Nature’s Horrors, or Are You
Twitterpated?
Facebook Post
Bud Powell,
July 8, 2011
Yum, Yum!
Those who
have been twitterpated by Disney's Bambi and shocked by shooting of a
deer in that movie may find the following material offensive. If so, it
is best to stop reading now. I was recently told of two experiences by
people close to me that I wanted to "share" with my FB friends along
with one story of my own, but I don't want to cause pain to those who have a
romantic world view, where the birds always sing and the rams gambol in the
grassy leas, and the lambs graze in the glade.
It isn't
always love and kisses in the real world of
nature. These three [real and true] stories illustrate:
First tale of horror. A
close relative of mine hung a wreath on her front door. A little bird
built a nest in the wreath, laid her eggs, and soon baby birds hatched
out. They grew for a few days, and then a blue jay showed up, took one
baby and carried it off for a fine dinner. When finished, the jay came
back for a second course and so forth, until all the baby birds were carried
off one at a time. We are not given a first hand
account of the way the babies met their fate, but our imagination can supply
the details. It is probably safe to conjecture that there was no
anesthesia. We do not know whether the jay dined alone, or whether family
members were present.
Second tale of horror.
This is worse than the last one. It was related to me last night by a
friend. He once saw a squirrel caught by a hawk, which commenced to
devour it on the spot, a banquet that lasted for some time. During the
first part of the feast, the squirrel was alive and making horrible noises in
protest about the indignity of it all. These noises became less and less
as the living body was dissected by the beak of the hawk, the ribs torn out one
by one, until vital organs were reached and the protest came to an end.
Third tale of horror. This was a true experience of my own. It was the first
or second year of my teaching in a small Christian school in California.
Some of the children had caught a few lizards on a field trip and we put them
in a terrarium and fed them with what bugs we could catch. They
prospered. I am not qualified to judge the mental state of a lizard, but
they seemed to be content, sleeping a lot. I had a few science courses in
college and high school, but was pretty naive in such things as the following
tale will reveal.
After a
few days one of the boys caught a praying mantis, a wonderful insect that
prospers in California, and provides gardeners with relief from all kinds of
garden insects without the need for insecticide. They are fearsome to
look at, especially ones as big as the one the boy had, about three inches
long.
He wanted
to keep the bug, so I suggested that he put it in the terrarium with the
lizards. I thought that the worst that could happen would be that the
lizards would eat it like they had the other bugs. School teachers have
to make a lot of snap decisions. I was wrong.
Midway
through the afternoon, I heard a frantic voice from the back of the room from a
sixth grade girl, "O, Mr. Powell, I think I am going to throw
up!" Elementary school teachers do not take such warnings
lightly and I hurriedly moved to the side of her desk. She simply pointed
to the terrarium. The praying mantis had clamped its front legs over the
body of one of the lizards and was happily munching away on its live body. [the caveat concerning the mental state of lizards also
applies here--but the mantis seemed to be happy. The lizard did not
communicate any mental condition, so we are left with imagination] The tail was mostly gone, hanging by a thread, one back leg
was gone, and about one-fourth of the abdomen, ditto. The lizard was
still alive. The image of this is still printed in my memory after almost
fifty years. I am a Calvinist, but a sensitive one.
What is
the point of all this? Simply this: the world is a world of suffering,
sorrow, pain, and death. Scenes like the above happen regularly in the
animal and insect communities. There is no compassion, no pity, no emotion. These are supplied by our story tellers
and myth makers. Disney is fun, if you realize that it is mostly cotton
candy for the mind.
The
Apostle Paul put it this way: Romans 8:
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not
willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of
God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now.
23
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits
of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is
not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope
for?
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it.
Creation
lies under a curse, the curse of God because of Adam's sin, and we are all
affected by it, for the full redemption that was purchased by the Lord Jesus has
not yet been fully consummated, not until the resurrection from the dead and
the renovation of all things in the new heavens and the new earth. More
grace is given at the second appearing of Christ: 1 Peter 1:13
There is
more, but this is a good beginning in the understanding of reality. The
next time you get dewy eyed about nature, romanticizing it, and extolling its
perfections, remember these stories, get a grip, and fly to Jesus Christ and
the hope that you have in Him. This hope you will not find either in
nature or in man or in hemp smoke, but in Christ alone.
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