Archives For Amazing World

More on Jesus, Demons, and Pigs

Nathan Aaberg —  August 23, 2019 — 2 Comments
Medieval illumination of Jesus casting out demons and into pigs

A medieval illumination of Jesus exorcizing the Gerasene demoniac from the Ottheinrich Folio. You need to look carefully to see the pigs.

Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote this blog on the story we find in Mark 5:1-20 about Jesus, demons, and the pigs. The standard interpretations assume the pigs are mere dumb animals whose deaths are meaingingless. I explored a different way of reading it.

I thought I was balanced in what I presented and liked what I wrote. Other people have found it interesting as well. Only my post about Solomon has been read more. This suggests that the Bible story of the demon and the pigs is troubling for many people. They are looking for a way to reconcile the story with a loving Savior and Creator God.

Very recently, another blogger – Raymond Hermann – also wrote a piece about the same story and referenced my piece. You can find his thinking – “Demons, Jesus, and the Pigs” – here. It’s worth reading.

You’ll find that Hermann disagrees with me that there is a possibility that the pigs committed suicide rather than live in possession by the demons.

Here’s what Hermann writes:

I’m sorry, but I can’t buy that answer; pigs can’t think and reason like humans. It makes a lot more sense that, considering what the demons did to the two men, the pigs were just overwhelmed and went berserk (another word for being possessed by a demon), therefore causing their own death. Or maybe Jesus directed them to do so, as part of a lesson.

There is certainly no scientific consensus that animals can intentionally commit suicide.And I realize my proposition that the pigs might actually have done so is highly speculative. The insanity-by-berserkness approach seems possible.

Further Thinking

Hermann’s piece, however, compels me to make several points.

First, I encourage you to read Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat by Barry Estabrook. If you are open-minded, the book will expand your estimation of pigs and their intelligence. You’ll even read of pigs beating young children in video games.

What’s more, I’ve come to realize the real question at hand is not the reasoning intelligence of pigs. It is whether they, like us, have heart in the Biblical sense of the word.

If we have open minds, we will find that a surprising number of animals seem to have something that I would call heart. In an early blog post I shared the story of a group of elephants who traveled for up to 12 hours to stand outside of the home of Lawrence Anthony who had just passed away. He had helped them, protected them, and rehabilitated them over many years.

Or check out this story from San Francisco in 2005. It tells how a humpback whale showed appreciation to each of the six divers that had helped to free it from crab pot lines that had become wrapped around its body and threatened to drown it.

Second, while there is no definitive scientific consensus, that doesn’t mean that animal suicide does not happen.

By chance I’ve just finished reading Giants of the Monsoon Forest by Jacob Shell. It’s a fascinating book about the centuries-long use of Asian elephants for forestry and transporation in northern Burma. The relationship between the elephants and their riders (mahouts) is far more complex and nuanced than I had realized.

Shell shares this disturbing incident:

I heard of an awful story of another elephant, a mother, found dead one morning. She was still standing, her forefeet crushing her own trunk. Evidently she had committed suicide. I didn’t understand how this was possible. Surely, as she lost consciousness from lack of oxygen, she would voluntarily breathe through her mouth, or the trunk would jerk free.

Science, as we know, is a powerful human tool for understanding the world. But it has limits. It assumes that if something does not act in ways that provide consistent evidence through our senses, then it does not exist. This assumption causes Science to tend to dismiss explanations of animal behavior that suggest complex volition. It also causes Science to dismiss the idea of a Creator God who interacts in complex ways with people and the rest of Creation.

In fact, Science would tell us the idea of believing in the possibility of demons, much less Jesus interacting with supernatural creatures, is absurd.

So we need to carefully consider the judgments of Science regarding animal volition and will.

Shell relates a moving incident during World War II. A convoy of elephants ridden by mahouts were making their way with rice and other food supplies to British and American soldiers in a remote area of Burma. After a tragic miscommunication, a number of mahouts and elephants were killed. Shell writes:

While the surviving mahouts regrouped and debated what to do, some of the surviving elephants picked up their dead mahouts and carried them all the way back to the mahouts’ families in Chowkham, some sixty miles away.

Third, Hermann offers another explanation for why the pigs didn’t swim. He writes, “Or maybe Jesus directed them to do so, as part of a lesson.”

The text does not suggest this at all.

Fourth, referencing a commentary, Hermann shares another interpretation:

Or perhaps this is another possible example of a miracle that has a visible lesson—the point being that the deliverance of one man (or two) is worth the destruction of many pigs.

That conclusion reflects a self-focused way of looking at how God works. Clearly, within the story’s logic, Jesus didn’t need to grant the demons’ wish. Jesus could have destroyed the demons without using the pigs. So the deliverance of the man wasn’t dependent on the demons moving to another host.

Fifth, our tendency, and one that Hermann seems to go along with, is to intently look for distinctions between us and Creation. That informs how we understand what Jesus meant when he said we are worth more than sparrows in God’s eyes, it doesn’t register at all that Jesus was also saying that sparrows are worth something to God.

We seemingly can’t help but see things in a binary way. If we matter, we wrongly think, then the rest of Creation does not. We think, also wrongly, that if Creation matters then somehow our standing is diminished.

In fact, in this story, God’s living creatures and humanity clearly share something significant in common. Dark forces can possess both of us. And that possession causes us both misery and suffering.

Pigs and the Restoration of All Things

In Acts 3:21, we read of Peter saying of Jesus, “For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets.”

I’m convinced “all things” means “all things.” And “all things” will include pigs.

It will also include the restoration of our respect and right relationship with all of God’s Creation. That is very good news indeed.

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Bringing More Life – David and Dianda Easter

Nathan Aaberg —  July 28, 2018 — 3 Comments

In a recent post I wrote that whole faith Christians will work to bring more life to the corners of God’s earth they hold, keep, and use. And they will do so even when the culture of land use around them creates pressure to do otherwise.

Whether that corner is an urban yard, a suburban lot, a rural property, or a farm, there are creative ways to bring more life to the parcels of land under our care. Figuring out those ways is one of the pleasures and challenges of being human.

I would even assert that taking on the challenge of bringing life to different places and at different scales is a path towards growth in our hearts and minds. It takes patience. It takes careful observation and nuance. You need to research and gain new knowledge while also using practical, down-to-earth skills. Anyone doing this will make mistakes. What works at one point may not work at another point. Love and faith will be needed. Sometimes discipline will have to be applied. Sometimes hard choices will have to be made.

Sounds a whole lot like parenting, doesn’t it?

Over time I want to share profiles of what Christian land stewardship looks like in real life. And in this post, I share the land-to-life story of David and Dianda Easter.

In 2008, they acquired a 7.5-acre property near Urbana, Illinois after a search of over a year. They were living in Ohio at the time and had been working with a real estate agent for their search. David’s sister was eager to help. She drove back county roads looking for properties that might not be listed. Her efforts paid off when she found an abandoned Christmas tree farm.

Your average person might have seen only problems. The Scotch pines that were left on the property were succumbing to disease. The former owners had been harvesting the Christmas trees with a big digger but had not been replacing the missing trees or filling the holes that had been left behind. There were over 200 holes scattered about. Each was 3-5’ in diameter and 2-4’ in depth. What’s more, invasive non-native plants like Asian honeysuckle and autumn olive now dominated the undergrowth.

Open woods in the foreground without any invasive plants and in background, across the property line, is a wall of invasive shrubs.

The contrast is stark. Across the Easters’ property line in the background of this image, you can see their neighbors’ land is still dominated by a thick mass of invasive shrubbery that prevents light from reaching the ground. In the foreground you can see what the land looks like after the Easters have removed invasive shrubs and diseased trees over the last 10 years.

It was an aesthetic and ecological mess. The Easters saw a chance to restore and renew God’s creation.

Its context, which David’s sister had noticed, also gave the property latent potential to be ecologically valuable . The property, for instance, is next to a river. River corridors are especially important for wildlife. Their property is also across from a publicly-owned natural area. By restoring this degraded property, the Easters saw they could have a larger impact.

The Easters were motivated by their long-time Christian faith to take on this challenge.

“We’ve done organic gardening for thirty something years,” says David. “We’ve always felt that God created the earth, and the earth should be protected. We believe we need to protect and improve the world around us and leave it a better place, both spiritually and physically.”

The Easters were able to retire early to this piece of land because they had long committed themselves to living as simply as they could, which itself was a reflection of their Christian values. They chose not to buy into consumer culture, which compels people to keep consuming and buying.

“Early in our marriage we set a lifestyle, and we capped it, even when our incomes rose,” says David. “Instead, we saved, and we gave.”

In 2008, they weren’t quite ready to move, but were eager to begin improving their new land. So for the next four years, they would travel from Ohio and spend several weeks of their annual vacations filling in the holes, clearing the invasive plants, taking down the diseased pines, and planting native trees and shrubs.

“The first years we planted and went back to Ohio so we didn’t care for them well so we had to replant quite a few.”

In 2012, they moved to their property in Illinois, building their own passive solar house there with solar panels on the roof providing much of the energy they needed. They also planted a large garden so they could grow more of their food. Now that they were there year-round, their restoration of the land picked up in pace and intensity. To bring ecological life to their land, they’ve planted a wide variety of native trees and shrubs.

A young oak sapling protected by wiring.

The Easters have planted hundreds of native trees on their property since they bought it in 2008 and have also seen native trees and shrubs spring up even when not planted by them. Here is a young oak with protection from deer.

David is proud to recite the diverse native species of woody plants he and his wife have planted, both from seed and as live plants – 10 species of oaks, four species of hickory tree, two maple species, persimmons, sassafras, viburnums, pawpaws (a favorite of mine), hornbeam, Juneberry, wahoo, snowberry, coralberry, ninebark, hazelnut, witch hazel, and spirea. For their own sustenance, they’ve also planted fruit and nut trees and bushes. These include pecans, gooseberries, currants, blueberries, pears, peaches, and plums. In all, they’ve planted 82 different species of trees and shrubs on their property.

“We have a book called Trees of Central Illinois,” says David, “and we’ve planted everything in the book, I believe, except perhaps for the ones that would belong on the river bottoms. Based on the number of fenceposts we’ve purchased for marking the location of the woody plants we’ve planted, there at least 750 trees and shrubs growing right now.”

David Easter stands next to pawpaw tree.

David stands by one of the pawpaw trees he and Dianda had planted some time ago. Seeing what they planted grow and prosper over time has been a great pleasure for them.

They’ve had pleasant surprises as well. After they cleared out the invasive plants that had been dominating the land under the trees, native plants began springing up that the Easters hadn’t planted, including sassafras, oaks, and spicebush. “We’ve seen plants come up that we would not have expected and had not done so in 20 years,” says David. His guess is that birds were bringing in nuts and dropping berry seeds from other nearby properties.

The rich variety of native plants and the pollen, nectar, fruit, nuts, and cover they provide has attracted a variety of wildlife. They have seen turkey walking through, hawks and eagles flying over, and owls in the woods. Deer are actually overly abundant. They are happy to see coyotes using the land frequently. The red fox are a mixed blessing, as they are beautiful animals but have also absconded with several of the Easters’ chickens. Monarch butterflies, which face a difficult future as a species, often visit their land. Dave and Dianda enjoy watching bluebirds nesting in the next boxes they’ve installed on the property as well..

They’ve even had moments of discovery. “In the tallgrass area one day we saw hundreds of swallows and hundreds of dragonflies,” says Dianda. “Were swallows eating the dragonflies or were they both eating insects there?”

David and Dianda have advice for people who want to bring life to their properties:

1. Do research before you begin

2. Use native plants whenever possible

3. Start planting native plants (especially trees and shrubs) as early as possible in your ownership or stewardship of a piece of property so you can enjoy them as they grow

4. It’s never too late to start planting and restoring your land

5. Start small so you don’t become overwhelmed and can learn lessons that you can easily fix as you go

It was a pleasure to spend time with David and Dianda on their property when I took the photos you see. They were simultaneously at peace with who they were and energetic in their life purpose that is bound up with their Christian faith.

I first met David at a land conservation meeting we both attended in central Illinois. In addition to what he and Dianda are doing on their land, David also works to help God’s creation be protected and restored to life on a larger scale by serving on the board of Grand Prairie Friends. This is an organization that protects ecologically important lands from development by purchasing them and also by using legal tools like conservation easements. David and Dianda attend and are active in the life of Stone Creek Church in Urbana.

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Year-End Blessings to You

Nathan Aaberg —  December 29, 2017 — Leave a comment

As 2017 draws to a close, I want to thank each of you for the openness of your heart to God’s abiding concern for all of Creation. I pray that you will be moved to do what you can in your personal life and in your public life to protect and restore God’s earth. May you do so as part of your whole commitment to being a disciple of Jesus.

I pray, too, that you know your gifts and the meaning your life has in your particular circumstances. Tap those gifts! Pursue your meaning and your mission. I would welcome hearing from you what your meaning and mission are and how you are using your gifts.

And how does your personal meaning and mission intersect with God’s earth? Remember – the good news that God offers through Jesus is good news for the whole earth.

Finally, I hope the photo below brings a smile. Earlier this year, which has been a challenging one, our family adopted two kittens – Gus and Maui – from a local shelter. These siblings had been rescued from the house of a hoarder where they were neglected. As a result, they’ve had some ongoing intestinal issues. I’m happy to say, however, that thanks to my wife’s attentive care, they seem to be getting better. (Who knew that pumpkin puree was so healthy for animals and that they would enjoy eating it?)

Both cats have revealed a talent for climbing. Maui in particular has had a habit of climbing up our Christmas tree through the interior. She has then played with ornaments or just observed life in the house. In this photo you see Maui enjoying a nativity moment. Perhaps she hears heaven and nature singing?

I pray that you will both be blessed and be a blessing in 2018.

Black cat perched in Christmas tree with nativity scene ornament in the foreground.

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Tasting and Seeing Through a Pawpaw

Nathan Aaberg —  October 22, 2017 — 2 Comments

Have you ever eaten a pawpaw?

I just tasted one for the first time. It brought to mind the phrase from Psalm 34:8 – “O taste and see that the LORD is good…”

Linda Wiens, pictured here, is in the middle of this story. A former staff member and current volunteer for the non-profit organization for which I work, Linda organized the planting of a small demonstration orchard near our office a number of years ago. Among the American quinces, apples, pears, persimmons, cherries, plums, and other fruit trees she had planted, there were two pawpaw trees.

Linda Wiens holds the leaves of a pawpaw tree aside so the fruit on the tree can be seen.

Linda Wiens, a long-time member of a local Mennonite congregation, shows the fruit of a pawpaw tree that she had planted with many other kinds of fruit trees in a small orchard.

This fall, one of the pawpaws bore fruit for the first time.

As way of background, here’s the first paragraph of the first chapter of Andrew Moore’s excellent book – Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit:

Throughout the years it’s gone by a lot of names – frost banana, Indiana banana, fetid-bush, bandango, custard apple, prairie banana, poor man’s banana – but most of the time it’s just been called pawpaw. At first glance, both the fruit and the tree seem out of place in North America. A cluster of young pawpaws hanging from its branch resembles a miniature hand of bananas. And those clusters are tucked behind the tree’s lush foliage, shaded by leaves often a foot in length, larger and broader than those of avocado and mango. Wild pawpaws often appear kidney-shaped, two to six inches long, and one to three inches wide; they typically weigh from just a few ounces to half a pound. But under cultivation – and yes, there are pawpaw breeders and growers – fruits that weigh more than a pound and half are not uncommon.

This native American fruit can be found in 26 states. The heart of its range runs from the far eastern side of Kansas all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The line formed by the northern borders of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas roughly forms the range’s east-west backbone. Check out the map (you’ll need to scroll down a bit) in this good online growing guide.

Speaking of geography, if someone tells you they’re from a town called Paw Paw, you’ll need to ask them which one. Six states – Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and West Virginia – have a town called Paw Paw. And there would be seven if you counted Paw Paw Island in Louisiana.

George Washington planted pawpaws at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson sent pawpaw seeds to Europe. It was even a big part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s diet in the last week of their trip back to Saint Louis.

It’s a part of American history that we had forgotten. And it’s now being rediscovered.

But wait, you say, what does it taste like? How do you eat it?

A plate with cross sections of pawpaws on display as well as two uncut pawpaws.

You can slice pawpaws up in cross-sections (after peeling off the skin) or cut them in half length-wise and spoon out the flesh of the fruit.

A close up of cut-up cross-sections of a pawpaw which have had the skins removed.

You will likely never find a fresh pawpaw in your local grocery store. It has a very short shelf life, and it will not ripen if picked prematurely. To paraphrase the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, there is a time to eat pawpaws and there is a time to wait for the next pawpaw season.

I found the taste something like a mix of banana, mango, and custard. The consistency reminded me of a well-ripened avocado.

And I liked it! Despite having to work around the large black seeds, I liked the flavor.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I cut up more cross-sections for our Friday staff meeting in early October. Some of my colleagues appreciated the novel taste. Others did not.)

There are many culinary options for this American fruit. We know that the Iroquois, for example, dried pawpaws and then used them in sauces and also cooked them into corn cakes. This worked well nutritionally.  Corn is very low in niacin while pawpaw is rich in it. Native Americans found the tree and its fruit so useful that they spread the tree west of the Mississippi and north into the area around Ontario.

At the annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Athens County, Ohio, you can taste a wide variety of foods in which people are using pawpaws.

Salsas. Curries. Puddings. Mousse. Crepes. Ice Cream. All with pawpaws.

And that’s not even mentioning the many micro-brews. Like the Pawpaw Sour Ale from Upland Brewing Company and Putnam’s Pawpaw Ale from Marietta Brewing. There is also the Paw Paw Wheat from Jackie O’s Brewery in Athens, Ohio.

I could go on for a long time about this fascinating plant and its lore. I’d like to tell you more about the fact that zebra swallowtail butterflies can only persist as long as there are pawpaws. Or that pawpaw trees contain complex chemical compounds that fight cancer.

But I want to end with a question.

How does the pawpaw fit into your understanding of God’s world?

Are theology, prayer, and worship in a church building the only ways to know and connect with God? Or is God also with us and pleased with us when we immerse ourselves in this complex world and understand, appreciate, savor, and mend it?

I’d vote for the latter. And I’d say pawpaws are a good place to start.

 

I urge Christians and churches to plant native species of trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers in their landscapes. If you’re in the home range of pawpaws and have the right conditions, why not plant a few of them? I planted two last  year on the east side of our house where it’s not too windy and the soil rarely dries out completely. (By the way, you need to plant two or more pawpaws relatively close to each other for the trees to have a chance to bear fruit). According to this article from Indianapolis, at least one church and a synagogue have planted pawpaws. If you’ve heard of others, please let me know!

 

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Tea (and Wonder) in the Garden

Nathan Aaberg —  July 7, 2017 — 2 Comments

Five or six years ago, I planted two New Jersey Tea shrubs in two separate areas of our yard devoted to indigenous prairie, savanna, and woodland plants. By adding New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) I hoped to add even more diversity to the plantings we already had.

New Jersey Tea isn’t one of the more well recognized native plants of the Midwest today. Early settlers knew it, however, and knew that its leaves could be used for making tea. This tea was particulary popular during the Revolutionary War as an alternative to those teas being imported into the colonies.

The challenge in using this relatively low-growing shrub in the home landscape is that rabbits love to eat it. “Love” is an understatement. One of the two disappeared within a year of being planted and was never seen again, presumably lost to the horde of hares in our neighborhood.

After a year in which it had bloomed, the remaining New Jersey Tea appeared to have met the same fate as the first as I couldn’t find it the following spring. When it reappeared last year in the midst of the other native flowers and grasses, I protected it with wire mesh fencing. But when I couldn’t find it this spring in a cursory look, I came to the conclusion that, despite my efforts, it had not survived. The temptation to devise elaborate and deadly schemes for dealing once and for all with the rabbits of the area was very strong.

But lo and behold, this past weekend as I did some weeding in the area I noticed unusual flowers and decided to look closer. Sure enough – the New Jersey Tea was blooming modestly as you can see in the photo below. (Lest you think I was completely daft in not being able to see such an obvious plant before, I should mention that I took this photo very close up. The leaves and blooms are actually fairly small and unobtrusive.)

The resilient New Jersey Tea shrub in our garden just after a rain.

Have you considered replacing portions of the lawn of your yard or your church’s land with indigenous plants? There are many options in how you do so, from creating carefully designed beds to more natural sections of habitat.

It’s worth the effort. Doing so honors our Creator God. It is a life-affirming action that says something authentically and counterculturally Christian about your values and your church’s values.

Having native plants around your home and church also offer the chance to observe the varied and complex relationships between different elements of Creation. New Jersey Tea, for example, is not just a delectable source of sustenance for rabbits. It fixes life-giving nitrogen in the soil, and its small, white, fragrant flowers are of value to butterflies and a variety of other small pollinators. And where you have small creatures you tend to have the occasional larger creature that feeds on them. In this case, the “larger” creature is the hummingbird.

Yes, those tiny and graceful ornithological wonders we typically see sipping on the nectar of flowers and the sweetened water of feeders are also completely ready to scarf up protein packages in the form of tiny bees, wasps, flies, and beetles.

I’m looking forward to the day when my family and I will see a hummingbird doing just that. If only the hummingbirds could do something about the rabbits…

 

To see better photos of more mature New Jersey Tea shrubs and to learn more about this beautiful plant, especially the many pollinators that draw sustenance from it, check this useful website out.

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