An Easy Way for Evaluating People?

Oh, if we could only know what is going on in another person's head!  Not everything (that would be a nightmare), but enough to protect ourselves against danger that might be coming from someone else.  How can we know through observation whether another person can be relied upon or not?  Interestingly, one formula that has sometimes been given in literature is to watch how that person treats animals.

Just to give some examples from Western literature:  Charlotte Brontë, in her lesser-known novel Shirley, wrote of one character, "we watch him, and see him kind to animals."  That character turns out to be kind also "to little children, to poor people."  In Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, the body language and speech of the gardener Ben makes him forbidding; but then his deeper character is revealed through his affection for a robin.  In one of Victor Hugo's most famous novels, that kind of contrast is emphasized by a caring for birds being displayed by the hideous-looking hunchback.  In this case, the action toward animals not only reveals character, but also belies Quasimodo's ugly physical appearance.

poem
"Kindness to Animals"
by Jane Taylor (1783-1824)

There are so many examples like these that we might think that with them we have gotten the animal-human connection figured out.  But the matter is more complex.  Setting aside the problem of trying to catch a glimpse of a person mistreating an animal in advance of injuring a person, there is the question of whether treatment of animals is really a sure-fire indicator.  Part of the complexity here is that literature is not neutral, objective observation.  Literature develops familiar patterns to suit particular audiences.  Thus, these recurring scenes of good treatment of animals by reliable people could simply be an easy device for the author to reveal what is within a character's head without using a stream-of-consciousness technique.

Moreover, sometimes literary themes develop in order to teach moral lessons.  English literature, especially in the 1800's, was frequently considered to be a vehicle for teaching children.  That role of stories means that animal-treatment scenes may have been designed to teach good behavior, not as a claim about predicting a person's future behavior.

Nonetheless, recent scientific research indicates that our human brains are indeed inclined to prefer a person who is kinder over a person who is not.  Researchers at Yale had babies only five months old watch two stuffed animals (manipulated like puppets) behave differently toward a third stuffed animal.  After watching one stuffed animal be helpful and another animal be unhelpful toward a third animal, the babies were then offered the two main puppets.  Which would they prefer to have?  The babies reached out their arms for the stuffed animal that had been "nice" 75 % of the time.

That's a pretty good predictor.  Nonetheless, we have to admit that in 25 % of the cases, the babies did not choose the "nice" puppet.  It seems that just as with adults, we cannot always be able to predict how a baby is going to behave.

~~~

Do you remember any story you read as a child in which animals were treated kindly?

(The Brontë quotes are Shirley's words to Charlotte in Chap.12 of Shirley by Charlotte Brontë [1840].)

(The novel by Victor Hugo mentioned is The Hunchback of Notre Dame [1831].)

The Good, the Bad,and the Ugly in Nature

Every Fall, I receive in the mail some calendars from environmental organizations that want to coax me into making a donation.  The calendars represent marvelous examples of nature photography, bringing me beautiful close-up images of wildlife, and panoramic images of landscapes.  Although I enjoy the colorful photographs, in the back of my mind I am aware of a drawback in their representations of Nature.  And therein lies a complex paradox about the natural world and our human relation to it.

John Ruskin
     

The key to understanding the paradox is remembering that I enjoy beautiful pictures of Nature, whereas things in Nature are not always beautiful.  This insight was laid out by the 19th-century art critic John Ruskin when he criticized a minister who had depicted a landscape as being only light and freshness.  Ruskin pointed out things that had been left out of that depiction, by adding:  "Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcase [carcass] of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone....  At the turn of the brook, I see a man fishing with a boy and a dog -- a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if they had not been there all day starving.  I know them, and I know the dog's ribs also, which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe's...."

A bit of reflection can, without too much difficulty, lead to the recognition that not all things we see in Nature are aesthetically beautiful.  It is more difficult to recognize and accept those things in Nature that we can feel a moral distaste for.  Such as a tiger chomping its teeth on the body of a beautiful antelope that is not yet dead.  (You will never see a close-up of that on one of those wildlife calendars.)

It has been easy for humankind to be repulsed by such predation, labeling it "bad."  Our modern science of ecology teaches us, however, that predators play critical roles in the internal, balancing dynamic of ecosystems. And over eight centuries ago, the theologian Thomas Aquinas cautioned his readers against imposing a too simple absolute moral grid upon other forms of life, writing:  "The wolf, though in its own kind a good of nature, is nevertheless evil to the sheep."

It might seem that the matter is resolved at this point.  It might seem that I have to just abandon my revulsion at the ugliness I see in the non-human realm of Nature.  True, I should be concerned about that needy man and boy who Ruskin pointed out to me.  But shouldn't I just set aside my feelings when I see distasteful things in the non-human world, such as the ewe Ruskin described?  It might seem so, but I think that would be misguided.  It could result in a hardening of my own heart.  My sensitivity is part of what makes me a living being -- similar to the way the poor ewe had its own forms of sensitivity.

The paradox is that I need to see in Nature a wider beauty that incorporates things that should be disturbing to me in a certain way.  So, ironically, even as I try to remember that Nature was not designed for my own aesthetic or moral pleasure, I say to those environmental organizations, "Don't stop sending those beautiful wonder-filled calendars!"

~~~

Are there things in Nature you experience as being ugly or unpleasant?

(The Ruskin quote is cited in McGrath, Alister E.  A Fine-Tuned Universe:

  The Quest for God in Science and Theology.  © 2009. p. 81.)

(The Aquinas quote is from his A Compendium of Theology [1269-1273], I, 142.)

Libraries for the Souls

imagined interior of Library of Alexandria

Book-lovers are almost always lovers of libraries.  (I confess to being both.)  Ask a book-lover about some good memory of a library, and I bet you will get a childhood memory.  My wife, for example, tells about her persuading the librarian to make an exception to the 3-book checkout limit because, as a child, she went through books so fast.  So helpful have been libraries to the human race that it is no surprise that the library in ancient Alexandria had over its entrance the sign:

"A hospital for the soul." 

Not that I have found all libraries life-giving or even conducive to learning.  I remember in particular one seminary library where the books were covered in dust, pages dried out and sometimes falling out because the radiators were set too hot.  Some books were wedged in horizontally above other books. And there were no chairs in the stacks area, nor even space between the rows of shelves to make oneself comfortable even on the floor.  That library cramped both books and people's spirits.

Most libraries I have experienced, however, have been life-giving. It interests me how that usually entails letting in important elements of  Nature:  Natural light, and clean air (even if that cleanliness is created by a good air-conditioning system).  Also, how helpful it is to have chairs and tables near a window so that readers can intermittently look up from their books in order to look outside to rest their over-taxed eyes.  And also so that they can look up from their reading to let their over-filled minds relax and expand. Expand so that the thoughts and feelings swirling from the written words can settle deeply into their souls.

One of the unrecognized contributions of the U.S. to the world has been its having been in the vanguard of establishing libraries free to the public.  A good number of older immigrants to the U.S. (such as the actor Kirk Douglas, whose parents came from Russia) tell how their parents were amazed that in the U.S. children could go to a library and borrow books free.  That accessibility has now been expanded through computerized search catalogs, as anybody who has been to a contemporary library knows.  I will confess that there was a romance in the older cataloguing method of index cards, a hole punched at the bottom of each card to keep it securely within the wooden drawers for alphabetical browsing.  That method also meant that every school-child could quickly learn the correct answer to the librarian's perennial question:  "Can anyone tell us what are the three main types of cards in the card catalogue?"  A child could raise their hand and answer, "Title, Author, and Subject."  Nevertheless, I do concede that the computer now makes searching a large library faster.

So those are the ingredients for my recipe for a good library:  Natural light.  Clean air.  Sunlight (not glaring).  Tables by the window.  Comfortable chairs.  A good cataloguing system for finding items.  Oh yes, there is one other ingredient I haven't mentioned:  Good content in the books. That is the real nutrition.

~~~

Do you have a good childhood memory of a library?  Do you have a favorite library today?  Why?

A Fiery Paradoxical Mystery

In his "Canticle of Brother Sun," St. Francis of Assisi uses a series of verses with very similar wording to celebrate one by one each part of the natural world.  Each part -- moon, air, water, and so forth -- is celebrated as both praising God and being a means by which we join Nature in praise.

There is one part of the natural world, however, that is singled out by St. Francis as being most like God, and it is surprising:  Francis singles out the sun.  When speaking to God about the sun, Francis says, "Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness."

Somehow it seems to smack of sun worship!  Wasn't I taught in church-school how the ancient Israelites in the Bible took pains to differentiate their concept of God from the beliefs of the other ancient cultures that worshipped a planet or the sun?  So why does Francis say that of all the things in the natural world God is most like the sun?  We, today, in most mainstream Christianity are more likely to prefer that God be likened to something more close at hand than the sun, and something less likely to burn us.  It's more comforting to think of God as being like a gentle breeze, or a good friend.

Francis's own statement that the sun "brings the day" shows that he found a similarity to God's faithfulness in the sun's faithful rising every morning.  Francis also says that it is through the sun that God provides us light. However, another clue as to how God might by like the sun might be found later in the "Canticle" where Francis says of "Brother Fire" that fire too not only brings light but is also "full of power and strength."  Light and warmth but also power -- some of the same properties held by the fiery sun.

So here is a paradox which might speak even more closely to the similarity between the sun and the great Divine Mystery we call God, who we never see:  We receive light and warmth from the sun, but we could never touch the sun itself, much less enter its fiery core, without being consumed.  Similarly, I can find intimations of God here on Earth, but how could my mind ever fully grasp what kind of power it can be that can make possible all of the 170-billion galaxies, with an average of 100-billion stars in each galaxy?  My mind would be completely overwhelmed, consumed.

In 1654, the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal experienced for about two hours one of those mystical experiences in which a veil is lifted and the Divine Mystery is experienced extraordinarily directly.  For the remainder of his life, Pascal carried with him a piece of paper on which he had written a description of his experience of God.  It's words in part were:

"In the year of Grace 1654, on Monday 23rd November...

From about half past ten at night until about half-past twelve.

FIRE.

... Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy."

~~~

What to you most strongly proclaims the greatness of the world we live in?

(The Pascal quote is taken from An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, by Harvey D. Egan, © 1991.  p. 482.)

(The photo of artwork, by Frank Vincentz,

 is used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

(One translation of St. Francis's "Canticle" can be read at this external link: "Canticle.")

A Strange Word for a Strange World

The first time I was in a national park, I didn't know I was.  During that family vacation, I was elementary-school age, and I don't recall my parents every saying we were going to the "national park," or even to "the park."  Instead, we were going to see "the cave" or "Mammoth Cave."  Even though that famous cave is in a national park, I don't recall our having explored any landscape above ground (other than the gift shop and restaurant).

Mammoth Cave

I also believe it was during that family vacation that I first encountered the word "mammoth."  Today in the U.S., we rarely employ that word as an adjective, preferring "huge," "immense," or "gigantic."  Perhaps at the age I was, I had heard the word "mammoth" used as a noun to talk about woolly "mammoths" (based on the Russian name for those extinct animals first discovered in Siberia).  But I have no recollection of knowing about those creatures at that time either.  Because of my unfamiliarity with that strange word with three "m's" in it, the phrase "Mammoth Cave" did not sound like a description of the cave's size, but instead seemed to be a distinctive proper name, just like the name "Kentucky" for the state we were headed to.

Since that time of my childhood, I have been a tourist in a half-dozen other caves with less descriptive names.  What has stayed with me most in my memory is the otherworldliness of the experience.  (It has been similar to the experience of going into a dark movie theater and becoming so lost in the world of the movie that when I emerged back into daylight I had forgotten what day it was, and even what time of day.)  Some of that strangeness of caves has come from the fascinating, but in a way bizarre rock formations, often accentuated by man-made lights. More than those things, there has been the otherworldliness of actually being beneath the ground that had seemed so solid when I was above it.

Over a half-century before I entered Mammoth Cave as a boy, the early nature-writer John Burroughs (1837-1921) wrote eloquently about his own experience in that very same cave.  He emphasized the strangeness of the place by explaining how even blind people found it so:  "The blind seem as much impressed by it as those who have their sight....  They get some idea of the spaciousness when words are uttered....  When no word is spoken, the silence is of a kind never experienced on the surface of the earth, it is so profound and abysmal."

Burroughs then penetrates more deeply into the otherworldliness by pointing to its similarity to the dead being underground:  "I... said to myself, the darkness and the silence of their last resting-place is like this....  No vicissitudes of earth, no changes of seasons, no sound of storm or thunder penetrate here; winter and summer, day and night, peace or war, it is all one; a world beyond the reach of change...."

Burroughs' words made me even gladder that we humans have evolved so as to be suited to living upon this green Earth's surface, not confined inside it.

~~~

If you have ever been in a cave, what was it like being there and coming back out?

(The Burroughs quotes are from Riverby [1894] by John Burroughs.)

(The photo inside Mammoth Cave is by Daniel Schwen,

 and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)