Author: Peter Terpenning

Our Language Reveals our Roots

I have probably mentioned before that we keep chickens. We get a few eggs, manure for the garden and help controlling bugs on our plants. Gradually, chicken care and chicken behavior have become part of my life. I was noticing lately how much language comes from human interaction with chickens, and I wondered how much of our language originates from our historical relationship with animals, plants and the natural order. Quite a bit, it turns out. I never reallypaid attention before, but as I started writing down all the references I could think of it quickly became an overwhelming list. It made me realize how deeply connected humans are to nature and our roots in hunting, animal care and agriculture. I guess it’s kind of an obvious observation, but perhaps, like me, you have overlooked this language connection as our human culture has gradually moved away from our deep kinship with the natural order. For most of human history people’s lives were deeply intertwined with the rest of the natural world and it seems to me that only in the last century or so that have we developed this artificial sense that we are separate from and superior to nature. Just to get you thinking, here are a few examples I thought of that have to do with chickens, but this is only scratching the surface (so to speak) of all the many words and idioms in the English language that have to do with the Earth: animals, plants, forests, agriculture, hunting and such. Try making your own list, I bet in five minutes you’ll be amazed at the number of phrases you think of from “wild goose chase” to “snail’s pace” that have to do with nature or agriculture.

Here’s my chicken list: crowing (boasting), rooster tail, chicken scratch,pecking order, to be chicken, a chick (young girl), brooding, hen party, nest egg, scratching out a living, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, chicken feed, feather your nest, hen pecked, which came first the chicken or the egg, I laid an egg, mother hen, as scarce as hen’s teeth, coming home to roost, madder than a wet hen, fox in the henhouse. I may have missed some but you get the idea.

Why this seems important to me today is that it made me think about how rooted our language, and ultimately, ourselves are in the processes of the Earth. For most of human existence people lived intimately with animals and plants. We may feel we have moved beyond this connection and that humans were always separate or “above” the rest of creation in some way, but our language reveals the falsehood in this. This is where we came from, and I propose, what we need to rediscover. I believe we are part and parcel of creation, one with it and dependent upon our fellow creatures, flora and fauna. With language, we can’t ignore our roots, and I think the same applies spiritually and intellectually. When we rediscover our oneness and interdependence wewill rediscover ourselves. Our original nature is to live intertwined with all of nature. We know that digging in the dirt of a garden heals us, that the beauty of nature restores us, that time in the wild revives our spirits and “getting our hands dirty” cleans us out. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay, “Nature”: “In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, —no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my had bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God.” Emerson found not only renewal and repair in nature but that in his essential being he was a part of God.

Wendell Berry’s poem, “Country Once Forested”, is an illustration for me of the human memory of forest and farms in our heritage. “The young woodland remembers the old, a dreamer dreaming of an old holy book, an old set of instructions, and the soil under the grass is dreaming of a young forest, and under the pavement the soil is dreaming of grass.” We humans are like the young forest and the soil dreaming of grass under the pavement of modern cities. Some part of us is aware of our basic connection to the rest of creation but mostly we have forgotten. Our language remembers. Perhaps reexamining our language will help us renew this connection and help us save ourselves in the process. Under the thin veneer of contemporary, industrial and technological human life is our original identity of wildness. For most of human history we lived as part and parcel of the natural world: growing and gathering food, hunting and caring for domestic animals and surviving in harmony with the cycles of nature.

 

What Should I Call God?

When I was a teenager and addicted to Science Fiction, I read a story by Arthur C. Clarke named, “The Nine Billion Names of God”. It is about some computer experts who are recruited by a Tibetan Buddhist monastery to help in their search for the nine billion names of God. The monks had been compiling names for centuries and believed that when they had found them all it would be the end of the world because the purpose of life would have been accomplished. The computer guys, though skeptical about the hypothesis of this research, agree to help. They succeed but decide to leave the monastery before the computer program completes its work for they fear of the monks reaction when it fails to bring about the end of the world. They are getting on their plane and realize it’s about time for the computer to finish it’s work cataloguing the nine billion names and look up to see the stars beginning to go out.

I was thinking about this because for the last few years I have been having trouble deciding what name I should use for God. As a retired clergy person I am occasionally called upon to pray at meetings or services and have found myself struggling with how to start the prayers. I have noticed this problem with other clergy and public prayers and honestly, I had trouble with this the last few years in the church as well. It has been complicated, I think, by the changing views we have of God in Western society. Attempting to use non-sexist language, or language that does not exclude someone or someone’s theological ideas or someone’s religion is sometimes difficult. Just figuring out my own theological position is hard enough. More traditional language is still in use in many more conservative or traditional religious settings, and even required in some. Using the pronouns He and Him for God, the name Father, Lord, Almighty God or using Jesus more or less interchangeably with God and other such traditional language is still common. However, it longer works for me as I no longer think of God as a being who exists somewhere separate from the world, let alone human-like or male. Our local church switched from beginning the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” to saying “Our Loving God”. I like this change, however, when I continue the Lord’s Prayer and say “Hallowed be thy name”, I can’t help but add a footnote in my own mind, “whose name I do not know”.

I think my struggle reflects a general transformation that is happening in spirituality in western thought. Diana Butler Bass, in her book, Grounded, calls it the “spiritual revolution” of our time. Theological ground is  moving. A great number of people are transitioning away from a way of thinking about God that has been in place in the Western world since at least the time of the Protestant Reformation and in other forms for much, much longer. A theology she calls, “vertical religion” is one in which God is seen as separate from the world and from people and the human role is to follow God’s rules and somehow get up to God in this other place. This is a huge simplification on my part, of course, of something Ms. Bass wrote a whole book about. Her position is that there are large numbers of people (including her) who have been gradually moving away from organized religion and traditional theology. The “nones” and “dones” who are no longer finding themselves spiritually fed by traditional religion and are “spiritual and not religious” or any number of other labels they or the media have given them, are leaving organized religion. Ms. Bass finds that many are finding their new spirituality in the Earth and the immanent presence of God. Some are finding a God who, “dwells in the world the way a soul dwells in the body”, (Ms. Bass quotes the Bhagavad Gita). Others are seeking the contemplative path in spirituality. Still others seek peace in Buddhism, Taoism or other Asian paths. Native American or Celtic spirituality other pantheist and panentheist theologies make sense to many. But as Ms. Bass articulates very well, it’s hard to pin down the movement, as it is in transition, and it’s enough to note that a huge shift in thinking is taking place. I agree and find myself to be part of this revolution.

Which leads me back to my dilemma of language for God. For awhile now the name I prefer is the one Black Elk used in the book Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt’s account of the life and visions Lakota leader Nicholas Black Elk: “The Great Mysterious”. Of course there are many options. I have collected a few for this essay: The Holy, The Sacred, The Divine, God of the Earth, God of the Cosmos, Spirit of Life, Numinous Presence, Web of Life, Gaia, The Ground of all Being (from Paul Tillich), The One in Whom we Life and Move and have Our Being (from Paul in the books of Acts), Sacred One, Spirit of Truth, Immanuel (God with Us). One can get very detailed as J. Allen Boone did in his book, Kinship with All Life, “The Big Holy, breathing life into all things, making all things one essence and speaking wisdom through all things”. But that gets to be a lengthy way to start a prayer. You might well ask, “Why not just say God”? This is a good point and “Loving God” actually is the name I often fall back on when praying in public. But “God” has become a bit of a loaded name for many people. For one thing, it has become a proper name, which, technically, it is not. It is a symbol, which I guess a name is too, but a symbol for this “Other” whose name and nature we do not know. God has many meanings and can be applied to both monotheistic religion and polytheistic religion. One can well object that by using it as a name we are just making another kind of theological statement, implying that there is a supernatural being somewhere whose name is God. Refusing to use any name and that there is no such being anywhere is another theological position; perhaps that God is not a being but is a fundamental process through with the Cosmos is ordered, for example. A humanist who wishes to address this deep process might chose different language entirely, such as “The Power and Purpose Pervading the Universe”.

I admit now that I don’t have a solution to offer to this language dilemma. I guess my purpose here is to raise the question and voice my frustration. Ultimately, we do not know the name of God or even what we are naming: a being, a process, a force or something else. This is a question that has been further complicated by the spiritual transition taking place in our culture. Of course by saying this is even an issue I am taking a theological position that you may not agree with. It’s hard to talk about these ideas without displaying one’s theology and probably offending someone. Perhaps the ancient Hebrews of the southern Kingdom of Judah had it right. Biblical scholars refer to this tradition as the Yahwist tradition and consider it one of the influences on the Old Testament. The Yahwist tradition referred to God as YHWH, an acronym for the word which translates “I am who I am”. This branch of Judaism did not say this name, and did not think one could name God. YHWH is a reference to the way God answered Moses in Exodus 3:14 when Moses asks for God’s name. God’s answer recorded by the Priests when writing the Old Testament, “I am”, was ambiguous at best. We now use the name Yahweh to represent the God of this branch of Judism, but they would not have approved of us saying the name out loud. So we are in good company if find ourselves struggling to name God.

I do not have a name or a solution to this dilemma. I believe this search for a way to address and think about God reflects the time of shifting paradigms that we are in. I agree with Diana Butler Bass that we are in this time of change and I personally find it very hopeful. But this doesn’t help me as I pray in public. How we address the Great Mysterious One is part of this transition. So when you hear clergy and others struggling with titles at the beginning of prayers or in liturgies, send them compassionate thoughts for they are caught in this spiritual transition with the rest of us.

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Senegalese environmentalist and forestry engineer, Baba Dioum, 1937

I recently renewed my membership in Trout Unlimited, and got to wondering if my supporting that organization over the years has actually helped the planet. I do love to fly fish, but have found it gradually more difficult when I hook a fish. Once caught, it becomes a race with time to get the fish safely off the hook and back into the stream. I love standing in the cold water, feeling connected to the stream, but I have mixed emotions. Fishing is one of the things that woke me up to nature at an early age and has brought me back again and again. It is one of the things that taught me to love and appreciate wild places and the natural world. But I get conflicted over the damage I am doing to the fish. I wonder about the morality of what I am doing. I learned to love streams, rivers and bodies of water through fishing, but has this love encouraged me to protect and conserve these things? Should I teach my granddaughter to fish as a way to help her love them too?

“People protect what they love”. This line comes from Jacques Cousteau and is much quoted. It is often confused with the quote from Baba Dioum, but seems to have been made without knowledge of Mr. Dioum. His son told how Jacques said this to him when they had just released a rescued sea otter named Cacha. He turned to his son, full of emotion, and said, “Jean-Michel, people protect what they love”. It became one of the mottos of his father’s work. Aldo Leopold wrote: “We only grieve what we love”. Wendell Berry wrote something similar too: “People exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love, and to defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.”  Each statement is a little more complicated than my dilemma with fishing and I could take issue with some of the thoughts. I don’t, for example, think we love only what we understand, as I am sure I don’t fully understand many of the people I love. However, I agree with the basic idea, that when we know and love something, we seek to take care of it.

In a microcosm, my dilemma is the same as that of organizations such as Trout Unlimited that do a great deal of good protecting fish and fishing streams, but also promote a sport that harms those creatures. I have operated on the assumption that people who hunt and fish learn to love our natural resources and though they damage and even kill other species, their love of the sport has helped preserve those resources. Out of curiosity I looked up so see what other organization there are like Trout Unlimited. I found a staggering number of groups doing similar work as Trout Unlimited. To name a few: Pheasants Forever, National wild turkey federation, Boone and Crockett club, Delta Waterfowl Organization, International Game Association, U.S. Sportsmans’ Alliance, Ruffed Grouse Society, Mule Deer Foundation, Quality Deer Management Foundation, Safari Club International, Whitetails Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited. Many of the organizations state on their websites admirable dedication to the preservation and conservation of natural resources and commitment to use the best available science to enable their work. I was heartened to see that some even address climate change as part of their mission. Another advantage of these organizations, though I admit with is mostly conjecture on my part, is that they are supported by both liberals and conservatives and may therefore have clout politically.

I guess I am really asking two quite different, but related questions: one – do we protect and conserve what we love and, two – does hunting and fishing and the organizations that support them, encourage people to love nature and therefore protect, defend and conserve it? The first one is easier, as I do think that anything that gets us out in nature helps us learn to love it. Birdwatching, gardening, hiking, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing, camping, and yes, hunting and fishing, definitely teach children and adults to love the natural world. Folks who are out in nature the most, such as guides, forest rangers and scientists who study nature are often the most passionate about defending the natural world. There are all kinds of arguments for getting children out of town and onto the farm, the boat, the campground or the hiking trail as a way of leading them to health, wholeness and respect for the cosmos. But the environmental argument is the one that concerns me today, and without a doubt, catching crawfish and fishing for Blue Gill in Plum Creek as boy helped awaken in me a communion with nature that sustains me today and leads me to action on behalf of the environment. Aldo Leopold noted: “Perhaps no one but a hunter can understand how intense an affection a boy can feel for a piece of marsh…. I came home one Christmas to find that land promoters, with the help of the Corps of Engineers had dyked and drained my boyhood hunting grounds on the Mississippi river bottoms…. My hometown thought the community enriched by this change. I thought it impoverished.” Draft foreword, A Sand County Almanac, in Companion to a Sand County Almanac.

The second part is harder, do organizations formed to help preserve fishing streams and hunting grounds  actually help preserve them while at the same time encouraging people to hurt and sometimes kill the animals they are hunting? On the website for Trout Unlimited they state as part of their history: “From the beginning, TU was guided by the principle that if we ‘take care of the fish, then the fishing will take care of itself.’ And that principle was grounded in science. ‘One of our most important objectives is to develop programs and recommendations based on the very best information and thinking available,’ said TU’s first president, Dr. Casey E. Westell Jr. ‘In all matters of trout management, we want to know that we are substantially correct, both morally and biologically.’” I learned in researching this essay that in 1937 it was supporters of hunting and fishing who successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, which put an excise tax on the sale of all sporting arms and ammunition. In 1950, the Dingell-Johnson Act extended this to fishing equipment. Even today, all purchases of hunting and fishing equipment contribute to this fund that is used to conserve wildlife habitat. Combined with the funding from state license and tag sales for hunting and fishing and a substantial part of funding for wildlife preservation comes from these sources that came into being through the efforts of groups such as Trout Unlimited. There was a study done by researchers at Clemson and Cornell Universities that found that “wildlife recreationists”, hunters and birdwatchers, were four to five times more likely than non-recreationists to work for conservation activities such as donating to local efforts or encouraging wildlife habitat on public lands (The Journal of Wildlife Management, March, 2015).

I’m still torn about this. I wish, in the best of all possible worlds, that humans could learn to love the outdoors without needing to stalk, injure and sometimes kill wild creatures. There is this fascination, however, with hunting and fishing that I suspect has to do with our cultural backgrounds and perhaps even our genetics. In the short run, at least, I think supporting hunting and fishing organizations is an expedient way to help the planet. We do protect what we love, and many people who hunt and fish deeply love the places, experiences and creatures they seek in these activities. Many hunt and fish with great respect and care for these things. Aldo Leopold wrote in Sand County Almanac,  “Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” If Aldo Leopold is a judge (I’d say he’s as good as any) I would say organizations such as Trout Unlimited do help “preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community”. Will I teach my granddaughter to fish? If she is interested, yes, I guess I would, but it will be catch and release with barbless hooks.