Review of The Mormonizing of America by Stephen Mansfield

A month ago, while browsing through the shelves of our local Barnes & Noble (here in Fresno), I came across Stephen Mansfield’s The Mormonizing of America. There was a large pile of the books on the floor ready to be shelved - which made me look a little closer. Mormon books do not, in general, get inventoried in pile-sized quantities by major book dealers outside of Utah.

Glancing through the opening pages, I read how much the author enjoyed his visit to Brigham Young University, how much he benefited from discussions with Mormon scholars, and how nice the candy is at the BYU Bookstore. And to be fair, he also expressed gratitude to thinkers more critical of Latter-day Saints (or Mormons).

“This may be a fair book,” I said to myself as I proceeded to the checkout counter. At the very least it ought to be worth reading a Mormon book that Barnes & Noble has obviously tagged as a text that will sell.

And so began a very disappointing read. I do admit that Mansfield has something interesting to say when he tells of his travels among Mormons. And at various points throughout the book he shares snippets of how typical Americans encounter the Mormon reality in today’s world.

For example, we read of the friendship of a Catholic priest and a Mormon Stake President who play racquetball together. They enjoy kidding each other over individual matters of faith but, at one point in their relationship, came to a falling out. The priest finds out that Mormon ceremonies were at one time critical of Catholic priests and the Stake President is annoyed that many Catholics view Mormonism as a cult. The two eventually reconcile their differences.

Or there is the story about Hugh Riddick who teaches his grandson about the priesthood in a touching narrative where we learn of the death of Hugh’s son in battle. His boy had hoped to ordain his own son (Hugh’s grandson) to the priesthood when he returned from the war.

These are valuable additions to the ongoing dialogue between Mormons and non-Mormons in America. If Mansfield had continued along these lines, he would have written a useful book. It is his foray into Mormon beliefs and Mormon history that make his book so obviously tendentious and, ultimately, so forgettable.

I don’t mean to be spiteful. I offer my judgment as an observer of such Mormon ephemera through several decades. Mansfield says nothing that Mormon detractors haven’t said many times before. Sadly, he makes no attempt to meet Latter-day Saint thinkers on questions he decides to critique. His habit is to remind us of anti-Mormon positions without trying to understand what thoughtful Mormons actually think about such topics themselves. My experience is that such head-nodding narratives seldom endure.

Mansfield’s point is that Mormons are “better than their leaders and better than the doctrines their leaders have given them”. This sounds trendy. But Neal A. Maxwell’s point that “One will not find a perfect people with mediocre doctrines” is more substantial. And Jesus’ timeless teaching that “by their fruits ye shall know them” stands as a direct challenge to Mansfield’s thesis.

A particularly egregious example is his treatment of the Book of Mormon. As one expects, he includes the over-used witticisms of Mark Twain and gives offensive dialogue about the recent Mormon farce on Broadway. But he says nothing of the rich doctrines found in the text (a subject that we would expect from a thesis that rests on a doctrinal position). Nor does he mention the numerous external evidences of the Book of Mormon from the Old World, of the book’s many Hebraisms, or of its literary significance. What we do get is a very misguided account the Witnesses of the Book of Mormon that completely ignores Richard Anderson’s important research on this critical issue.

In one particularly misinformed paragraph Mansfield manages to claim: that there is very little evidence for the book’s claims (ignoring hundreds of serious studies), that there is no evidence for “Reformed Egyptian” (completely unaware of written Algonquin texts),  that the geography of the book is “entirely unconfirmed” (ignoring Warren and Michaela’s Aston’s remarkable findings in the Arabian Peninsula), and that there is no evidence that Native American DNA is remotely related to Semitic peoples (ignoring dozens of important observations made recently by serious Mormon scientists). Mansfield may have made a few visits and phone calls to come up with evidence for his cultural arguments. But he has certainly not visited a library with serious Mormon literature. It is obvious to me why he had to choose a small Christian company to print his book. No serious publisher would let him get away with such things.

Mansfield’s treatment of Mormon polygamy is hardly any better. He assumes that such a doctrine automatically dismisses Joseph Smith as a credible religious voice. We all know that the history of Mormon polygamy contains any kind of story one wishes to find. But as a weapon against Joseph, it hardly signifies what Mansfield wants it to.

Joseph’s delay in implementing the principle, his concern for elderly and abandoned women, the love that his wives had for him and his loving relationship with Emma are never mentioned. I doubt that Mansfield has intentionally withheld this information. He just hasn’t done his homework. He assumes that Joseph was a sinful man that will ultimately prove to be a great embarrassment to Mormons. All this to prove his point that Mormons are nice people but their history is awful.

But Joseph proves just the opposite – at least he does to millions of people (many of whom are better informed than Mansfield). We revere him and we are moved by his history. I can’t read about his own resignation to a mob that would ultimately kill him without sensing his love for Emma. She wanted him to come back from hiding and he did – knowing he would die. And the histories of thousands of other people, that knew Joseph and followed him in spite of his pecuniary weaknesses, stand as testimony against Mansfield. Joseph’s detractors have occasionally been jealous contemporaries, more often people who never knew him, almost never the thousands that knew him personally – even intimately. Mansfield’s claim that Mormonism has a history that will prove its undoing is quite frankly ridiculous, coming as it does from someone that hasn’t read the history himself. 

Mansfield’s forgettable book reminds me of Mary McCarthy’s fascinating essay written several decades ago about prejudice. She recounts a conversation she had with a Colonel in the American military while on a train ride. The man insisted that most Communists were Jews. The discussion went on for quite a while until he learned that his companion was a writer. He then became embarrassed and tried to back out of his prejudiced opinions – emphasizing that Hitler was clearly misguided. The essay is both funny and sad. Funny because the author is a good writer, and sad because it reveals how prejudiced many of us are on subjects we hardly know anything about.

So it is with Mansfield who admits that Mormons are good citizens. And I’ll admit that this is refreshing because for decades we were accused of being quite the opposite. But the truth is that such a conclusion is almost required now that most Americans have friends or acquaintances that are Mormons - and it becomes obvious that we tend to be good citizens that care about family, community and faith. To argue differently is hardly credible anymore.

Unfortunately the same is not true about unbiased Mormon history and doctrine. They are not commonly known to non-Mormon Americans. Because of this, Mansfield tries to get away with single sentence dismissals on subjects that we have deeply thought about (and written seriously about) for decades.

This may be the new trend among prejudiced non-Mormons now that we are so increasingly in the public eye. Maybe it’s an easy position to assume. But it certainly isn’t accurate. For those of you who care about our remarkable history and profound doctrines, I suggest that you talk to an informed Mormon and get a more balanced view. Reading Mansfield’s book won’t help.

References

The Mormonizing of America by Stephen Mansfield was published this year by Worthy Publishing. Neal A. Maxwell’s quote comes from Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward (end of Chapter One). Mary McCarthy’s essay, Artists in Uniform, is reprinted in The Best American Essays of the Century.  For the Aston discoveries in the Arabian Peninsula see Warren P. Aston and Michaela Knoth Aston, In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi's Journey across Arabia to Bountiful (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994). A good place to start on American Indian DNA and the Book of Mormon is Michael Whiting’s DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective, reprinted in The Book of Mormon and DNA Research. Daniel C. Peterson Ed., The Neal A. Maxwell Institute 2008.

Faith and Those Magical Moments of the Mind

There are certain magical moments in our minds that we hardly ever pay attention to. They happen more often in some people than in others, but they are not uncommon to most of us. They happen almost as naturally as the beating of the heart, only they are something that we can control. The nature of these magical moments determines to a large degree the make-up of our lives. They are tremendously important. I refer to those moments that happen at the point when our thoughts are transformed into plans to act.

I watched this happen a few days ago with my wife. She had just received a new cookbook – something her sister had recommended. At first she just enjoyed turning the pages and looking at the pictures. Then I heard her mention how nice a few of the dishes looked. A few moments later, she mentioned that she had decided to prepare one of them for dinner the next day. As it turned out, it was quite delicious.

It was all very natural. There was no alarm that went off as soon as her thoughts became a decision. There was not even a realization that something important had happened. I noticed that it did change her mood a bit though. Instead of being relaxed and reflective, she became animated and galvanized to do something. These magical moments have a way of doing that.

What makes these decisions so magical is that they are hidden within us and yet, over a lifetime, they define who we are. A person who is aware of these decisions and learns to work with them has tremendous advantages. This is true in a practical quotidian sense and it is also true in a religious sense. When a decision is made with a focus on Christ, the person is exercising faith in Christ. This is the most magical kind of moment of all. It is important (in fact it is very important) that this kind of faith be distinguished from that ersatz faith that masquerades as passive reflection.

Of course not every decision that we make is morally significant. Much of the time decisions are fairly mundane. We may remember that our keys are in the car and decide to retrieve them. Or we may realize that the dog needs exercise and decide to take her on a walk.

Maybe it is a stretch to call these mundane moments magical. I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Magical or not, they are important enough as a general category to be aware of their significance. There are certainly decisions that are not magical: I mean bad decisions. These include many spontaneous decisions that are mere reactions to our changing environment.

Maybe we honk at a rude driver or say something because we are upset – only to regret it later. Or even worse we deliberately plan to cause somebody grief. As a society we reserve our harshest punishments for those who commit premeditated acts of violence. Clearly, all decisions are not good ones. With criminals as with saints, a powerful will is a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, so few of us use it for good as often as we should.

I am reminded of Emerson’s essay on Power where he argues that, “No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.” And then as an example, he tells us that even among the very talented, knowing is only second best. “The good Speaker of the House is not the man who knows the secrets of parliamentary tactics, but the man who decides offhand.”

One of Emerson’s examples gives me pause. It is a note he makes about a man I admire quite a bit - a man who changed the world for the better because of his mental discipline. I refer to Isaac Newton. For Emerson, Newton’s success came because he “always intended [his] mind”. This is the sort of cerebration that changes the world: the arrival at intention – a truly magical place.

And yet, for all the hundreds of books and articles written about the mind, so little is mentioned about these magical moments. This is a real shame because this is the area that is truly human. The path from abstract thought to intention – especially of powerful intention - is a path that we hardly understand physiologically. And even though it would be the crowning breakthrough of our understanding of the brain, we shy away from it because it is too numinous. It comes too close to the great religious questions that we so studiously ignore.

Instead we read histories about mind / body dualism (stemming from Descartes). This was the understanding that the physical body (including the brain) was a very different thing than the thoughts and feelings that made up the mind. The one was comprised of substance, the other of a non-material substance of the spirit.

Among modern philosophers, the mind has taken on a different significance. It is becoming the focus for understanding freedom – or more commonly the academic illusion of freedom.

Among biologists it is being considered quite differently still. Studies of the mind fill dense physiological texts describing the action of nerve cells, and of the interaction of neurons between different parts of the brain. Some very fascinating work is being done considering the changes in the brain through human development. Many significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the brain have come from studying identical twins and from persons suffering from mental handicaps or diseases.

But notice that these technical studies are focused on the reducible brain. Almost nothing is mentioned about the mind in any higher sense. This is because of an unspoken agreement among credentialed researchers that forbids suggesting that the mind might be anything other than a neural epiphenomenon. To do so smacks of mysticism – something that must be avoided in mainstream science.

Take for example Carl Sagan’s influential The Dragons of Eden where he makes this clear from the start: “I will not in these pages entertain any hypothesis on what used to be called the mind-body dualism, the idea that inhabiting the matter of the body is something made of quite different stuff, called mind.” Most modern forays into brain science are not so explicit.

What happens is that the mind is considered strictly to be the result of a functioning brain. It is then neatly put aside as a subject for a later time when we have more facts to bring to the table. The reality is that this practice will never bring us closer to understanding the mind. We waited for the sequencing of the human genome to reveal secrets of the mind. It hasn’t been very revealing. We now wait for further breakthroughs in our understanding of gene expression. But what we get is better and better at understanding the basics of the mind (of mental awareness and sensation, for example) without even touching the miraculous moments when information is processed and decisions are made.

At least part of the reason for this is our refusal to take the will seriously. It is the will, after all, that makes all the difference during those magical moments of the mind. It is the will that turns reflection into intention. In short, it is the will that makes thing happen. But it is also the will, considering its own experiences in the light of religious truth, that becomes faith. It’s no wonder that we hardly hear of it anymore.

Take, for example, the very respectable Oxford Companion to the Mind. This is a thick book with over 800 pages and thousands of scholarly entries and yet there is virtually nothing written about the will. A brief biographical note referring to one Maine de Biran is all we get and this is just a historical note of little contemporary interest.

You see, the modern world has only a couple of ways to understand the will. It is either a part of the mind that is detected by the brain (i.e. it is different from the brain, making this a dualistic approach) or it is the product of evolution. No one seems to be considering the very basic possibility that the decision making part of the mind can be studied outside of a neurology lab. I’m not sure it even matters if we discover a neuronal or a genetic tie to the will. Either way, it is a part of us that touches the very heart of our search for God. We should be paying much closer attention.

Maybe some of this will happen as we better understand the way emotions interact with the mind. Some of this work is underway (for example in research being conducted by Candace Pert on the emotions of the mind). But there is much left to do.

In the meantime let me presume to ask for the involvement of religiously minded people in this effort. Right now the work is being done by a handful of well-meaning researchers with backgrounds in science and with little religious interest, or it is done by researchers with Eastern religious sympathies. I in no way mean to belittle Eastern religions. I am, however, arguing that our Western tradition of faith has a tremendous amount to say on the subject of the mind if we’ll just take a look. With the amount of new knowledge we are gathering about the brain, there is a pressing need for a faithful consideration of what this means about the mind.

An interesting example of how some of this is playing out revolves around the word mindfulness. Depending on your dictionary, mindfulness refers to awareness but it can also imply an intention to act. Dan Siegel, in his interesting work on mindfulness, emphasizes the great power of the aware mind. Individuals that embrace the present moment with curiosity, openness, acceptance and love (COAL) are much more effective at coping with life’s challenges and are more spiritually minded.

He shares the story of the author Diane Ackerman who, after suffering from a serious fall in Japan a number of years ago while looking for birds, practiced these awareness skills which ended up saving her life. Finding herself with several broken ribs and barely able to breathe, she managed to dissociate her pain and helplessness from her awareness and instead became mindful of the situation with Siegel’s COAL virtues. Because she was able to do so, she not only survived but thrived.

This kind of awareness has great potential for enriching our lives. It should also fall neatly within the purview of mind research. Unfortunately, it only seems to get an audience among modern spiritualists and their ilk. Part of this is due to the group’s Buddhist leanings. And I think this becomes apparent in the way the body is occasionally disregarded. Siegel’s awareness involves a kind of second person dissociation of the mind from the body - a sort of looking-in from the perspective of an out-of-body experience.

This legitimately comes from a long history of Buddhist understanding about human suffering and how it can be mitigated. We in the West have much we can learn from this tradition. Siegel and those few others that are looking into this area of the mind are to be congratulated.

But let me point out that this knowledge of focusing our attention, and the power that it can muster, is not a principle restricted to Eastern mystics like so many authors seem to suggest. The awareness that leads to moral decisions based on a confidence in Christ – in other words faith – is at the heart of what Christianity is all about. For every story like Ackerman’s there are hundreds of stories of others who have drawn upon their faith in Christ in extremis to achieve miraculous ends as well.

The cynic, who may accept the power of the mind in such circumstances, will argue that it is the psychology that is important, not the mental trick that is used. And in fact for Eastern mystics, controlling the mind and the body are certainly important. Our Christian heritage, however, is quite different. We haven’t paid much attention to meditative trances and extended periods of fasting since Christianity moved from the deserts of the Middle East. We have, however, paid a great deal of attention to the mystery of the atonement.

Both traditions deal with the strains of mortality very differently. The Eastern mystic turns to a practiced psychic state. The faithful Christian turns to prayer. The Eastern mystic will succeed to the extent that he mentally withdraws from the body. The Christian will succeed to the extent that she commits herself to God. This is not a passive acceptance of fate. It is an active decision. It is a magical moment of the mind. And there is a great deal of difference between this kind of faith and a mere escape from suffering. The man in Christ accepts that he may need to endure his own cross. In the end, mortality will be vanquished. Eternity is intended for glory, not for a disembodied dissolution.

One of the most obvious examples of this faithful focusing of the mind is the sacrament prayer of Latter-day Saints. I admit that we rarely consider it as such, but I believe it is meant to help us experience magical moments. Let me explain.

Every week in the sacrament prayers we acknowledge that we will always remember Christ. As a consequence, we are promised the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit. We don’t really think that we are expected to have Christ in mind at all times of our lives. We are mortal after all. We live in a world that requires our attention in a lot of different ways and during a lot of different times. But that perdurable word always can mean more than we think.

We normally think it means continuously. But it can also mean at every time. This is clear if I say, for example, that I always wake up at 5:00 a.m. I am not continuously waking up at 5:00 a.m., but every time it is 5:00 a.m., I do get up. In this sense the Sacrament Prayer promises that every time we remember Christ we will have His spirit to be with us. Here we begin to see how a mental exercise can be transformed into that all-powerful principle of faith. The promise is that anything we may be considering, if it is done in the light of Christ, can be transformed into a magical moment filled with Divine presence.

Every time we think of work or play, of spouse or child, of life or death we can have our inner compass directed by the Spirit of God. This can happen every time. In other words, it can happen always. When it does happen, those magical moments take on an entirely different significance. Our intention becomes a divinely directed intention. And it is this divinely directed intention that is the great unexplored region of true faith.

I say unexplored, but this is only true in a limited sense – in a scientific sense. The spiritual giants of our Judeo - Christian heritage have always known the power of a divinely inspired will. Perhaps our modern mind finds it algorithmically convenient to ignore. But the truth is obvious to those with the faith to see it. It is possible for a thought to be transformed – magically. It makes no Darwinian sense. It is hidden from the laboratory. And it cannot be measured with our most sophisticated tools. It can, however, transform the life of a sinner. And it can change the world if we will, magically.
References

Emerson’s essay Power is in The Conduct of Life (reprinted in the Library of America’s Emerson, Essays and Lectures, 1983). Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden was published in 1977 by Random House. I quote from page 7. The Oxford Companion to the Mind (edited by Richard L. Gregory) was published by Oxford University Press in 1987. Dan Siegel’s essay Reflections on the Mindful Brain can be found in Measuring the Immeasurable published by Sounds True in 2008.

The Birds and I

The sea is turquoise
And the cliffs austere,
The plangent pounding
Of the waves

The gulls are glad
To heed themselves
When we are
Shadows far away

But we are just
As real as they
And need companions
In the world

Not to impose upon
A nesting shore
Our vagrant errantries
Of self

But to imagine
More than sand,
Our souls beyond the
Broken drift of sea

For we are here
The birds and I
In spite of all the
Things I thought to be

Where Are We?

Several months ago, on a flight from Dallas, I overheard a short conversation between a young mother and her son. They were just settling into their seats, getting carry-on bags positioned and seatbelts secured. After looking around a bit, the young boy asked, “Mom, are we in church?” His mother smiled and said, “no son, we’re in Texas”.

I laughed quietly and wrote down the conversation in my notebook. Yet, for all the pleasure this little incident gave me, I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why I laughed. I’m still not completely sure, but I have an idea.

One possibility is that I find geographical blunders funny. I also find them a little bit dismaying. I have a handful of friends that believe I just returned from a trip to South America or Africa – when in fact, I visited the country of Honduras (in Central America!). These people have no clue where Honduras is and they never bother to find out.

Of course, I don’t expect a child to be so geographically informed. And I was pleased that his mother wanted him to know where he was. But I don’t think geography is the point here. I think the issue is a bit more fundamental than that. In our frequent concerns about place, many of us really do have trouble knowing where we are. This is, of course, a navigational issue. It is also a spiritual one. We certainly want to know how to get home. But we also need to know where home really is.

What I’m trying to say is that we somehow know of a domestic standard that is higher than our immediate experience. Maybe we know of this standard because we have visited beautiful homes and carefully landscaped villas. Or maybe we have seen these places in movies and books. Maybe we have memories of an ideal childhood retreat or vacation spot. Maybe we just know and can’t explain how we know.

Plato (as part of his idea of forms) called a true standard eidos. Such standards have become part of our Western heritage as the objects that cast shadows on a cave wall. We experience only the imperfect shadow, but the shadow itself hints of a true reality outside the cave that we cannot see. Somehow we all have an idea of what an ideal home really is.

There is a popular dialogue going around the Central Valley (of California) these days. It goes something like this: “Is this Heaven?” asks a visitor. “No”, is the reply. “It’s Fresno”. This, of course, is not meant to be a serious Platonic commentary. It is meant to be an endearing joke. At least it makes those of us who live in Fresno smile.

And maybe we laugh, and yet we wonder. Where are we really? If our Judeo-Christian heritage informs us of a better place beyond this vale of tears, should we even try to find our home here below?

Of course we should. And we should appreciate the beautiful places all around us. We should recognize them for what they are: imperfect semblances. To do so is an act of spiritual realization and healing. We live amidst the Created Order. To a greater or lesser degree (depending on where we live and how much we have destroyed it) the handiwork of Heaven is right here.

Of course some days are bleak, even if you live in a place like Neuschwanstein Castle. It rains, it snows, the roof develops a leak. The inventory of perfect days, even in Disneyland, can easily fit on a small sticky note. This is mortality after all.

Our goal of finding Shangri-La (or even a perfect weekend retreat) will ever be denied as long as we hope for perfect weather, perfect health, and perfect cooperation in a fallen world. But, if we allow them to, Jesus and Plato can keep us from despairing. Not all cavernous shadows are malignant.

A rose is still beautiful even if it’s raining. Our loved ones are still children of God even if they’re currently feeling a bit down – or even if we are. A faded butterfly pinned to the bottom of an old unit tray is cause for rejoicing. Somewhere - thanks to the Creator – there is a similar one flitting among wildflowers having a perfect day. It is a reminder, like so many other beautiful things all around us, that we are heirs of perfection. You can find hints of Heaven in Fresno. It just takes practice seeing through the fog.

How to Wade a River

Some time ago, in a remote area of Central America, I went trekking with a friend of mine. We followed a trail that rural people and horses occasionally use to move cattle up and down the local mountain. It was a decent trail but the canyon was often narrow and a river ran over it in several places.

At first we experienced the river as an inconvenience. We felt obliged to sit down after each crossing in order to empty water out of our boots – and wring it out of our sopping socks. But eventually we just kept plodding along in wet footwear. There were just too many crossings.

At some points the crossings were simple. The water was only a foot deep. In other places it was a bit more difficult as water inched up to our waste and threatened to knock us over. The current made all of the crossings partially dangerous – at least to someone who doesn’t know the correct method of wading rivers.

This, however, was something I still had to learn. The first problem is the optical illusion of moving water over stones. You might think you can see clearly where to step, but this is not true. The uneven water surface makes it impossible to see the relative sizes of stones with the level of certainty needed to step with confidence. And this same optical illusion also makes it difficult to measure water depth. I can’t remember how many times I thought I was stepping into a deeper part of the river only to hit bottom much sooner than expected – kind of like stepping onto the basement floor when you think you have another step to go. It makes you move awkwardly - fumbling to catch your balance.

I’m not suggesting that you should step blindly. You can tell the difference between boulders and smaller stones. You can also judge fairly accurately where the major currents are going (the water moves that way).

I found that the safest way to manage the watery illusions was to step slowly onto the river bottom. This also helped me avoid the dangers of slippery rocks. Some of the biggest dangers in the river are stones covered with algae. Sometimes it is long enough to see easily. You can predict that the stones underneath these areas will be slippery.

It’s the stones with new algal growth that present the danger. They often look like any other stone until you step on them and quickly slide off. If you step slowly, you’re less likely to make a mistake. The key is to have your other foot safely and firmly planted before you commit your weight to an unknown stone.

And then there is the challenge of currents. It’s easy enough to see them when the surface currents are extensions of the water movement below. Sometimes this isn’t the case and unexpected currents can take you by surprise. The solution, again, is to move slowly and test the ground before you commit your weight.

Another helpful tip is to use a walking stick. It can help in a number of ways. You can judge depth with it. You can determine how loose some of the stones are. You can also put some of your weight on it if you start to lose your balance. If it hadn’t been for my walking stick, I would have fallen on many of the crossings.
All told, I learned four keys to successfully wade a river: step with reasoned intent, let the river guide where you finally put your weight, make sure you are firmly planted on one foot before you commit to another, and use the help of a walking stick.

I assure you that this is good advice. I only wish I had learned these lessons a little bit earlier. I don’t mean for wading rivers. I mean for managing life. As I plodded up and down the river over a period of two days, I realized that my life is often passed in the same way I hike. I move easily, as if I know where I am going. Each step assumes that the ground will be secure.

It has taken me years to learn that this is not always the case. When wading rivers (or in other insecure situations) it is wise to walk differently. Be smart about decisions. Use the best judgment you have. When finally making a step, be ready for surprises. Your foot might not land where, or how, you think it will. And then be sure of where you start from. You can catch yourself if you are firmly holding on to something secure.

Then, finally, get some help in making your decisions. Maybe a friend or someone you trust has experience that will help. Maybe the great (and sacred) literature of the world has some advice. Certainly a conversation with our Heavenly Father would be in order.

Maybe I’m just getting older and a bit more cautious than I used to be. Or maybe it’s the accumulating experiences of falling and getting bruised. Either way, I stand by my recommendations. And I mean what I say: I stand because of them.

Botfly Lessons

There are a lot of creatures in this world that get bad press. Think of rats which hide beneath old boxes in garages, and that linger in our memories as the carriers of plague. Or consider rattlesnakes that slither in tall grass and bite unsuspecting passersby. Or the yellow jacket that interferes with our picnicking and stings us when we least expect it.
Of course we recognize that these creatures have their place. And in our more reflective moments – safe in a clean and comfy easy chair – we will grant them a place in the created order, far away from us. There are a handful of things, however, that hardly ever make it even to this guarded list of acceptable nuisances. Mosquitoes, for example, come to mind. What good do they provide? Not many of us have the understanding (or the desire) to accept their immature stages as an ecological plus - as fish or frog food. They are just pests, plain and simple.

And then there is the little known but greatly despised botfly, an insect about the size of a honeybee. Bots make their living by burrowing into the bodies of animals, including humans. Female flies drop eggs either directly onto the skin of animals or they capture another creature, like a mosquito or a tick, and lay eggs on it. These smaller creatures then find their normal warm-blooded hosts and when the young botflies (now having become small worms) sense warmth, they drop onto the new host. In either case, the little worms then burrow under the skin of their unsuspecting benefactors.

I remember a number of years ago, a friend of mine told the story of his mother’s encounter with one of these noisome insects. She had been visiting tropical America with her husband and must have picked up the parasite during their travels. She didn’t notice the bump on her skin until the bot was half grown.

And in fact this is not unusual. As small worms, the botfly larva can burrow under the skin without detection for several days. They artfully consume living tissue while leaving the nerves untouched. The human bot cases that I know of have not experienced pain of any kind. Remarkably, even the initial act of burrowing into the skin is not felt.

When my friend’s mother discovered her parasite, she was alarmed at first and then fascinated. She is a hardy sort of lady with a passion for natural history and her curiosity soon overcame her anxieties. She decided to let the insect emerge. Several days later, it did just that as she was taking a bath. The fully-developed larva broke through her skin around the neck and dropped to the ground. In the wild, the worm then hides itself in the soil to pupate, before emerging as an adult to start the process over again.

In North America (where I live), this doesn’t happen very often. We have a handful of botflies but these are parasites of non-human animals. People that have the misfortune of carrying one almost always pick them up from the tropics, where the human botfly (Dermatobia hominis) lives.

But there are exceptions. Occasionally a disoriented botfly will mistake a human for a sheep, a horse, or some other creature. I know this from personal experience.

A few years ago, while travelling on the dusty back roads of eastern Wyoming, I had a botfly land in my hair and lay at least one egg. I didn’t realize at the time what had happened. I thought it was just an ordinary prairie fly that was unfortunate enough to get blown into a slow-moving truck (of a foraging entomologist).

Several days passed. I was now at home in Windsor, Colorado taking a shower and noticed a lump on my neck. This worried me and over the course of several days I became convinced that I had cancer. The thought was constantly on my mind, although I kept it to myself. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

Then one morning I lay in bed longer than usual (it was a Sunday). While I was in that half-conscious state between sleep and wakefulness, I realized what had happened. I remembered the Wyoming fly buzzing around in my hair and knew that it must have been a botfly. I quickly ran my hand over the area of my head where the fly had landed. Sure enough, there was a bump.

Now if I had been a little more restrained and in control of my reflexes, I might have left it alone and waited for the larva to come out. I wasn’t and I didn’t. As an immediate reflex, I buckled my fingers and punched myself on the head. Not just once, mind you, but several times. Kathy, who was asleep next to me, rolled over and mumbled something incoherent. After a few minutes, it was all over. Then I remembered the lump on my neck. It was still there and I realized that it was an enlarged lymph node. My body had been fighting the parasite in its own way without my knowledge. The lump stayed on my neck for several days before going away. Slowly my body cleansed itself of the worm, and my head – bruises and botfly behind – began to heal.

It’s understandable that we would despise botflies. If the very thought of one doesn’t give you the willies, I challenge you to find a picture of one emerging from its host. Unless you happen to have a truly unusual stomach, I guarantee that you will lose your appetite in short order.

What are we to make of such creatures? I know of no Victorian descriptions or essays of natural theology dealing with botflies. Such stories were often written during the 19th Century with the intent to draw a moral lesson from the Creation or to gain insight into the mind of the Creator Himself. The botfly, it seems, is hard to make sense of in this sort of doctrinal milieu.

It is clearly a creature of mortality – of the fallen Darwinian order. It is one of those threads – woven into the fabric of Creation – that ensures a future dissolution. Its very existence is a hint that evil cannot be escaped in this mortal sphere. And maybe this is its purpose. This part of our divine curriculum involves death and suffering and bots are one of its purveyors.

In certain parts of the world and to some animals this fallen fly requires a very real vigilance. The tropical American oropendolas are one of these. They are fairly large birds that are known for their large well-crafted nests that hang like grassy gourds from high branches of trees. A golf-ball sized hole is the entrance to the nest. And, as you may have guessed, sometimes botflies make it inside and feed on the young oropendola nestlings. When they do, the young birds often die.

But often the botflies don’t bother the birds. When there are wasps or wild bees living nearby, the flies stay away. The oropendolas also have another line of defense. It comes from an unlikely place. In fact it comes from a bird that we often despise. It is a parasite known as the cowbird, and it lays eggs in the nests of other birds so it doesn’t have to do the hard work of raising a brood itself. And since the cowbird hatchling is more aggressive than the baby oropendola, it gets more food from the dutiful oropendola parents. This unsolicited adoption at first might strike us the wrong way. But, in fact, there is a benefit to the young oropendola. Cowbird chicks are quite good at eating botfly larvae. In fact they can even snap up an adult fly now and then. When bee swarms are not around to protect oropendola nests from bots, letting cowbird chicks into the nest is the next best strategy. In fact adult oropendolas are known to aggressively keep cowbirds away when bees are around. When they aren’t, they let the cowbirds lay an egg in their nests. This is a surprising level of sophistication for a bird.

It is also an uncommonly good window into the ways of mortality. With parasites and predators all around us, our decisions often revolve around choosing between two evils. Do we let botflies feed on our family or do we agree to pay the mafia boss (cowbird) to protect us from such a scourge?

Or maybe the decision is less obvious. Do we decline an important business dinner or skip our child’s choir performance? Do we go without a car repair or eat beans and rice for a month? Sadly mortality is full of such dually dislikable decisions. And in the end they get the better of us. Mortality always wins Round One (or is it Round Two, or Round Twenty Two?).

To someone who believes in the Created Order the legions of bots and their ilk can leave us wondering about the priorities of Heaven. If the Creator can paint such a beautiful sunset and design the tail of a peacock, what on earth is the reason for parasites?

There haven’t been many good answers to this dilemma. There is, however, an unavoidable conclusion if we are willing to admit it. The experiences of actual life on earth are meant to include suffering and ultimately death. This may seem unreasonable to many of us. After all, we spend so much of our time and resources intentionally mitigating the bad in the world. How can divinity do anything less?

The truth is that such an avuncular deity as our democratic world contrives is not necessarily the same transcendent being that our ancestors worshipped, nor is it the Heavenly Father of our sacred texts. The truth is that there is no necessary conflict between the realities of a divine Creator of beauty and a divinely established decay.

Our wise teachers and leaders have always provided us with challenges to overcome. We acknowledge that there is no royal road to learning. In fact the exams we face often get progressively more difficult as we move from kindergarten up through high school and college. Why should grade earth be without its own challenges?

One solution to all of this is to recognize that part of our earthly curriculum is to be bothered by bots, to be beaten by disease. This is the way mortality is meant to be. I don’t mean that we should resign ourselves, as some belief systems encourage, to the exsanguinating insults of insects. (I, for one, still swat every skeeter that I can.)

But consider for a moment what this suggests: there is amazing beauty in the world in spite of our aches and pains. Surely, then, beauty is possible without them. If death is imposed now, what will life be like when it isn’t? Or maybe more immediately: how can life be improved if we admit to the terms of the test?

For starters, we might realize that humility is the correct approach to a fallen world that we cannot escape. And with an eternal perspective, this humility can develop into gratitude. We can decide to take a hint from the Creation and accept bots for what they are – a possible essay question on a mid-term exam.

References

For a discussion of oropendolas and cowbirds see Don Moser’s Central America Jungles (one of The American Wilderness/Time-Life Books, 1975) starting on page 97.

In Context

The things we learn in context
Are more likely to remain
Than other facts and figures
Weakly tethered to the brain
Then severed from our memory
And never thought again

For not all contexts are the same
And most are not real sure
And so we stop our efforts
To continue anymore
With education that can seem
So futile to explore

We need to chose a reference
That will motivate us now
And then again in future
Will continue to endow
Our minds and hearts with knowledge
That the Heavens might allow