Worlds

I just encountered a rather mind-blowing concept that I need to write out to process.  It is significant because it comes from a direction I have consistently been opposed to, which gives it credibility against my biases.

Without belaboring the background, suffice to say I do not believe that reductionism is the key to undertanding.  Things are greater than the sum of their parts.  Experience is not reduceable simply to chemical impulses in the brain and bio-physio responses.  But from that direction comes the concept of gene-culture interaction.

This author I'm reading recognizes that environment and genetics, nature and nurture, are inextricably linked.  But here's the kicker.  He points out that any attempt to overly encourage one factor over the other would be devastating.  For example, he says if we had a totally controlled society that required everyone to be equal in ability and performance, giving intensive assistance to the lower performers and holding back the higher performers (e.g. every child goes to college), the result would be that both segments' environments would not allow them to develop genetic potential and variation would be lost, thus genetically reinforcing a loss of ability and variation.  This type of society and it's ills have been described in countless movies and books, so I won't go on.

But on the other side, if we had a totally egalitarian society such that every child was allowed to fully explore their gifts and fully supported in achieving them (no-schooling), genetic heritability would increase to the point that the same societal abuses occur.  It would be caste and feudal system to the ultimate degree in which people truly were born to be something and could not improve their lot.

In either case, you end up with a totalitarian society.  The two ends of the spectrum are really neighboring points on a circle.  Like Fascism and Communism, though ideologically polar opposites, they produce societies that are very similar; both abusive and controlling.

This is not new, really.  Both sides have been treated extensively in literature and cinema.  But what did hit me was the idea that we NEED in a fundamental and very real sense, adversity and diversity, not just in happy hippie self-help ways, but in gritty biological ways.

As a Christian who thoroughly believes in the sovereignty of God and orchestration on the universe, this explanation from a staunchly atheist and materialist quarter fairly solves the question of why bad things happen and why inequality persists.

Perhaps we're looking at it all wrong (what else is new).  If God is sovereign and good yet bad things persist, it must be because those things we perceive as bad are actually in some way good.  It's our definition that's wonky.  Not bad, but perhaps unpleasant, inconvenient, even painful.  But still good.

Now I hear myself starting to sound like Candide's teachers, and I'm not about to start arguing for the 'best of all possible worlds'.  That's as absurd today as Voltaire portrayed it in the 18th century.  I'm also not going to say that we shouldn't work to eliminate wrong and injustice.  Evil is evil and should be stamped out.  What I'm saying is that it doesn't follow that a kid born in a poor area should get a total hand out to bring him to the level of a rich kid.  Neither does it follow that imposing no limits so everyone can 'be free' to follow their whims will lead to healthy people and society.  What I'm saying is that fighting, struggling, dying, suffering, and going without while others go with is not necessarily bad.  It's just how our habitat works.  There is no such thing as a necessary evil, but adversity is not necessarily evil.

It is necessary to promote genetic potential and actually helps make the environments required for us to grow into what we were made to be.  Adversity must occur and succor must be provided just like zebras eat grass and lions eat zebras and hyenas eat lions and all turn back into grass.  A life lost or a case of suffering is to be mourned and helped, but eliminating the condition that led to the suffering is not in our power because it ultimately wouldn't be for our good.  Like all ecology, it's the principle of balance.  Ecology, as a nonreductionist science, a holistic science in the truest sense of the word, allows us to understand the nature of God imprinted in our world.  We can trace the hand of God, see the trails of his garments.  It's really sublime.


But don't dare take what I'm saying and use it to justify your system or even to form opinions about how the world should work.  The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that we can't, shouldn't, and don't really run the world anyway.  And I'm now more than ever convinced that the one who does is way better at it than we could be.  Our purpose is not to take our place as gods, but to rise to our place within God's living relation.

Other Side

I'm pretty sure I've never blogged about this.  At least not in any discernibly direct way.  But I'm going to give it a shot.  This blog is primarily a way for me to process thoughts or feelings.  As such, it tends toward the confusing and angry, occasionally the mystical.  But that of course is not all I experience.  It's just that times of clear understanding or emotion don't need processing; they're just experienced.  So I don't write about them.  This other side makes up a significant portion of the contemplative Christian experience, at least for me and for many I read about and talk to.  It's hard to describe, so I'm going to muddle on.

Right now, I'm coming off a brief mild illness.  Just a cold.  But it follows a stressful period and I have received it gratefully as an excuse to rest.  I've been overwhelmed by a sense of peace in it.  Just a deep soul-whisper of "thank you" for bringing me into the rest I could not give myself.  Throughout it I've felt at ease.  I've felt cared for.  The back of my mind has been haunted by strains of music of a gentle love toward me and from me toward my God.

Please know that for me, this word 'God' is loaded very differently than most may use it.  It's like the deepest self-giving love you may feel for a loved one, combined with an awe or respect given a hero or excellent father, and a sublime (look this word up) reverence as if looking into something huge and vast and powerful, yet gorgeously beautiful.  There is nothing of punishment, nothing of justice.

Jody Foster echoes it in Contact when she cries in the fetal position in her journey.  CS Lewis describes it in the Pevensie children burying their faces in Aslan's mane.  It is a safety and a rightness found because of the power sheathed in gentleness, like a small Tarzan baby sound asleep in a gorilla's arms.

This is not why I became a Christian, but it is why I stay a Christian.  This is why I can't accept any form of Christianity that takes away from this.  This is irresistible love.  This is looking into the dark chasm of the universe and finding everything you've secretly hoped for and never even admitted to yourself looking right back at you and smiling with a face that is more human than your own.

Stolen or Lost

As often happens, I'm jumping off from something someone said who may actually read this.  If that's you, or you know who it is, please note that I am being careful to divorce the statement from the person.  As I've stated before, I'm dealing with ideas in this blog, which are the things the internet is made of, and not attacking people.  Truthfully, the statement is nothing more than a point of departure that got me thinking.  So I'm thankful for that and move on in the spirit of healthy salonic discussion and the "you" I address below is not that person, but a strawman I've set up for express purposes of tearing down. (that's actually what 'strawman' means, though people rarely use it correctly.)

So what is this now much anticipated statement?  That God wants his church back.  Yeah, that's it.  If you're let down, you obviously don't read this blog much.  At first, my reaction was "Who took it?"  Who could take it?  Is That-Than-Which-Nothing-Greater-Can-Be-Conceived so easily thwarted that anything which is His could be taken, stolen, or lost?

Now, of course, I get the statement.  I know how it was intended: as a clever way to describe a truth.  So no big deal.  But it lingered.  So as I pondered why, I came to see this as a symptom of the very kind of thinking which has led to the problem being addressed in the first place.  That problem is a lack of true relationship, true following of God's Reality.  See, I know several people right now who are on this journey away from the institutionalized church.  They call it different names, but this has been a grand revelation for them.  I'm happy for them and supportive.  I really am, because I am quite frankly tired of being out here in the woods by myself...both metaphorically and physically.  But more importantly, as one who came through this path myself, I get it.  I know the jaw dropping joy and boundless, sometimes sickening freedom of it.  Come on and catch up so we can move on together!  I hope these thoughts help.

But it's important to recognize that this is not a new thing.  It's not a "move of God."  Honestly, you gotta drop that kind of vocabulary altogether, bro.  God doesn't move like that.  Isn't that what you're waking up to?  His work hasn't been constrained to the various human institutions that come and go.  Sure he's moved through them, but not because of any thing they were.  Not because of anything they 'got right'.  To say so is just a deeper layer of the Pharisaical doctrines that Jesus was so against.  They'd taken the truth and twisted it to their own purposes.  Blind guides.

No God only moves one way.  It's the same way he always moves.  It's the way that Jesus came to show us, and the reason so few in his generation got it.  What were they expecting?  A hero.  A Warrior King.  A Righteous Ruler to wield true Divine Authority and set right all that was wrong.  They got this from their scriptures, just like we get our fallacies.

But what was Jesus?  Not that!  He said over and over, the Kingdom of God is not what men think.  It's within.  It's spiritual.  It's unseen.  He didn't overthrow society, he stepped out of it while staying right in it.  He crossed planes and walked right by those who thought they had it figured out.  The ruler who failed; that's him on the surface.  Just another radical who died.

You see where I'm going with this?  But what he did was change people on the inside.  He made them different.  He healed what was broken at the deepest levels.  I'll say it again, God only moves one way.  And that way is the way he's always moved: in the hearts of each individual person.  In those deep places where our own internal eye can barely see.  That's where he does his work.

Everything that occurs on the physical level is just a manifestation of this change.  A projection of a mutlidimensional existence into 3 dimensions.  It all comes from that.  On our own, we can't keep from getting the cart first.

So, remember that while this may be new to you, and the greatest thing ever.  It is...to you.  But you aren't the first, not even the early generation, man.  We had these same 'movements' in the mid '90's.  Right down to the house churches and all, bro.  I'm not saying their bad.  Walk your walk out.  You can't be expected anywhere on the path but where you are.  But realize things are just well in God's Kingdom.  They've never been shaken by winds of change in the world.  No one can take God's church, man.  He can't lose it either.  What was lost is us.  What's coming back is you.  What he's changing is your mind, not the world.  you thought you knew how it worked, but you've learned better now.

Read more old books.  Rome had it.  18th century France had it.  19th century England had it.  Early 20th century Europe had it.  Same abuses, same institutions painted in the fashions of the day.  And the same people realizing what's real and what isn't.  The same people awakening to what you are feeling now.

I know it's tough to shed old habits, and you'll probably get it wrong for many more years.  I'm just a little further down the path myself, so I'll be a different person soon too.  But one thing I can see from my view of the bend that you haven't gotten to yet is the lack of the preachy interaction.  Man, everything you learn isn't a revelation for everyone else.  Heed it.  Share it for sure.  But know, you aren't always gonna be at the head of the charge.  In truth, you never really were.  You just thought so, bro.

Now, jog on up here and let's go further up and further in together!

Tribal Christianity

If you read this blog, you'll know that I often refer to the natural grouping of humanity as the tribe.  This is not my idea.  It's documented.  Birds form flocks, wolves form packs, humans form tribes.

Like anything, tribal tendencies can be perverted and have been blamed for many of the conflicts in Africa.  So much so that many have called for conscious abandonment of tribalism.  As an aside, I think this is a mistake.  We can't deny what we were made to be.  The conflicts come because the tribal balance was artificially disrupted by the European colonization of these places which drew national lines right through ancient tribal holdings irrespective of their boundaries and told all the people to grow up and be Western.  But that's not my point.

My point is that Christianity is a restoration of things.  As such, it is inherently tribal.  The lifestyle of Jesus and the organization of the early church are very much tribal.  People are given an identity, which is permanent and personal.  They aren't members of...they ARE something.  Membership implies that you join and therefore can unjoin.  It's an affiliation that one chooses.  Tribal belonging is who you are.  You ARE this thing.  It is part of you and you are part of it.  It is less what it is without you, and you are not all you are without it.

It has an identity.  The tribe is about something.  People of that tribe look a certain way, live a certain way, and believe certain things about themselves and the world because they are of that tribe.  Yet the tribe is formed because the people share these things.  The identity is the lifestyle, and the reverse.  (Are you catching the organic bidirectional synergy here?)

They both have the same type of government.  Christianity is organized under leaders who both have a divine appointment, and are confirmed by the community.  This may not be your understanding from your version of Christianity, but research the descriptions of the early church in the Bible and you'll see.  "elders" (your translation may say "Bishops", but that term implies a meaning not in the original) are people God has given an ability to lead, usually experienced and older than the headstrong young.  But they aren't self-appointed.  The tribe selects and confirms them through their natural respect of these people.  Those who are elders will be and those who are not will not be.  No one campaigns for it.  See the synergy again?  A council of elders helps guide the group and everyone participates in the government of the group as they have ability.

Many tribes are run the same way.  Often even calling them elders!  You may have romanticized ideas of tribal kings and chiefs and such, but this is far less the fact than the council of guiders.  Plus in root tribal society, there are usually no laws as we know them.  People are guided by what is "right" and "wrongness" is rejected.  They don't need laws because they all know naturally.  In cases of dispute there are procedures to resolve it, or a split may occur.  Which leads to the next way Christianity is tribal.

Tribes are not always homogeneous.  Within tribes there are bands, within bands, families.  Tribes themselves may sit within nations of related or federated tribes.  Examples include the Iroquois, the Five Civilized Tribes, and the Sioux Nation...to name a few from the US (which I'm most familiar with).  Incidentally, the US governmental system of states and congress was largely patterned after the Iroquois who consulted at the Continental Congress, albeit Westernized with Greek and Roman ideas which the Iroquois were against.  Really...look it up.

So it is no surprise that there might be 41,000 versions of Christianity across the world.  One nation/faith with many tribes/denominations which are full of bands/local churches.  Each may vary in their customs, style, and coping strategies, but they are part of the one nation of God.

I could go on and on about how there is allowance in tribes for geographic and environmental adaptation just as Christianity has diverged and adapted to various cultures and situations, how typical roles in the tribe equate to spiritual gifts described in the Bible, how even the conflicts among Christian groups and other faiths mirror tribal conflicts.  But this is enough to chew on for now.

I encourage you to look it up.  Research the organization of ancient Israel, American tribes, and other tribal societies.  Also check the organization of the early church.  Read the Biblical sources, check the Greek, look at extra-Biblical writings from the same period as the Bible, compare anthropological evidence. Use credible sources and get a diversity of opinions.  I bet you'll come to the same conclusion.

And that makes perfect sense if Christianity is a restoration of the way things were intended to be.  The closer people live to how things were originally intended, the more they should look similar, right?

The next question is of course, what should this understanding mean to us?  But I'll save that for later.

Run

Today I ran.  I run nearly every Friday.  Just me.  In the woods.  No shirt, low tech minimal shoes.  I don't run alone though.  God runs with me.  I can feel the Spirit Lord rush behind me, through me, over me.  Meet me at a bend, whisper to me, shout to me.  I follow his voice.  I run until he stops me.  Sometimes I run fast and hard. Sometimes I run slow.  Sometimes I pause.  Sometimes I am dropped on my butt in awe.

I don't just run.  I also climb, jump, balance, swing.  I am the animal I was made.  I am in tune with my ancestors.  I can feel their joy in me.  I interact with the real world.  Today I ran with deer.  Bounding around me along the trail.  I have argued with hogs.  I have followed raccoons.  I have petted armadillos.  I am becoming less a threat to them and more a part of their world.

I learn too.  Today, I vaulted the table again.  Twice.  I had been hampered by my own mind since falling hard several months ago.  I knew I could do it, but couldn't manage it.  Today I did it.  It was awkward, but successful.

I also ran up a new tree.  Four steps, nearly vertical, no hands.  I have tried many times.  This was the first.  I ran and ran.  I got two steps.  The next time I ran harder and got three steps.  But still not high enough.  Today, I got nearly there.  Then I decided to stop climbing and run the whole way.  The realization settled on me and I felt the flow engage as I focused hard on the first foot plant.  Then lifted my eyes to the end goal and I was soaring into it.  Beyond it actually.  It will only get easier from here.

It was the same with the side jumps.  Jump horizontally from one vertical surface to another.  I could manage one side and then slowly learned to land the other.  Now I can jump from one tree to another and continue forward motion.

This is the physical manifestation of my spiritual discipline.  In this practice, I am healed and made whole, even as my body aches.  Even the rips and tears in my skin, the bruises, the sore muscles are healing.  They are part of the warrior.  I am a man and need to feel physical pain to be wholly who I am made to be.  It confirms I exist and that I can survive.

I am this thing called man.  Half spiritual, half physical, ruler of the natural world, heir to the heavens.  When I run, all is merged into one whole and it is good.

Reckless and Painful

The things we feel strongest about are the things we struggle with ourselves.  I recently realized how a few strands of the complex nature-nurture paradigm sort out for myself.  Funny I never saw it before, because it seems so obvious.  Certainly some of my lack of conformity and counter-culture proclivity is natural.  But more than I thought of it is learned.  Not learned, in the positive sense, but in the defensive sense.  Conditioned, I guess is a better word.  This web is complex and I can't sort it all out here.

If you read this blog much, it will be apparent to you that I often struggle with doubt and self-criticism.  I have a pessimistic outlook and must actively look for the good.  I always thought there was something wrong with me, an imbalance of some kind, or just a strangely Puddleglum-like demeanour.  But I'm starting to suspect this may not be the case.  Ultimately, I am what I am now and can't sort out what all is natural vs effects of events and conditions.

But what I can take away from this is that I can like myself.  You see, I have always truly understood that I didn't measure up.  I never cut it.  So I looked for ways to get around it or avoid having to be faced with it.  Ironically, instead of giving up, I learned how to hide it well.  To put on the expected face and even to function at quite a high level.  I've recently learned this is common of people who are raised in an overly critical environment.  Again, I'm not saying it is all someone else's fault, but I previously never considered that it might not be all my fault.  So this is gained ground for me.

Even though I knew God loved me, I could truly never understand why.  This is overwhelming and inhibiting in some ways.  I am now learning to let go of some of that intense self-criticism and see the way God sees me. See myself the way I see others.

This also explains some of my deep hatred for those who prey on those weaker and helpless.  My deep desire to build up and care for the lost and rejected.  I subconsciously can't abide to see another facing what I feel.  To see it ignored. 

It isn't subconscious any more.  Now instead of needing to do it, I can choose to do it.  And I do choose it.  I don't have to.  I could shelter and hedge and prevent further hurt.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to continue to love recklessly and choose to take the hurt that may come with it.  This is what Jesus did.  And this is what he's calling me to do.  So what may have been bad will be turned to good.  My pain will be others' solace.

This in no way excuses those who may have done something wrong to me.  "Woe to the one through whom it comes".  But I will learn to forgive and will pay my pain forward in love.  This is the power of Christ's redemption.  I am freed from fear of pain, freed from the need for self-preservation.  This truly makes me righteous and dangerous, and I can love recklessly and painfully.

I am scarred and broken.  I am wounded and hurt.  I will always be weird and misunderstood.  I will still have bad spells.  But I understand a bit more of who I really am now.  A bit more of the name on the stone has been revealed.  There is power in this.

Impermanence

This is a concept I have never quite grasped. I get the idea on the surface. We die, things decay. We are not permanent. But what is? Love? No, we like to say that in romantic ways, but it isn't true. The truth is, I don't have anything in my experience that is permanent, none of us do. Therefore, I can't understand it really. But I can take clues from my experiences and infer what permanence must be like.

Still, even this inference has always alluded me...the images of perishable and imperishable, of type and archetype, or ideals, of illusions, they all fell flat in some way. But recently, I was rereading something my teacher, Jack, wrote and it fell into place.

Every bit of our existence is composed of atoms, of motion and energy and space. These things do not sit static. They are constantly turning over. We borrow them for a while and then they are released again. This matter is part of the whole of the universe. To bring it to a more human, observable level, my cells are constantly dividing, constantly being replaced. The building blocks for that replacement are received through food, which comes at the expense of some other creature's life. I injest its matter to make more of my own, which is then lost through skin replacement, blood cell recycling, waste, and replenished again through food and sun and complex relations with microscopic organisms and larger organisms. All of what is physically me at this moment will not be me in several years, it will be something else. And what will be me then is something else now. I am not solid. I am a constant flux of matter and energy over the duration of my existence. All things are.

Upon realizing this, it was like Neo seeing the matrix code actively transpiring through the world around him. He had seen through the illusion of it. I am not a constant thing. I have never been and will never be in this life. Nor is anything around me. All things are flux and change, even those that seem permanent, are merely constant reconstructions of the same structure moving through time. As Jack says, I am the curve of a waterfall. It seems solid, shaped, but is actually made up of a constant torrent of water droplets replacing the ones that just passed at such a speed that it seems to hold a shape and a place.

This is impermanence.

To follow the metaphor, something more solid, more permanent, can actually reach into a waterfall and pass through it...this is a new thought...so if Jesus gives us a glimpse into that permanent humanity after His resurrection: He passes through space and time. He appears in a locked room. Therefore His body must be more permanent than space and time. A less permanent object can't pass through a more permanent one. A vapor or thin paper is dispelled by the waterfall, only something more solid can pass through it! Wow!

Touch

People need physical touch. Strangely this is often one of the things people shun first when personality issues gain ground. Even reasonably functional people in America have a bit of a standoffishness. I have seen people from other countries who touch each other far more than Americans.

I once worked with someone from Belize who was positively clingy. I never figured out if this was simply Belizian culture, or just her nature. She didn't mean anything inappropriate by it, she just touched everyone she knew in very familiar ways. And I've seen Japanese boys, very tough, fighting boys, I might add, lay in each other's laps and hang on each other in ways that would send any American guy shivering.

Many years ago, I realized that I needed to touch and be touched. I don't remember exactly how it started, but somehow I realized I needed it. And if I needed it, I reasoned most others did as well. I was hugged often as a child. I didn't grow up in any kind of sterile environment, so in that regard, I felt pretty normal. But this was a realization of the extent to which I relied on touch for communication.

Touch does make some people uncomfortable and that is to be respected. We all communicate in different ways. Not everyone may need the same level of physical contact, but I suppose that much of our distancing is learned. We may all be healthier if we weren't so afraid of touching. I can speculate many reasons why people may not want to be touched...but rather than dwell on the things I don't well understand, I would rather focus on what I do understand.

I am quite verbal...I write this blog, so that may go without saying, but a single touch can communicate what many words can't convey. This is one of my biggest complaints with the internet-based friendship phenomenon. While many people interact effectively via electrons it is no substitute for physical proximity and physical touch. A touch can do more to convey meaning than any other medium. A touch can even convey healing...both in the Biblical sense, and in the psychological sense. I myself have been in mental/emotional distress a few times where words were no avail, but a rightly placed touch instantly silences the anguish. Children of course need ample touch to develop normally. This is well documented, but I don't believe it ends there.

Consider the healing power of pets. This is why animals are brought to convalescents, elderly, and autistic. There is a real power in the feel of life touching us, feeling us back. Something spiritual is conveyed. Even the ritual of laying on hands alludes to this.

But lest you think I am one of those "hug-a-day" mambies, let me clarify what I mean by touch. Certainly hugs are one very effective way of touching and I use them often in the right context. But this isn't the only way, and isn't appropriate in all situations. There are of course the standard pats on the back, clasping of hands in all the various forms, but becasue of their common use, these don't reach the way well-placed touches can. I mean a touch to the arm, an arm around the neck or shoulders, literally brushing shoulders can all be powerful. Then there are more passive types of touching such as when seated comfortably. So many people sit rigid even among friends.

Now I am the first to avoid unnecessary crowding in public spaces. If there are seats across the aisle, don't sit next to me, you wierdo! But among friends, do we need to apologize because our knees brushed on the squishy sofa while watching a movie? Or to go a step further, leaning across someone to get something. I know you might be shuddering at the thought of this right now, but bear with me.

Animals do not respect these boundaries. Dogs flop in your lap and knock you off balance with their brushes. Cats swirl among your legs. Rats, to which I am partial, gently press their teeth (a rat kiss) and groom with their small manipulative hands. Birds nip and taste. And primates, including human children, cling all over you. These touches in natural language indicate trust and familiarity. They assure all members of the group that they are accepted. In short they reassure our place and our safety.

I have become quite forward in my touching of people. But of course I always stay attuned to the context and their reactions. If someone is uncomfortable, you can tell instantly with a touch and that should be respected. But my experience is that people quickly loosen to it. Even among other men, there is a touching that conveys the right meanings. One of my recently departed friends who was a very large man had a habit of pulling me (as an adult mind you) onto his knee like a child. On his massive lap, I felt like a toy, but in that gentle giant's act we both knew deeper and faster than words could convey that we both trusted and accepted the other. If we are to live whole, we must be comfortable in our own skin. In doing so we must acknowledge this means of communication. For me it is vital. I can't truly demonstrate my feelings for someone without touch. Nor can I truly understand another's feeling without touch. Say a thousand words and I will hear you, but touch me and I will know your heart. If we would shut our mouths more and let go of our inhibitions in this regard, listening to the biological, animal side of our being, we would be far more at peace and at ease.

Tarzan

This is strange subject for a contemplative blog, but bear with me. I think it will make sense. Tarzan is one of my favorite characters. An achetype, a hero, if you will. He has been adapted and readapted in books and movies and television, some good, some bad.

My connection to Tarzan started when I was a child, with the fact that my grandmother knew Johnny Weissmuller, the man who made the Tarzan yell famous, and the best of the classic Tarzan actors in my opinion. In fact, he taught her how to dive. She grew up in Silver Springs, Florida right during the era of his films. So of course, I was raised on every Tarzan movie imaginable. That led to TV and cartoons. And eventually to the original books.

As an aside, I think the two best adaptations of the story are the movie Greystoke, and the Disney animated Tarzan. As much as I could find fault with Disney, this movie is fantastic, adapting the story to a modern audience without making it overly kiddy and while keeping enough true to the Burroughs original...in fact Tarzan uses a lasso...one of his main tools in the books. They also did a fantastic job adapting the apes to modern understanding of gorillas.

Anyway, my fascination with Tarzan has much to do with my training as a naturalist. To me, Tarzan is the ultimate human. He lives in wildness, but also in society. His wildness, in fact is well translated into skills for society. He is altruistic and noble. He is strong and gentle. But most of all, his mind is clear. There is a clarity in wildness that only those who have experienced it can know. When extras are stripped away and the romanticism of nature is lost in the weather and bugs and fatigue, there is a crystal sublimity that we become aware of. The world appears differently. Powerful, gentle, nuturing, savage all at once. This is the world as it is. The world as close to how it was meant to be.

Now I know that statement will raise eyebrows given the Biblical references to the Garden and lions and lambs, etc. Granted...the wild world is fallen as well, hence the nasties that quickly suck the romance out of wild experience. But since men are the source of the fall, it is in the world of men that we find more corruption. The further we move from the world of men, the further we move from our own corruption.

So what would an uncorrupted (yet still fallen) man look like? Tarzan. He epitomizes what man would be in that purest context. Even apart from our own tribal society. He is man without a nurture in society. He is first wild. Thus his heart is open. He harbors no malice. He sees justice in black and white. He understands the interrelation of all things. His ideas and his actions are ever in line. There is no presupposition, and therefore no prejudice. He takes things as they come, life or death, and manipulates what he may control, knowing that he cannot control what is beyond him. He is man with the peace of animal, the fierceness of wild, the intellect of human. He is to be admired.