Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Whale Vomit

What is one whale’s vomit is another woman’s perfume.
At least, that's what I learned growing up as a little tike with a scuba diving family in Hawaii. I learned at age ten that if whale vomit floats on the ocean long enough, it becomes a perfume -- expensive perfume at that.

My father would run check-out dives on the weekends. And during one of those diving trips, he recovered whale vomit off the Maui Channel. Having been told that perfume was made of sperm whale vomit, I picked it up and sniffed its sweet smell. It was such a bizarre story that I've always remembered it. My family never acted on cashing in on the rather petrified gray matter. Like so many other things in life, we interacted with it and let it slip by.

But judging from this story about an Australian couple and the riches a single regurgitation of whale vomit brought them, my family could have been rich too – if only we had sold that lump of gray floating rock. If only...

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Reading the Bible As Literature

This is a great thought by Eric Russell in his blog A Motley Vision.
"But I think there’s great value to reading the Bible as fiction – as literature. I think the greater variety of ways we can interpret the scriptures, the better...Christ’s parables all had a central purpose, but they are imbedded with innumerable lessons directed at multiple audiences. I think much of the Bible is the same way. The more we can mine out of the text, the richer our experiences will be."
Well said. When we read the scriptures as modern-style history, we miss a lot if we do not let the tools of literature jump out at us. For example, there is a definite parable in demons jumping out of a madman into unkosher pigs, only to have the little porkers plunge into a tempestuous sea. Or there is symbolism in Christ causing the blind man to see, besides the history of Jesus healing an afflicted man.

The good news messages linked with the story as a parable reinforce each other. Read it only as history and you risk missing spiritual truths behind such events.
"The significance of this miracle [at the marriage of Cana] may be better appreciated if the unique symbolism of water and wine in Old Testament theology is recognized. Water appears in ancient scripture as a powerful symbol of universal death, particularly that which results from disobedience to God...The transmutation of water to wine foreshadowed the work of the Lord in overcoming death..." [The Waters of Destruction and the Vine of Redemption, 37 Allen J. Christenson, Provo, Utah]
Then there are the nuances of the actual story and how meaning can shift significantly depending on how you might read the detail of a single word. Often I can only see what I have been trained to see. I find taking a legalistic approach in asking myself to see only what is in the story helps me check my assumptions and gain additional insights into the scripture.

Those are the approaches that work for me.

I'm No Job (But A Good Job Will Do)

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” - Duke Ellington

I'm no Job of Old Testament fame but when it rains it pours. And when it pours, the quote above from Duke Ellington is good advice. It's more constructive to write some blues and I can do so on my blog.

One bit of bad news this past month to sing the blues about, among many, was carcinoma of the bladder, something I didn't expect to hear at my age with my clean lifestyle. But, as Job would say if he spoke French instead of presumably Hebrew, “c’est la vie.” There are certain bumps and threats that are just part of life.

On second thought, maybe Job wouldn't say that. Each language brings its own lenses on the world that are embedded in its words. His buddies with the funny names tended to think in more black and white terms of divine causality. e.g. “For though God wounds, he also bandages. He strikes, but his hands also heal. (Job 5.18)” Hebrew speakers probably didn't think in terms of "such is life" or "stuff just happens".

And they certainly didn't know how to sing the blues when bad stuff did happen. They'd have to learn that from the Duke in America. The thing to learn from the story of Job is not the blues but rather patience and faith amidst adversity, even when you don't understand "why me".

I went to the hospital before Christmas to undergo cystoscopy, where a fairly large tumor in my bladder was scraped out. This kind of tumor tends to be a somewhat benign form of malignant cancer – if that makes sense. The doctor explained that there was no such thing as a benign tumor of the bladder. It’s all bad. It just depends on how bad. I was fortunate in that the carcinoma cells were shallow and growing slowly. The unwelcome cells, as unwelcome as a flasher at a BYU football game, were escorted out of my body completely and without complications. This bump in my life was now gone.

Some men tend to get quiet and introspective when serious things happen, while others are quiet even when unserious things happen. I’m somewhat quiet when unserious and really, really quiet when things get serious. Hence, my muteness on my blog.

I managed to get out to smell the roses during the holidays though. I enjoyed seeing and photographing the Christmas lights one cool crisp evening at Temple Square. That's when I took the photo above.

The construction there slowed down the flood of humanity, much like road construction in the middle lane of I-15 slows down both North and Southbound traffic during rush hour. I don’t know where the sampling of dense humanity around Temple Square comes from, maybe from the Diaspora of Utahans around the country returning to family. At any rate, it was busier than the exit of a NY skyscraper at lunchtime.

Still, I can’t think of any place more christmasy than Temple Square during Christmas week with the lights on. It was good to be alive and to have good health.