I had made a decision not so long ago that I would be finished, no matter what (famous last words?), with this stomach non-sense come the end of July. All I was waiting on was the results of one last test. Either I was going to get the surgery or walk away from the whole mess and just have to learn to deal with my discomfort and the risk of developing that condition the doctors call Barrett’s esophagus, something I have come to call the ghost of cancer-future.
This past Friday I had my appointment with Dr. Bootsie only to find out he could not provide any immediate answers because after more than a week of waiting for the results they were still not in. Regardless of this Dr. Bootsie continued to seem positive that the surgery was the correct choice barring some unusual and unexpected results. He also assured me that I was doing the right thing in being cautious about delaying the surgery and waiting until I had all the information I could have. Before I left he told me he would make sure that the results were put together that day and that he would call me at four o’clock to tell me either to go ahead with the surgery or forget about it. I was thrilled and ready to celebrate either way.
But his call didn’t come. Not until 7pm anyway. And even then it wasn’t Dr. Bootsie but the doctor who had read the test results. He told me that the surgery was to be cancelled and that there were more tests needed to determine my problem.
I’m not going to get into the details mostly cause they depress me. All that I really need to say here is that I was devastated and had to spend the last two days on the phone with pharmacies, insurance companies and doctor’s secretaries to determine my future. I had little success.
Luckily for me, in the midst of all this disappointment I found God. I have to admit that this was a revelation in the works considering that I have been studying the New Testament for several weeks. Now, my friends (all you good agnostics and atheists), do not be afraid. You will soon see that the god I found has little to do with the god of Abraham. It had much more to do with a turkey and a hawk and the recall of a Captain Kirk line from that theological masterpiece Star Trek V.
I had taken the commuter rail to the small town of West Gloucester to explore the nearby Ravenswood Park for some much needed forest quiet. I burdened myself only with binoculars, some cashews, an apple, a book (not the Bible . . . I’ll get to that shortly), and a very vague map of this park, which I found out is owned and made available by a group of people that refer to themselves quite officially as trustees. So thanks to these executors of the wilderness and my slight provisions I was able to spend a tranquil day amongst the trees.
Right from the beginning of the trip I realized it was going to be a nature-blessed (so to speak) day. Not ten minuets on the trail I noticed a garter snake slithering in the bushes. I became fond of these critters during my days as a river guide on Wyoming’s Snake River (named not for snakes but a misinterpreted motion of the hand made by the local Shoshone Indians meant to indicate their basket weaving techniques (some say to mimic swimming salmon)). A garter snake near the landing, if you could nab its fleeting tail, almost insured an extra twenty-dollar tip. I spent a few minutes crouched down marveling at its delicate flickering tongue and yellow scales lined up in a subtle but beautiful stripe before it slithered off into the shelter of dark New England pond water. Once it was gone I continued into the shade of the forest.
As the sun reached its summer heights the shade became a bright yellow-green glow. The cool morning breeze gone my mood began to shift. I was sweating heavily and grew overly aware of my city softness. Not just my belly either but my skin as well which the mosquitoes sliced through like I was New York style cheesecake. Passing an area called Great Magnolia Swamp I found myself cursing and swatting and cursing and swatting. My two hands clapped together here and there echoing about the silence with a sound like the clop of moose hooves testing a marble floor. What had happened to the me of Alaska who lived in a Yukon style tent and snapped out the lives of mosquitoes with deft one-handed claps and the composure of Mr. Miyagi?
I pushed on and tried to keep my mind off the mosquitoes by focusing on enjoying the company of a few chickadees, a couple of nuthatches and one very brilliant scarlet tanager. As a specter of that weather-crisped younger self returned I was able to let my mind and body wander. When I grew tired I sat cross-legged on an elevated pad of moss for some much needed girlfriend prescribed meditation. It was then that God spoke to me.
Before I get to what he said or more importantly the voice that he used let me tell you about my recent Bible studies. As I mentioned before I have been reading the New Testament. (The reason for this is a top secret writing project that I am not willing to discuss here.) Along with reading all the gospels in their theoretical order (I’m halfway through Luke at the time of writing this) I am also trying to read contemporary books on the Bible and God (or lack of God). The one I’m reading now is written by A.J. Jacobs, an editor of Esquire magazine. Jacobs, a self-proclaimed agnostic at the start of his project, spent a year living as closely as he could by the rules of the Old Testament. Now, I’m reserving a little bit of judgment here as I’m only half way through but so far, at the half way point, it really seems that Jacobs is beginning to “find” God.
Given this and my recent experiences my belief that there is a danger in reading the Bible (and about the Bible) exclusively. It speaks with such high authority that you can’t help, if you are truly an open-minded reader, to start thinking in thou-shalls and thou-shall-nots, which is not unlike what happens when one reads too much Catcher in the Rye and starts thinking phony-this and goddamn-that. In short, you get God on your brain and in this sense I’m no different than Jacobs. I’m just a lot less engaged in my project.
So amongst all the wondrous chirping, surrounded by a new born late afternoon breeze my head was in the clouds hanging out with old JC (as I’ve come to call him in my notes) and my new favorite biblical character (wearer of camel fur, longtime wanderer of the wilderness, and eater of locusts) John the Baptist. When I opened my eyes I noticed a daddy-long-legs had tucked itself into the shady nook under my arm and on top of my leg. Before I stood I let it crawl onto my hand and then very gently lowered it to shady patch of grass. And all of a sudden I heard the words, “that was good." It was the voice of God! I walked away with a lightness of step and a feeling of benevolence. I really was on a kind of high except I couldn’t figure out why the voice of God sounded more than a little like my own.
I chuckled at this thought and continued until, while climbing a small hill, I noticed another daddy-long-legs type insect (the guy with long legs but also with wings and a really long abdomen) limping over some rocks. In the odd sort of mood I was in I bent down and contemplated my responsibility, if any to this little creature. Do I crush him quickly and put him out of possible misery or do I allow him to live knowing that he would be an easy bird supper for say a hungry nuthatch? I decided to let him crawl on, in part because my back was getting tired and I figured God or no god it was none of my business to fuck with the order of things.
As I stretched back and let out a shallow but healthy groan I was startled by what I immediately thought was an unlikely flock of undersized grouse. Six or seven birds had burst out of the brush and flew into the shelter and camouflage of nearby trees. They were hidden so well I couldn’t find a single one. Torn for a moment between startling the birds again and my (amateur) birders impulse to identify I decided again it was best not to disturb things further but as I moved on I heard another sound coming from the brush.
A flesh colored head emerged above the tall grass making a very perturbed cooing noise and I found myself squared off against a mother turkey. With an obviously ineffectual tip of my hat I backed off. As I did I noticed that the turkey’s eyes turned suddenly skyward. There was a rush of wind from above and before my eyes could locate it the bulky turkey was airborne with her surprisingly large talons bared to defend her little ones against an attacking red-tailed hawk. For the next few minuets I watched the battle. All I can say is fuck the UFC because first off, those guys can’t fly and this battle was as equally passionate and vicious with both birds representing their respective species. To draw a comparison it was the Royce Gracie like hawk discipline of swift precise movements versus the Dan Severn heavyweight style of the turkey. (I stopped watching the UFC way back when they set up those interesting scenarios of discipline versus discipline and you watched the fights all together in one sitting on video instead of having to sit through endless masculine power-themed explosive commercials. I don’t care how the sport evolved. It doesn’t interest me. So please, spare me from trying to point out a current comparison because I don’t think there is one and, moreover, I don’t care.) The two birds crashed through tree branches until the turkey seemed to get a topside grip on the hawk and they plummeted into the brush. Feathers exploded into the air and a second later the hawk burst through them to fly out above the trees. Letting lose a cry (yup, that high piercing scream accredited to the eagle) it soared away most likely a little hungrier from the battle.
Incredible.
I quickly left the area so as to not stress the turkey family out any further and began to think on what I just witnessed. For those few brief moments before the hawk had dove in I had started to think about the curious nature of turkeys. As young birds they fly as well as grouse. Now, that’s not to say that grouse fly well but usually well enough to escape onto a tree branch. It’s hard to imagine the enormous adult turkey perching on a branch. I had begun to think in my God deluded mind that there was some sort of intelligent design to the turkey that made them the perfect bird for, say, the Puritans who loved to hunt and then pray over as they expanded their territory. But after witnessing the battle of the turkey and the hawk I realized that I was being a little too hasty and probably a little too open-minded.
Without getting into the details I read an article in the Globe and Mail the other day that a woman in Squamish, BC saved her two-year old daughter from a cougar attack. The cougar was on top of her child and she managed to get between them, scooped up her wounded daughter (who thankfully survived), and ran away. Is this not miraculous? I say yes, absolutely yes. In fact, cheers to all mothers, turkey, human or otherwise. It is well known that a mother bear will defend its young ferociously as often will a mother moose. It is something quite common in this world from mammal to bird and even to some insects (spiders, wasps, etc . . .). Its something not only incredible in each and every case of motherly adrenaline but the connections are incredible as well.
The question is do I credit God? My answer after a few moments of reflection as I began to leave the woods was an absolute, fuck no! I’m sure someone could find something that shows this in the bible but as far as I’m concerned most of the Bible is so damn vague you could justify anything from genocide to spending your life searching for a non-existent unblemished red heifer to sacrifice (check out Numbers 19:2 my friends). No, the answers to the marvels of motherhood in humans and nature, however vague, lie not in the limited Jewish traditions of the Bible but in an exploration of the marvels of evolution.
Every time I these connections in life I am marveled because it really is a sort of mystery the way the lives of animals and man are so often intertwined and yet so often pitted against each other; always playing out a kind of sacred balance (to use the fine fine words of David Suzuki). For me this is so much more incredible than the mysteries of the Bible which often involve such trivial things as whether or not to fast on the Sabbath or whether or not some foods are kosher because they might contain insects eggs (according to A.J. Jacobs on this matter “one hundred grams of pizza sauce can contain up to thirty insects eggs). When I think about this I usually ask myself some truncated version of the following run on sentence (question). Is it more incredible that some self-indulged paternal Greybeard conjured up our planet and put humans on it to brutally execute his son and then spend the next two millennia not only brainwashing but raping, pillaging and massacring in his name or that through some awe-inspiring coincidence random star dust (or whatever) came together right here in this very tiny spot of the cosmos to begin the incredibly ancient story of life that was and still is brutal but that also has produced a wondrous plethora of creatures that are capable of love. (I say “creatures”, plural, because if you don’t think animals other than man are capable of love you are an ass . . . or rather, have your head up your ass. Don’t feel bad though I used to think the same thing not so long ago.) Of course, there are plenty of level headed Christians out there that do not believe in its creation myths but still like to thump that old singular book. For them Paternal Greybeard is still out there if not in the clouds than somewhere else in the cosmos.
Enter Captain Kirk.
In Star Trek V Captain Kirk and his crew, under some duress, found this place. Kirk was introduced to the “all-powerful” being that resided there and, in short, told him to fuck off. This eventually resulted in a lot of explosions, earthquakes and the toppling of some obviously Styrofoam Stonehenge-like rocks. Spock and McCoy were, as usual beamed up to safety and Kirk was left behind to huff and puff his way out of yet another “no win scenario”. Good stuff. Really. In the end Spock, for the second time that movie, saves his captain by boarding another ship that could enter the planets atmosphere and fire directly on said god. The ship was a Klingon Bird of Prey (the hawk might not beat mother turkey but it sure as shit kicked this god’s ass) and the plan worked, which gave the three friends some time to contemplate their “cosmic thoughts”. McCoy quickly asks that puzzling question, “ . . . is God really out there?” and Kirk responds by saying; “Maybe he’s not out there, Bones. Maybe he’s right here . . . in human heart.”
As I walked out of the woods this is what I was thinking and in light (yes I do mean “in light”) of all my bad news and biblical reading of late this is the explanation that makes the most sense to me. Now, I can’t really speculate on what Shatner or Roddenberry’s thoughts really were on that line but for me it certainly does not mean that we have our own little vaporous paternal Greybeard floating about in each of our respective chests. To me it’s more about consciousness in general.
I often hear and it is mentioned often in Jacobs’ book that prayer simply just makes people feel good. I can confirm this. Prayer was something I meant and felt when I was young and loving old JC. But I know now that when someone prays they are just talking to themselves. But so what? We all need to talk to ourselves more, to really look inside ourselves because as far as I’m concerned we can all know ourselves a little better. The unfortunate aspect of this is that people seem (over and over and over again) to find it necessary to make everyone else’s inner voice sound exactly like their own.
Enter religion.
So when I say I found God the other day here’s what I’m trying to getting at. We live in a time of what is perceived as scientific enlightenment. The problem is that now people who don’t explore their inner selves, instead of getting manipulated by self righteous clergy are manipulated by the (sometimes) equally self righteous scientists like Richard Dawkins. Dawkins (I’m being a little hard on the guy here to make a point) effectively and accurately deconstructs the paternal Greybeard but replaces him with a little twirling DNA molecule. The problem is just like the Bible science is still has its gaps. So to me, in a way, they’re not that different really.
Despite its gaps there are still a lot of “true” things in the bible, such as, the concept of loving your neighbor or the idea that prostitutes really aren’t that bad. Science’s merits are, of course, much more plentiful and a lot less self-serving but they still don’t answer everything. (Take the following pertinent example. I estimate that between the eight different doctors that I’ve seen so far about my stomach problem there is nearly 100 years of scientific education (not including their time practicing) and not one of them knows how to help me with my health issues.) For those of us with our eyes truly open there is still an abundance of mystery to this thing we call life and it makes a lot of sense to me to be able to look inside myself for answers, most especially when I am in need of comfort.
It’s odd to me (and by odd I mean obvious) that they say God works in mysterious ways because the very same thing can be said about what we call heart and mind. If you think about it the presence of this kind of inner voice is something that might actually links us together. But for the love of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster we need to try to refrain from exacting on others our unverified absolutes because it is those sorts of inanities that most often split us apart.
