Home of Parrish W. Jones

God’s Cooperative Universe
by Parrish W. Jones
©copyright, March 12, 1999

Job 40:15-24
1 Corinthians 12:14-26
Mark 4:26-29

Albert Einstein spoke these words: “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thought and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”[As quoted in Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality, (New York: Anchor Books, 1985. P. 250)]

These words of Einstein, the great physicist of the 20th Century, speak boldly a contemporary version of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians. We all know that our bodies are a single organism which functions best when all its parts are whole and functioning at their best. It matters little whether it is the more visible parts which the Apostle mentions or the smallest microscopic elements which fight off disease and infection. We seldom note the microorganisms and cells within us unless they fail us.

Victims of AIDES and other diseases know all too well what happens when our immune systems fail. Yet, from day to day we do not think of the many very small plants and animals which inhabit us to keep us functioning. The Apostle Paul and his contemporaries knew nothing of these things. In this century we failed to recognize the importance of bacteria and other micro organisms for our life until we developed Penicillin and its derivatives. Then doctors became aware of a strange phenomenon.

When they gave anti-biotics to kill infections from viruses and bacteria, persons often developed other illnesses related to the digestive and respiratory systems. Most people recovered easily from these once the anti-biotic was stopped. However, some did not. Doctors soon learned that these miracle drugs also had their down side. They killed many of the good bacteria and micro-organisms in the body which support our life.

Keeping an organism well balanced is not an easy thing. Most organisms depend on many other organisms and the nutrients locked up in the rocks, dirt and sediment of the earth for survival. Humans no less than the mouse, the horse, the cat or the dog. Einstein points to a point which I hope you will explore with me today. That is that the universe is also an organism albeit a very huge one. Within that organism is the earth, our home.

The earth is no less dependent on multitudes of things to continue as it is than are we. Zillions of things contribute to the consistency of the atmosphere for its regulation. The level of oxygen necessary for the development of large plants and air breathing animals developed as a byproduct, that is a waste product of the zillions of micro-organisms, algas, fungi and the like which at one time were about all that lived on the earth.

Oxygen, on which we depend on to breath, is regulated by all those prehistoric kinds of things plus millions of newer species of plants around the earth. Humans had nothing to do with the evolutionary consensus reached by nature that oxygen should make up about 21% of the atmosphere. That percentage was deadly for some older life forms. They would have called it pollution. Yet, it gave life to newer forms. Oddly, if oxygen content increases by a few percentage points living organisms will spontaneously combust. If it decreases by a few, they will suffocate. [Lynn Margulus and Dorion Sagan, Micro-Cosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution. (New York: Summit Books, 1986) pp. 111-2]

We cannot change this fact. We can only live with it and learn to cooperate to maintain a health environment for the future generations. Of course, it is too much for us to think globally. But let us think locally. There is much that is ready to hand which demonstrates how we can be a part of the cooperation of nature to assure the future of our planet. Next week we will see more about how we can be about the redemptive process of thinking and planning for the seventh generation of children to come.

Let us take a brief journey into God’s plan for natural waste management.
 

[Show Video: Wonderful World of Dung starting with the steaming Cow Dung  (This video shows cows and what happens in fast forward to it in healthy pastures where dung beatles and many other animals live and break the manure down so that the earth is cleaned.)]

I used to say that I wanted to be cremated. The more I study, the more I realize that cremation wastes tremendous energy needed by the earth. It is better to be buried and decompose in the earth. That of course means having to have a compostable casket, which are available, and a place to be buried, which in most cases today requires your own land.

As long as we do it the way God has created it to be done, we cannot lose. We can only win. God created nature as a cooperative whole. After the videos we saw last week of the taking of prey and the battles for dominance, we may reasonably question that claim. However, that is all a part of the cooperation. The way God created the earth, nature is a zero sum game.

A zero sum game is a game in which the players gain and lose points by certain actions. Too much aggression causes a loss of points as does too little. The only way to avoid losing is to find levels of cooperation. By nature all the earth is forced into this zero sum where the only losers are those who fail to reach a level of cooperation.

Let us watch some of the video of the water hole from last week. All around the water hole there is constant predation and cooperation. The lion stalks its prey, but never takes too much. What it takes is often the weaker, slower, less intelligent, thus even the lion helps the Gazelle, although not any particular one, by improving the genetics of the Gazelle heard..

Elephants and lions are natural enemies but they seldom hurt one another. Elephants only kill lions if threatened by them. Lions only kill baby elephants never do they maraud and kill needlessly. There is a story about an African nation that was being overrun by elephants. Their solution was to have a big hunt. The hunters were forbidden to kill any young elephants.

The result was the decimation of the adult population.

The results were horrendous. The young elephants without mother or father, aunt or uncle, formed gangs and began marauding about. They found great delight in crunching any lion who dared get in their way. It became a game instead of a defense against aggression. The lion population began to dwindle. What to do?
The animal control agency consulted with animal behaviorists who advised importing adult elephants from another area. They did so and within a few weeks the adults straightened out the juvenile delinquents. Even young elephants need discipline and guidance.

This story is a parable for humans. We have been the marauding gangs of planet earth. We have believed the earth is ours to do with as we please. We have done so. Instead of cooperating in the preservation of our valuable resources and taking only what we need, we have taken and created great wealth and impoverished the earth in the process.

A simple example: If you have a billion dollars at your disposal, how long can you live on it if you take more than the interest that it creates. The answer is: “Probably a very long time.” But what happens if you begin living high on the hog? Then your children take to your habits and live higher on the hog never putting very much back. Then your great-grand-children begin to see that the resources are getting more and more scarce, so they decide to begin a waste reduction program. They conserve and even begin putting a little bit back. But they still insist on a high lifestyle. When will the money run out?

That is precisely what humans have done. There is a difference. Some of us take even more than others leaving many in poverty. First world humans, that’s you and me, tell third world humans that they need to reduce their birth rate. The third world humans have responded, “Each of your children uses four times as many resources as one of ours. When you reduce your consumption, we’ll reduce our birth rate.”

So humans go on. Remember! I said nature is a zero sum game. The only species which survive are those who learn to co-operate with many others. Humans have said, “We do not need to co-operate. We can do what we want. We are God’s crowning glory in creation.” We have had it wrong. One sad fact about being at the top of the food chain: Nothing really cares or depends on us. We are not needed by the rest of nature. The earth very likely will go on without us. Life evolved long before we showed up. It will survive our destruction.

Either we will learn to co-operate with God’s plan or we will die. God will find another way. Job’s downfall was arrogance. The story of Job is the story of humanity. Our downfall is our arrogance that we are in charge. But, we are not.