Is the World Fallen, or Divine?

It depends on how you live

As I was rolling out buffalo burgers for dinner the other night, I was struck with the sacrifice I was witnessing.

This was the body of a buffalo whose muscle and (precious little) fat went into making this mound of meat in my hand. It would soon be pressed into a burger, chilled in the fridge, then seared on a grill like always.

Most of the time I forget, but on this day I remembered to thank the animal whose life ended — just a few days ago — so that my family would have meat.

This buffalo had been a living being. One I probably would have enjoyed knowing.

Of course, I never met this particular animal, but I know others. My dog, the chickens in our backyard. The geese, ducks, and goats our neighbors raise. The cattle on my grandparents’ farm.

Each creature has a personality unique to themselves. They have friends. They experience excitement, joy, and jealousy. They get embarrassed. They love. They pair bond. They mourn when one of them is lost, injured, or dies. They rejoice when one who was lost is returned to the fold.

I am making myself vegan burgers for the same meal, btw. It’s the compromise I make because even if the entire family or all of humanity were vegetarian…

We still live in a world where some creatures have to kill others to survive

My dog is an obligate carnivore; she can’t live on a diet of greens & grain.

Who the hell thought this would be a design for creation? Not the God of love that we imagine.

It pains me that the universe is set up that way.

No, it angers me.

And as I was sitting here, editing this article

…a gray fox dashed out from the woods and grabbed one of my hens. It was Dorothy, a white and gray Brahma who was shy, calm, and heavy-bodied. Her friends in the flock will mourn.

I can’t blame the fox; can I? At this time of year, it may even have kits to feed.

The blame has to rise to the top.

So why is the universe set up where some are predators and some are prey?

Manichaeism provides a satisfying answer to this

In this ancient religion, the universe is divided in two — good and evil. The first is a spiritual realm, ruled by the Father of Greatness. The second is a material realm, ruled by the Prince of Darkness.

The human person is seen as a battleground for these powers: The good part is the soul (which is composed of light) and the bad part is the body (composed of dark earth). — Manichaeism, New World Encyclopedia (undated, retrieved July 11, 2023)

Sound familiar? It probably does. Manichaeism influenced — and was in turn influenced by — many religions, including Christianity, Indian and Iranian religions, Taoism, and Buddhism. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, Manichaeism had spread to Britannia in the west, Egypt in the south, and China in the east.

Mainline Christianity

Eager to remain a nominally monotheistic religion, most Christian groups stepped back from fully embracing dualism. The structure remains, however, in the ongoing battle between God and Satan. It remains in the New Testament in passages like this:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. — Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 6:19–20 — New International Version

Cue the hymn, “This World Is Not My Home.”

Basic Buddhism

…shares the idea with Manichaeism that this world is one of suffering that must be escaped. Perception and proper understanding lead to salvation. Upon death, those who have lived according to the spirit will return to the spirit realm; there they will remain in peace, forever. Those who live following bodily desires will be reborn countless lifetimes into this world of suffering.

I’m speaking broadly here, as it’s been a while since I studied Buddhism — one year of Theravada Buddhism, and a semester of Soto Zen, studying under and meditating with a Japanese monk.

What I came away with is — again — that the material world is not our home.

But this world-denying principle is not in place everywhere

It’s not all-pervasive, even in monotheism.

Teilhard de Chardin’s collective consciousness

Perhaps the most recent example is that of French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In his book, The Phenomenon of Man, he argues that moral and social advancement, as well as evolution itself, will unite the universe— humankind, animals, plants, and all created things— into a single, collective consciousness. This he named “Omega Point.”

St. Francis of Assisi embraced all living creatures

In Francis of Assisi: The Early Documents, he is noted for gently lifting earthworms from the road after rainstorms and depositing them in fields and woods, where they would not get stepped on or run over.

Then there’s Hildegard of Bingen

She saw the earth as a living organism with all life forms fueled by the same power, the same source.

In Hildegard’s worldview…to be out of sync with the beauty and fecundity of nature is to deny the divine force which enlivens body and soul. She made it clear that we are not separate from nature, but an intimate part of it. — Overweg, Cynthia, “Hildegard of Bingen: The Nun Who Loved the Earth,” Quest 105:3 (Summer 2017) pg. 21 -25

Is the rural and urban divide at the heart of this?

I suspect that urban life allows a person to believe that the world is evil. After all, urban life is mainly spent interacting with other people, and the hard surfaces of brick and pavement. It’s easy for nature to become abstract, merely a concept.

Rural people around the world are still outside the monotheistic spirit vs. material worldview. Enter Animism, whose adherents reside in the rural areas of the world.

Most of the world is made up of animists…. Almost all of Africa, Southeast Asia, rural China, Tibet, Japan, rural Central and South America, indigenous Pacific Islands — pretty much everywhere except Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America — is dominated by animistic beliefs. — Asma, Stephen T., “The New Atheists’ Narrow Worldview,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 21, 2011, accessed July 11, 2023)

Animism is a blanket term used for the ancient belief system that all things — not just human beings — have a spiritual presence

Sound familiar? When Asma mentions local nature spirits such as neak ta in Cambodia, phii in Thailand, and nats in Burma, I’m reminded of the fairies, water sprites, wood nymphs, and the infinite variety of nature spirits of pre-industrial Europe.

Living rural

My mother grew up on a working farm. She and her brothers and sisters all worked in the fields on a daily basis. They grew up intimately involved in the crops’ cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. They helped birth calves. They raised them. Milked the cows. Fed and watered the cattle, and searched for them in the woods when they wandered off. They helped their parents butcher the beef, and drive them the long road to the market.

Here are two quotes from my mother. They reflect what she learned in that life:

“Nature is cruel”

She was thinking of the fox that broke into the pen and killed all her baby ducks. She was thinking of the horse that died, foundered after getting into the sorghum…unable to stop eating. She was thinking of the rabid dogs, and her father having to shoot the family dog after it defended the kids. “Old Yeller” is a story with infinite repetition in the real world.

“But all this is God”

She was looking at the kitchen garden, henhouse, and the goats and the pigs in their pens, the cattle in the pastures, the vast fields of corn and cotton… and the deep woods beyond.

“There's nothing you can see that is not part of God”

That connection with nature came from an authentic earth-dependent life.

Working in the dirt. Planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting crops. Gathering wild fruits and berries. Tending livestock through their life cycle.

Tracking wild animals and knowing their ways.

Swimming in the nearby spring where poisonous water moccasins lived.

My grandmother used to sit on a rock at the edge of the spring while her children swam, so she could shoot any moccasins that went on the attack…

but only if they attacked.

“It’s a sin to kill anything you don’t have to.”

This all sounds either terribly romantic or just trite

That’s because most of us are far removed from this way of life…even those of us who live, “in the country.” Most of us are dependent on the supermarket, and the power grid, and spend most of our day looking at a screen.

Despite the fact that my house backs up on the woods, they’re functionally just a decorative backdrop. I don’t know the woods. I’m not at home in them like our ancestors would have been. Like my mother was.

Like my grandmother, who could tell the weather for days in advance with a quick look at the sky.

Who could track animals to their homes? Who knew where to find wild berries and mushrooms? Who could find her cattle, when they’d wandered miles away through the forest?

I’m none of those things. As much as I say I believe that I love it, nature remains some foreign thing. It’s an “other.”

And we all know how “the other” can be perceived as evil.

Just look at how human beings divide up into camps; how we treat each other. Literally.

My action plan

I’m creating a plan to walk a little closer to nature. This can be done incrementally — no need to become an overnight mountain man.

Here’s why I say that: By observing and getting to know my backyard chickens, I’m seeing wild birds, more than I ever did before. Not just seeing, but paying attention. I’m perceiving more.

To support this, I’ve drafted a brief list of short-term goals

• Learn what edible plant species grow in my area — berries, leafy greens, etc. Learn where they grow.
• Learn to identify the mushrooms that grow in the area. Learn to identify the ones that are edible. (I don’t trust my identification skills enough to eat them yet, but that is my ultimate mushrooming goal.)
• Pay more attention to animal trails when I’m out hiking.
• Learn more about the habits of the fish in the local river. Approach the water with an open, observant mind.
• Pay more attention to the sky, not the weather channel.

In the longer term:

• Volunteer with the local Nature Conservancy to take part in their projects.

In the end, even if the question of why the universe is divided between meat-eaters and prey remains above my comprehension…

I will at least be able to bring my spirit and the natural world back into harmony.