Protecting Chimpanzees and the Imago Dei

I am leaving on vacation today, but I wanted to share a quick post before I go, on this article in The New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/science/goal-of-broader-protection-for-chimpanzees-emerges-from-changing-perspectives.html?pagewanted=all

It describes the proposal by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to add chimpanzees in captivity to the endangered species list.  What this would do is block most experimentation on them, and perhaps discourage their use in entertainment, too.  It's the former ramification that I find most interesting, especially in light of what Jane Goodall said at the announcement:  "What the chimpanzee has done is to prove there is no hard and fast line dividing us from the rest of the animal kingdom.  That's the greatest gift the chimpanzee has given those of us who care about animal welfare."

This has very, very important theological ramifications as well, obviously:  when that "hard and fast" line is blurred, justifying experiments on animals that we would unequivocally reject performing on human beings becomes much harder, as is insisting on exclusive moral rights for human beings alone.  In this way, it forces us to ask questions about our relationship to non-human animals, and their own integrity and personality as beloved creatures of God--not only chimpanzees, of course, but other non-human animals as well.

As a theologian, I'm really glad these challenges to scientific practices are being raised, and that these questions are being asked.  They can only help us better understand who God has created us to be--both unique, and also deeply embedded in the whole of creation and dependent on the health of the cosmos as a whole:  these are complementary understandings of the human being, not competing ones.  And the more we come to see ourselves as deeply relational--not only with chimps but also with trees and newts--the more we come to appreciate our existence as imago Dei.

Fallingwater

We finished the day yesterday at Fallingwater, the house designed by Frank Lloyd Wrigt in the 1930s and meant to complement and echo the natural surrounding of the rocks and the water.  The Kaufman family wanted to be able to SEE the falls from the house--Wright wanted the falls to BE a part of the house, as it were.  And not only the falls, but also when you are walking through the house, you see where he incorporated large rock formations from the hills into the home itself, including even a formation that was a conduit for water:  he dug a narrow trench at the base of the rock (which is now in a hallway of the house) so that the water would run down onto the driveway.  He mimicked the curves and shape of the rock in the wood and the windows, and he included in the great room a stairway covered by retractable glass panels that opened down onto the river itself.  In every room, one feels oneself embedded in the natural surroundings--it's almost like you are outside and inside at the same time.

I was reminded of the architecture of the many Buddhist temples I saw in Japan that also very carefully and intentionally seek to convey a sense of harmony with the natural world.  I firmly believe that you feel different in a space like that, and it really facilitates a more constructive, a more intentional relationship with the natural world--it's transformative in ways both obvious and subtle.  I think there are lots of ways one can incorporate elements of that relationality in one's own living space--with plants, light, etc.--that can serve as daily reminders that we are embedded in a larger web of creation, not isolated from it.  I love a living space that witnesses to that.  It helps us live differently, I think.

Bird Calls at Powdermill Nature Reserve

We started our day today visiting Powdermill Nature Reserve, which is the research arm of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  In particular, we heard a presentation from Amy, a scientist who is studying bird calls--not songs, but the short (1 second or so) flight calls birds make when they migrate.  So, they use micronets to capture the birds (there is a picture of one of those tied up below), band them, weigh them, etc., and then also attempt to record their flight calls.  I won't even go into how complicated the data compilation is--just say a short prayer of thanks for all the scientists doing very painstaking work all over the world, helping us learn more about the natural world--let alone how they even built up a data base of the calls in the first place (suffice it to say it involved some VERY patient scientists going out with hand-held microphones and recording the calls of birds they observed):  I posted some pictures below of framed charts in her office, both describing the work and identifying the calls.

For me, what I took away from the whole this is first and foremost how important it is to recognize the face that all creation--all species--lives together in an interconnected web, and when any thread of that web gets weakened or cut (like, for example, when wind turbines are put up in migratory routes, or when they are erected without "wingtips," which prevents a vortex being created, in which bats can get caught and causes their lungs to explode), we ALL are weakened.  We all either thrive or suffer together, and we are fooling ourselves if we think humans can flourish apart from the flourishing of the whole cosmos.  The other thing I took away is how detrimental feral cats are to the bird population--and outdoor domestic cats, too.  We all should be working to make sure cats are spayed and neutered, and feral cats arent't allowed to just roam free--that's dangerous for the cats, too.  Finally, the church needs to be in dialogue with science and scientists, and open to the conversation, and actively engaging them on their work.  I think theologians can offer a helpful "mega-picture," and answers to the "so what" questions, and scientists can offer helpful specific, concrete information that can inform theological reflection.  Everybody wins when we live in community.

Old Growth Forest

Here are some pictures from an old growth forest we hiked today, as well as a "wilderness area"--that is actually a specific designation, by legislative action, which means that humans can't manage the land at all:  the natural life and death cycles of the animals and plants are allowed to take their course.  Somehow to me that feels like a witness to a deep faith and trust in the continuing work of God, through natural selection, mutation, evolution, etc., and God's ability to bring life out of death, and to do a new thing.  It was beautiful.  In the old growth forest, some of the trees were over 300 years old.  I also found a little Chickadee's nest in a log--her babies were tiny!  And, isn't the Mountain Laurel lovely?

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Terra Dei

This is "Terra Dei," a sustainable house here on the camp campus.  They have solar panels, a compost toilet, and the walls actually are straw bales--very cool.  I also loved the bike hooked up to a battery--twenty minutes of biking can power a tv for 2 hours!  (I wonder if I can get little Henry on a treadmill....)

The trees in the third picture are Chestnut trees--100% American Chestnuts, rescued by an organization operating out of Virginia Tech that went out and found ones that had resisted the blight that had all but killed off the whole species.  We're learning a lot, and enjoying our time here--thinking about how our Christian claims about God's ongoing creative work, the "deep incarnation" in Jesus Christ, and the call to discipleship made possible by the Holy Spirit relates to our understanding of the natural world and our place in it, and with it.

"Earth Your Dancing Place"

I think I have mentioned before that poetry is not my favorite literary genre.  Sure, there are certain poems and poets I love [Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mary Oliver are at the very top of my list], but I'm pretty conventional in my tastes, and I don't have the sophisticated tools I would need to analyze and interpret much of contemporary poetry--lots of it just strikes me as pedestrian and incoherent.

However, I would never give up on poetry altogether, because, at its best, poetry uses vivid, compelling images to reveal flashes of a truth that can never be seen or understood directly, completely, but only experienced in moments and in bits.  But, and here's the key--these moments and bits, though brief and incomplete, penetrate to the core and are transformative:  they invite you into a different world, into a different way of being, and give you fresh eyes and a new heart.  And they do it as much as by what they don't say as by what they say:  they use suggestion and hints, whispers--so they aren't didactic or pedantic.  They invite you to come closer, slow down, and unfold.

The poem that prompted this post is titled "Earth Your Dancing Place," by May Swenson.  Here is the last stanza:

"Take the earth for your own large room
and the floor of the earth
carpeted with sunlight
and hung round with silver wind
for your dancing place."

What I love here, of course, is the image of the earth as a carpeted, sunlit, breezy dance floor, where one's proper mode of being is rhythmic, spontaneous, liberated and joyous, and where all of creation is one's partner.  What a way to view the world!

Theologically, this invites me into a posture not only of joy and freedom, but also gratitude and loving relationship--not only with God but with all God has made.  And, if we think about at least one form of God's artistry as dance [and even more, God's very being as dancing, dynamic partnership--this is the perichoresis of the divine persons in communion], then when we see ourselves as cosmic dancers we can envision ourselves embodying the imago Dei in fresh, creative ways.  That's a space I would like very much to inhabit.  

[The picture is from a performance of traditional Indian dance, taken in Hyderabad, India, March, 2012.]

Picture of "Things That are Hidden"