In Bruges.

A ‘Christian’ God

My audacious comment about my notion of what God was not in a recent post has instigated farther exploration into my Christian perspective of what God is. And coincidentally, my earnest running of fingers across a row of books at Massolit Books stopped at publication entitled Divine Milieu, by Pierre Telhard de Chardin – A French philosopher and Jesuit Priest whose personal truths conflicted with some of the Catholic Church’s which resulted in some of his books being censured. I believe wholeheartedly that there is truth to the essence of Christianity and that the Bible holds much wisdom and insight into the phenomenology of man - incidentally also the title of Telhard’s primary book and latest addition to my reading list. I am just now delving into the irreplaceable ideas and experiences of a kindred seeker of the Christian persuasion. 

Justice

I have also relevantly been disconcerted with thoughts of justice and nature these past few days. I keep recalling a particular excerpt I watched on television back in Poland about the “plight” of a species bird (I don’t recall the name). The documentary goes something like this: When the mother leaves to find food for her newly born chicks, a snake encroaches on the nest. The mother returns to find the snake unhurriedly swallowing her chicks one by one. She remains there powerless to do anything about it. When the snake finishes and leaves, she enters the empty nest looking around bewildered that her chicks have vanished. She abandons her nest to search for another location to build another. She finds one, distinctly different from the previous: Vines with no branches for snakes to slither up on; She lays her eggs once again, and patiently watches for predators before leaving her eggs. A cuckoo cunningly watches from afar, and when mother is gone, lays a single egg in mother’s nest. It is slightly bigger than the rest, but mother does not spot the difference. She instinctively goes back to sitting on the eggs to keep them warm as if her own. Soon, the eggs hatch, and the imposter chick appear markedly different from the others. It is much bigger and darker than the rest, but mother is blind to this disparity and continues to feed it along with the others. Because the cuckoo bird is inherently self-seeking, it nudges the other baby chicks out of the nest and they fall to the ground helplessly to their deaths. Father and mother watch on perplexed but continue to feed the cuckoo as their own. I watch aghast at the injustice of this phenomenon of nature, yet I have to accept that this is what ‘is.’ Mothers’ chicks were food for snake and her maternal instincts fostered the “enemy’s” children - all perfectly natural to perpetuate the broader ecological cycle of nature. It is my own judgment that deems the action ‘unjust’ or ‘malicious’ even 'evil'. Yet any interference on my part would be to intrude on the natural order of things.

I remain baffled at the phenomena of nature and spontaneous self-imposed judgments, observing with renewed understanding that all the artificial and restrictive shackles that society has placed upon me are entirely mine to relinquish.