The Glory of the Sun is Typical

The sun is the star at the center of our solar system. It is a mass of exceptionally hot plasma and magnetic fields. Chemically it is mostly made of hydrogen and helium. By mass, it is many times larger than all of the other planets in the solar system combined – giving it the gravitational pull that drives the other planets – including our own – through their respective motions, seasons, and other periodicities. It provides the energy that makes life, as we know it, possible on Earth.

We are dependent on this universal oven for our lives. Without it there would be no photosynthesis – no growth or energy, that is – in plants for us to benefit from. The surface of our planet would no longer be a beautiful blue and white sphere (as in the Apollo 8 image that so inspired us when we first saw it in 1968). It would be a cold grey mass spinning lifeless in space.   

For some reason we normally take this remarkable star for granted. It is so constant that even our complete dependency upon it gets ignored, just like the essential water that falls from the sky and the oxygen that we pull into our lungs. It shines on all of us – rich and poor alike.

And if many of us forget what a blessing it is, there is something even more significant that I would like to point out – something that even fewer of us ever consider: our sun works like a cosmic battery. It is not our ultimate source of energy. Something else entirely energizes it.  This is not an astronomical truth that you will learn about in a physics class. It is a scriptural truth of such proportion that it fills us with wonder: the source of the sun’s brilliance is the Son of God.

“This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made.” (D&C 88:7).

Consider the significance of this. It means that the influence of Jesus the Christ extends to the very core of our physical existence. Yes, we understand that He is the source of all spiritual sustenance. And yes, we understand that He is the Creator of the world. Of course, we also realize that He is the High Priest of good things to come (Hebrews 9:11) - with all of the salvific implications of that magnificent title. But somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten that He is also the source of our everyday (hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute) needs. Without the sun – that is, without the Son – we would not exist in this world.

I am not suggesting that we dig up the pagan rites of sun worshippers.  They crop up without too much trouble on all continents and through a long history of religious commitments. Christianity itself has its own brief conjunction with sun worship that seems to have been almost inevitable in the melting pot of the Roman Empire where the deity Sol Invictus was worshipped as the official Sun God.

His day of birth – the so-called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti – was December 25^th which was later adopted by the early Fathers as the official day to celebrate Jesus’ own birth. We sometimes smile knowingly that the real birthday of Jesus was actually in the spring – when shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night.

But was the Christian adoption of the sun god’s birthday a mere political expedient? Was a convenient calendar the only reason for changing the date? We will probably never know. We do, however, have a couple of clues that suggest that there may just have been a solar association with the Son of God even back in those forgotten centuries. One of the clues involves the Book of Malachi (written probably a couple of centuries before Christ and recorded as the last book of the Old Testament) and the book of Third Nephi (written at the time of Christ and recorded in the Book of Mormon) which contains a section repeating the verse in Malachi.

Referring to the end of times when the earth will be burned as an oven, Malachi records, “but unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings...” (Chapter 4:2).

This is an interesting perspective on the word sun: being capitalized, referring to a male deity (most likely) and representing a moral being representative of a Hebrew seraph (with wings). The early Christians, however, were clear that this being was Christ, the Sun of justice.

Ambrose wrote in Six Days of Creation (4.2.5): “therefore God the Father says, “let the sun be made,” and the Son made the sun, for it was fitting that the Sun of justice should make the sun of the world…”.

Valentinus was also clear on this (Letter 216, Valentine to Augustine): “…the Lord shall come as a burning furnace and shall burn the wicked like stubble. And to those who fear the name of the Lord, the Sun of justice shall rise, when the wicked shall be punished with the judgment of Justice.”

The Book of Mormon makes the relationship even clearer:  “But unto you that fear my name, shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings…” (3 Nephi 25:2). Here the healer is the Son, not the Sun. And Malachi’s play on words becomes apparent. There is a glory in the Son of God that resembles our life-sustaining star. But if the orb can burn, the Son of God will heal. One wonders what other similarities there might be. What other hints are to be found in the sacred record?

One important hint was given to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in their vision of the degrees of glory. “These are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical” (D&C 76:70).

That last word typical is a wonderfully ambiguous word. It can mean a handful of different things. If this were the only verse we had associating the sun with deity, we might draw one of several conclusions.

We might assume that the sun is an example of deity – that it is characteristic of a god. It wouldn’t be clear that the sun wasn’t a god itself. This understanding of the word typical isn’t all that different from the understanding we sense from some sun-worshipping cultures. In fact this understanding of typical is the definition we are most familiar with today. As in, “I am eating a typical apple for lunch.”

Then there is the definition of typical as a type, or as the defining example of something. In the science of taxonomy, for example, a type specimen is the actual individual (preserved and usually mounted in a museum) that defines a species. In order to assure accuracy in identifying an individual of the same species, a careful comparison must be made with the type specimen. This is the individual that the original author (describer) of the species designated as the name-bearing entity of his discovery.

If this were the intended meaning of the word typical, it would indicate that the sun was not just an example of a deity, but that it was the Supreme Being in existence. Again, this is the understanding of some sun-worshipping cultures.

The other meaning of typical is that it is emblematic of, or that it is of the nature of, something else. Maybe it is a symbol of something else, or perhaps a subset of a larger entity. An apple in a painting, done in still-life, might be a typical apple. An expensive truck might have the power typical of several teams of horses.

The sun, in this sense, might represent a being that is, itself, even more powerful than it is. Similarly, it might have characteristics that are similar to the Supreme Being.  It seems that this is what Malachi meant when he drew upon the image of the Sun to describe the Son.

And it opens up to us is an immense amount of understanding about the Son of God, by way of comparison. We know that the sun’s power is beyond our ability to comprehend. We know that it will burn to a crisp all of life unless we are protected. (And this is why the early Fathers recognized the sun as a symbol of Christ’s justice.) We also know that it is the life that sustains us day by day.

Such understanding makes us stop in awe-full wonder. How transcendent is the Son of God? Certainly his power is beyond comprehending. Truly we are nothing without His grace. And without this same grace we will wither as the summer grass before the blazing sun.

Before such majesty our human pride is truly tragicomic. Our greatest achievements appear in the archives of eternity as so many ant-hills in the Garden of Eden. How pathetic is our fallen presumption before the Son/Sun of God!

References

My quotations from Ambrose and Valentinus are taken from Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament XIV, The Twelve Prophets; edited by A. Ferreiro and T.C. Oden. Inter Varsity Press, 2003.

A Kingdom of Faith

What is it that captures your allegiance more than anything else? Is it a homeland, a political geography, a flag? Maybe you are an idealist and prefer to stand by principles or a favorite author. Perhaps you’d rather stick with what you know and trust personally – your allegiance is to your own judgment.

Or maybe, just maybe - out of all the people you respect and befriend - someone stands above the others in your estimation and respect. Maybe your highest loyalty is to a person.

In the next few paragraphs I hope to convince you (if you need to be convinced) that this is the highest form of allegiance. Not everyone will agree – especially these days. Who, after all, is worthy of our highest respect? “You can’t trust anybody anymore,” we often hear ourselves complain.

Our modern decision-making instincts aren’t very helpful in this regard either. Prime-time news channels make sure to let us know how balanced they are by endorsing nobody or nothing in particular (at least overtly). Everybody has some sort of flaw. And if someone shows up with a strong opinion, she will always be held up to public judgment. That’s just what happens in democracies.

How on earth, then, can I argue that it is better to stand behind someone than something? Or that it is even a good idea to profess loyalty to anybody at all?

I have three witnesses. For starters let me quote Chesterton in a statement he made about art and the artistic pursuit of beauty: “nothing is perfect,” he said, “unless it is personal.”

The greatest works of art, it is true, are about people. In literature, the Bible, The Brothers Karamazov, Les Miserables, and so many other great works are about people. The most important paintings of all time have all dwelt with people. Yes there are masterpieces in still life, of abstract subjects, or of landscapes. But individual human beings are the great subjects and always will be.

As a young boy without many resources at Christmastime, I was always a little discouraged with the kinds of presents I could find for my family. Gratefully I accepted the advice of my parents that a hand-made item would mean more to them than an expensive gift purchased from a store. I thought they were just being nice. After all, every boy knows that a new bike is much preferred to anything that a family member might make. But I didn’t complain.

Years later I was surprised when we cleaned out our garage before moving. After boxing up tools, sweeping the floor, and clearing items off of shelves I was surprise to find one of my drawings. It was an animal scene that I had made for my father years earlier. It was of a meadow scene, and it was proudly positioned on the wall. The quality of the artwork was not all that impressive – certainly not something to be framed for the living room. But the pride of my father was obvious, and I began to realize that maybe he did like my personalized presents to him the most.
This was a comforting realization for a boy that wasn’t a social butterfly – who never felt comfortable in large groups. In fact, it took me quite a while to realize just how significant personal interactions are in other areas of my life. I have always insisted that I would rather eat by myself than spend two hours prolonging a business meal in order to be sociable. And when it comes to parties or other social gatherings, I prefer staying at home with a book in my reading chair.

Even so, I have learned that I enjoy eating a meal with somebody I really like more than eating alone. And if I know that a good friend will be at a party, I am eager to attend. It just depends on who I happen to be with. This may seem a bit paradoxical: that a social misfit will admit to the primacy of the personal. But I assure you that it is real.

Today our political leaders are rarely loved. We support them for their record of public service and because they may represent our point of view. But, for the most part, we don’t even know them. The loyalty we offer them is only a vague sentiment. If our candidate loses an election we hardly ever feel sorry for him personally. We feel sorry for ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In local communities, and especially in local religious congregations, many leaders are actually loved. And our loyalty to them is very often genuine. We compliment them, send them messages, and we even pray for them. Even with a life-full of imperfections, there are people that we still trust.

My second witness is John Henry Newman. In his Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford, he writes that revealed religion stands above natural religion, “training us to be subjects of a kingdom, not citizens of a Stoic republic.”

Newman’s point is a sad but poignant one. Philosophy, in the end, isn’t enough to ground us spiritually. “A mere moral strain of teaching duty and enforcing obedience fails in persuading us to practice, not because it appeals to conscience, and commands and threatens, but because it does not urge and illustrate virtue in the Name and by the example of our blessed Lord.”

We watch the best philosophers argue for utilitarian or universal standards, using measure of truth in human averages or physical laws. Sadly, even suicide itself becomes a reasonable response to an ultimately amoral world that taunts the human presumption and cry for meaning. If our spiritual needs are to have any real significance, it becomes obvious that they will not be coming from our many philosophies. Efforts to direct a life on both Christian and Darwinian principles can only lead to madness. Clearly, we are better off seeking a virtuous leader than a faulty philosophy.

I know I am getting on thin ice here. After all, we Americans are convinced that enlightenment philosophy (as translated into our national Constitution) has produced the best possible form of governance. The fact that our Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world would seem to confirm this belief. I am not denying this.

But our national Constitution allows our diverse population to co-exist because of compromise. Our many beliefs and cultures (not to mention our many levels of virtuous commitment) require a document that can give and take on important issues. It is an inspired document.

But compromise does not ultimately satisfy our deepest spiritual needs. Compromise is no more satisfying than a reasoned philosophy. It may help in the short term, but it remains a shadowy solution. In the end we do not wish to live forever in a world of gray.

We seek a kingdom because we believe that real virtue can (and does) exist. Maybe we have come to permanently doubt the list of candidates endlessly posting their signs in our neighbors’ yards. Our suspicions of human nature are legitimate. In fact we may have lost faith that a human being might ever achieve real virtue.

But then once in a while we see a true example and our faith returns. Even if, in our idealism, we no longer esteem anybody completely; there is one personal example (and this is my third witness) that demands our personal allegiance. It is the example of Christ.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” (John 14:6). Jesus doesn’t tell His disciples that if they keep the commandments, they will be guaranteed a place in heaven. He tells them that if they love him, they will keep His commandments (John 14:15). The ultimate measure is not a laundry list for forensic living. It is our love and faith in the Master himself.
It is valuable to remember here that the word believe goes back to an old English word be-love. Sadly we have lost this important personal sense of what faith is all about. It is to be based in a loving person, not in an abstract principle.

There is good reason that the eternal realm is called the Kingdom of Heaven. This place of wonder (of our ultimate dreams) is not just mentioned once or twice in a forgotten verse of scripture. The Kingdom of Heaven (and the Kingdom of God) takes center stage in Christian holy writ.

It is a compound word. The first syllable is king - obviously referring to a regal being. The second is dom referring to a legal jurisdiction. The word, itself, has come to be most frequently thought of as a place. In a religious sense it has become the place of our anticipated eternal home.

But this emphasis is wrong. It has always been intended that the focus be on the King and not the place. Who knows what heaven is even like? Why are we so preoccupied by a place we know so little about? By contrast we know a great deal about its Ruler – the King. He lived here once, and we have a record of the things He said and did. He has been involved in our own lives and in our many histories. We can come to know Him. In fact coming to know Him is what the eternities are all about. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3).

It is said that there are bits and pieces of heaven all around us. “Home can be a heaven on earth” we sing with our children. And maybe we do love the place where we live. Or maybe we feel like we don’t belong. Perhaps we keep hoping for a better world. So be it.

My advice is to forget about the perfect place, and think instead about its King. The place is far away. But the Ruler is willing to join us here, even if His kingdom is not of this world.

References

Chesterton’s quote come from The Everlasting Man (page 104 of my soft-bound edition from Ignacius Press). Newman’s quote is from Sermon II (The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion Respectively) in Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford. My copy is the Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900.

Hope Is Why

Why are 30 degrees
So cold at night
And yet so beautiful
On snow in light?

Knowing how a sin
Can die
I would say that
Hope is why.

A Gift for Jo

It was wrapped

In golden paper

With a deep red

Ribbon and a bow

Though small and not

As noticed as the

Bigger gifts that

Under-girt the tree

But it was big enough

For her to see

She didn’t want to

Open it at first

And so she held it

In her hand

And read the careful

Writing underneath

That simply said,

“To Jo from Dad”

A simple note that

Made her glad

And then for no

Apparent reason she

Began to giggle

Quietly

Then slipped the paper

From a cup

Half filled with soil

And a single seed

No fancy necklace

Or a book to read

But she could not

Escape the thrill

Nor keep the

Smile to herself

For there was something

In the gift

That carried there

From long ago

And lingered with the

Sanguine little bow

And flowers that she

Seemed to know

Were waiting in the

Packaged germ

A springtime colored

Just for her

A promise with

A small delay

A flower for an April feast

Beginning on a Christmas day

Race, Class and Christian Culture in America

Two weeks ago I watched an unsettling documentary on PBS TV about the future demographics of race in America. The program was professionally put together. Many experts were interviewed representing a wide range of minority interests. It was fascinating to see how the face of America has changed in the last couple centuries, and to see what it might look like in the future.  The most arresting datum for me (as a white man) was the change that will happen in the next few years: whites will no longer make up the majority of the American population.

 
This remarkable fact was meant to make a point. In fact it was meant to be the main point of the program. It was also meant to be alarming. And sadly, the conclusions to be drawn from this fact where made out to be somewhat sensational. They don’t need to be.

The PBS normally does a good job of not moralizing. It wasn’t so successful this time. Its argument was that race issues can be avoided (both now and in the future) if we focus on resolving class differences instead of worrying about race. Poverty and crime cut across all races and we shouldn’t stereotype. I agree.

But one of the implications of the program was that since we have been plagued with race problems from the beginning, we Americans will continue to be plagued by them if we don’t get our act together. And if we don’t, the tables will be turned. Instead of white supremacy, previous minorities will now have their say. Whites need beware.

The PBS should know better. And the reason it should know better is because America has a culture – believe it or not. It may not be a universal culture – certainly we come from many places. And many of us try to live beyond the constraints of this culture. But this culture exists nonetheless (both now and in the past) and it transcends both race and class. This culture is called Christianity.

The very fact of this Christian culture in America is studiously ignored in the public square. PBS is not alone in pretending that it makes little, if any, difference in our modern world. And besides, what many may call Christian culture really divides along racial lines anyway. It all boils down to race in the end – or so the argument goes.

But I disagree. Certainly we have local congregations that follow racial patterns. You don’t find too many whites in a black Baptist church in rural Alabama. Nor do you find too many black Mormons in central Idaho.  But here is my point: they do occur. And this racial mixing occurs a lot more commonly in metropolitan communities.

Even where this mixing is minimal, Christians are now more willing than ever to reach across racial lines in a shared community of faith. This last weekend I attended an inter-faith Thanksgiving service here in Fresno where I watched nearly a dozen faith communities accept and rejoice in our religious diversity. My son, who lives 3,000 miles away, occasionally attends a similar inter-faith community in Virginia. This is happening all across the country. Americans of faith are recognizing that the differences between their respective faiths are minor compared to the larger issues of rampant moral decay.

We see more and more that this widespread social concern is making the former issues of racial mixing less and less important. In many congregations race is no issue at all. The reason is simple enough: Christ teaches us to love all of our brothers and sisters. And in America right now, this Christian mixing is happening all the time, and in increasing amounts. The possibility of future inter-racial harmony in America is bright so long as we continue to follow Christ.

This may all sound historically naïve. After all, America was much more religious in former times when race relations were worse than they are now. How, then, can I claim for a mollifying Christian influence today?  Let me explain.

The first, and most obvious, argument is the compromises revolving around religion during the Constitutional Convention. Madison’s religious arguments, culminating in the First Amendment, allowed for a religiously diverse ensemble of states to join hands in a common cause. In fact this religious pluralism has probably done more than anything else to make America what it is today: the most religiously diverse and dynamic country in the world. And it is important that nearly all of the Founders were Christians. Even the few that may have had deistic leanings were morally grounded in the teachings of Christ.

And this Christian majority continued to inform American culture into the 19^th Century. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the mid-19^th Century, argued that “all the sects in the United States are within the great Christian unity, and the morality of Christianity is everywhere the same… So, therefore, at the same time that the law permits the American people to do everything, religion prevents them from conceiving everything and forbids them to dare everything.”

But what about the Civil War, where both the North and the South claimed to be Christians? Doesn’t this argue against my point of a convivial Christian culture? Well yes and no. Yes the Civil War saw Christians fighting against Christians. But a very relevant point is to be made that religion was not the main driver in the war. Economics, states’ rights and the protection of a culture were the main points. Yes each side in the conflict justified their position by quoting from the Bible. But the Civil War itself was not a war about the Bible.

It just happens that the issue of slavery can be ambiguous in the Bible. Issues of civil rights are no longer so ambiguous. A slave owner could argue against treating property (his slave) with the respect due to his neighbor – as Jesus’ teaching of the Good Samaritan requires. But this is no longer the case. No nation in our time accepts this corrupted version of human dignity. Even in our most segregated white churches today, racial equality is taught as a Christian mandate in Sunday school – even if not everybody totally agrees.

America changed a great deal after the Civil War. It changed again significantly after World War II. Christianity became much more diverse and more political. It also went through various cycles of popularity. Even during the 60’s and 70’s, when the media portrayed any Christian affiliation in a negative light, America remained predominantly Christian. And it remains so today.

Some older members of our congregations may have grown up in segregated communities and still feel uneasy around anybody that looks different than they do. But their grandchildren are playing with a world community that completely transcends the provincialism of yesteryear.  In America’s Christian churches today, race is not a limiting factor – at least doctrinally. And it is becoming less and less of a factor culturally.

I remember several years ago attending church in Maui, Hawaii. I was amazed (and very pleased) at the racial diversity in the congregation. The leaders on the stand were of Anglo and Hawaiian heritage.  Others in the congregation were from Latin America, some were from Africa, some were from the Philippines, others were from South Korea and other Asian countries, still others were from different parts of Polynesia. I (as a white man) was not in the majority. In fact there was no majority – except for the fact that we were all Christians – Mormons to be precise.

Did this commonality detract from individual family histories? I mean did individuals have to give up their heritage in order to be part of the group? Not at all. In fact the Hawaiian gentleman who conducted the meeting wore the expected white shirt and tie along with a nice Hawaiian lava-lava. Christianity does not destroy local cultures – it enables them.

Maybe this sounds a little too strong. But think about what it implies. Most cultures identify themselves by their virtues. Of course they are not blind to skin color or other obvious differences. But if you ask someone to describe their own culture, they almost always tell you about a locality, a faith, a heritage. It’s when we think of other (i.e. not our own) cultures that we invoke skin color, bad habits, and incomprehensible behaviors.

And Christianity is an inclusive culture. It also happens to be the major religion among the growing population of America. The growing Hispanic population is predominantly Catholic (but with Protestant and Mormon elements as well). The Black community is primarily Protestant (often Baptist). The White population that continues to grow is predominantly Christian (with Catholics and Mormons having the most children).

Of this religious core (made up primarily of Christians) Russell Reno states: “Decades of survey results report that around 40 percent of Americans say they attend church more or less weekly. Some sociologists speculate that this cohort, what I call the “committed core,” has been pretty constant for more than one hundred years. Sociologists know that people over-report their religious observance. Fieldwork suggests that 25 percent of the population goes to church weekly. However one parses the data, the fact remains: For a very long time, the committed core has been stable and substantial. It looks to remain so.”

America may be headed for a changing demographic future but the Christian majority is not going anywhere. I do not doubt that we will have to deal with some ongoing racial conflict. But I do doubt that the declining white population will be cause for greater violence. Nor do I think that we have to focus on class parity, like PBS suggests. America’s changing appearance is not the concern. The bigger issue is to deny our Christian heritage. Sadly, we can’t expect the popular media to give this reality much consideration. But this is to be expected. Popular media have always been jealous of religion’s cultural significance. We just need to be wiser than they are, lest these sensational documentaries become self-fulfilling prophesies.

References

Tocqueville’s quote is from Democracy in America (The University of Chicago Press, 2000) Volume One, Part Two, Chapter Nine. For a look at American religion after the war see Patrick Allitt, Religion in America since 1945. Reno’s quote comes from the most recent issue (December 2012) of First Things, pp. 4-5.

Review of Spillover by David Quammen

During the last week of September, I found myself in Georgia looking for a good book to read. Knowing that David Quammen’s newest effort was about to be available, I walked from my hotel to a local bookseller and asked if they might have a copy.  In fact they did but it was in the back room and wasn’t supposed to be on the storeroom floor until the first of October. Fortunately, for me, they made an exception. I decided not to ask about the legality of it all and promised not to tell anybody.

Within a few chapters, I realized that this book will be a prize winning title when awards get ladled out for this season’s offerings. Quammen is a very good writer, for sure. But good writers don’t always win awards. The book, The Song of the Dodo (Quammen’s 1996 book about island biogeography) was written as well as Spillover but treats a subject that many fail to consider immediately important. My experience is that most awards are given to subjects of broader interest. 

Spillover is a book that has this broader appeal. It is about human diseases that originate in animals. Such diseases are called zoonoses. Unlike many diseases (take polio, for example) that are spread from person to person and only remain in the human population, zoonoses grow and develop in other animals and then jump hosts: on to humans. This is called spillover: when a disease agent gets to critical point in its non-human host that it makes this jump. These zoonotic diseases have great potential to spread rapidly and with devastating effect.

You are familiar with some of these zoonotic diseases: AIDS, West Nile fever, rabies, Lyme disease, some malarias, etc. If you were captivated by Richard Preston’s 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone, you will remember such maladies as Marburg virus disease and some of the hemorrhagic fevers. Quammen covers all of these and more: not as sensationally as Preston did, but with a researcher’s and a storyteller’s gift that makes this a real keeper.

Few writers put in the homework that Quammen does.  When he walks us through the complicated origins of HIV, for example, we get to meet scientists in lab coats, hidden closets in African hospitals, and animal traders that work the underground markets of Africa. Quammen also takes us to the corners of Cameroon where AIDS seems to have emerged into the modern world. Or to the jungles of Indonesia where we find malarial plasmodia living in macaques.

Quammen puts us into a different Heart of Darkness than we are used to. Conrad described an impenetrable jungle landscape that loomed mysteriously in the hinterland of civilization. Quammen lifts the canopied curtain and lets us see what dangers lie within. We find there a world of ecological disruption that disgorges the (perhaps) inevitable harvest of our previous ignorance.

These are big issues, indeed. But Spillover is also helpful in more immediate ways. The book’s discussion of Lyme disease, for example, is something that more of us should be aware of. Yes, the disease is spread by deer ticks; and yes, the forests of the Eastern US harbor the disease. But how many of us realize that deer are not the real problem?

Ticks that feed on deer will not feed on humans. The reason is fairly straight-forward: deer are the end of the tick’s life cycle. After a female tick lays eggs, the small ticks (smaller than a pin head) emerge and look for their first host which is neither a deer nor a human, but a mouse. This tiny tick will then drop off of its rodent host, develop a bit longer, and then look for another host. It is this errant arthropod that may find a human host (or perhaps it will find another mouse and feed again before it potentially finds its last host). Lyme disease is primarily a problem of forested areas that lack sufficient rodent predators. Small wooded lots can be prime examples of this. Deer are not our enemies.

Several things make zoonoses so important. Perhaps most significantly, they are very difficult (if not impossible) to eradicate.  Being able to “hide” in non-human animals, they can essentially disappear and show up at unexpected times and in unexpected places.

They are also prone to change. The very act of jumping host species creates an ecological setting for genetic change that makes many of these disease agents not only difficult to treat but likely candidates to get out of hand. Some of the most important examples that Quammen mentions are the flu viruses that are ideally constituted to this kind of change. Periodically certain forms evolve that cause us a great deal of grief.   

The punch-line of the book is when Quammen shows us a human population that looks very much like an outbreak poised on the brink of a pandemic – perhaps several pandemics. Quammen, fortunately, is not in despair – though he is clearly concerned. We have tools that other organisms experiencing an outbreak (before crashing) do not have.  We have our wits and our technology. The question remains whether or not we will decide to use them wisely.

He Knows

There is a monk
Who wittingly
Goes on his way
Dispensing compliments

In embryo
That in their nurturing
Come fully flushed
Into the world

When he is gone
And no one knows his name,
Nor whence his children
And their fame