kind of a flower garden would you have if there were only roses? There are daisy's, petunias, zinnias, nasturtiums, phlox, daffodil's, annuals, perennials, shade plants, sun plants in every color and hue and for every purpose. They each have their unique and beautiful role to play and to change any of them would mean destroying something else that is precious and there for a purpose.
3 comments:
That was beautiful. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Not necessarily an opposing view, but a different perspective.
I am sure that none of the eagles were trying to catch fish and eat them. I suspect that none of the coyotes were trying to catch deer and eat them. And of course, none of the deer, elk, or moose were nibbling at the poor defenseless grass, also a part of God's creation.
I recently rewatched the great video series Planet Earth. It was indeed a reflection of the face of God. It was a beautiful depiction of the many faces of nature in the sea, the air, the mountains, the caves, the forests, the plains, and everywhere else from one pole to the other. The fish swam with grace; the birds soared with ease; the elk and buffalo grazed, the foliage changed with the seasons, all according to God's plan.
But it was also an image of the bloody, brutal, and merciless struggle for life. Lizards leaped into the air to catch bugs. Dolphins herded schools of fish to the surface where they could prey relentlessly. Birds took advantage of the gathered fishes and dove into the depths to feed. Lions brought down a full grown elephant and ate it while it still lived. And killer whales munched on seals and penguins who were doing nothing wrong except venturing into the sea to catch some other living creature to feeds their young.
Horrible? Cruel? Not at all. It was necessity. Life is a continual competition. The fittest eat and live. The less fit, or the unlucky, are caught and consumed. It is the divine plan. It is the divine way.
While I have many friends who are different than me, with different goals, different beliefs, different ways of living, that does not mean that all differences are good, and should not be in conflict.
Humans have more highly developed brains than the other animals. They have developed highly specialized skills to ease their lives and provide for their needs. And we should all thank God for allowing us to have developed in this area. But humans are animals, just as surely as elk and deer and eagles are animals. We share similar passions and desires, and built in programs for conflict and competition. Because that is how we, as a species, improve.
Our Masonic lessons teach us to subdue our passions, to control our animal instincts, to work for the common good. And that is absolutely correct and good. But we should also remember that for all things there is a season. And that not all difference is good.
Let us love our neighbor. Let us do good unto others. But let us not embrace the child molester. Let us condemn and eradicate those who enslave others. And let us embrace a bit of healthy, life enhancing competition, because that is how God created us. It is how he ensured that we would continue to improve, not necessarily as individuals, but as a species.
Thanks for linking to me. Once again I wrote of someone today, someone who died, who was on the net with us, yet who I did not know.
We are all connected, it is quite profoundly beautiful and remarkable to me always.
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