James M. Redwine

God

Of Snakes And Crows

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In the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-3, God, perhaps in a mood to overcome His boredom once He had created earth and its creatures, set Eve and all future women to be at odds with snakes. First, God created Adam then, when Adam had nothing to do but enjoy life, God created Eve to tempt him; I suppose for God’s own amusement. To tempt Eve, God created the serpent whose main purpose appears to have been to set up Eve’s biblical day-time talk show episode of learning about good versus evil by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Of course, Eve brought Adam along.

Even though both Eve and the serpent knew to eat of the Tree of Knowledge had been forbidden by God, as Eve explained her great sin, the serpent beguiled her and led her to partake of the Tree of Knowledge and share the dreadful bounty with Adam. God cursed Adam to labor and women to bear children and hate snakes. The Bible makes it clear that the “curse” included the creation of sexual relations so Adam was probably not too upset with Eve’s frailty.

These interactions of women and serpents came to mind yesterday when Peg and I looked out our cabin window and saw a large black crow in a battle of wits with a two-foot long black and gold banded, although I’m no herpetologist, I think, Mandarin serpent. I am guessing the snake was seen by the crow as a potential threat to the crow’s nearby nest. Usually, crows build their homes high up a tree, but as most of our trees are stubby blackjacks, I bet this crow’s nest may have been not too far away. I really do not know how or why the confrontation took place nor which adversary initiated it. I did conclude both snake and crow saw the battle as an existential threat.

The crow would make a sprightly hop over the snake which would try a thrust with its head as the bird jumped over. According to the Internet, the Mandarin is not very venomous, but has enough poison to defend itself if it can get a bite in.

This back and forth and over and across series of moves and countermoves went on for about five minutes until either one or both of the creatures got bored or tired and the crow hopped up on the fence and the serpent slithered off into the high grass of our pasture. I do know how I happened to see this entertaining contest. Peg shouted, “Jim!” I recognize Peg’s alarm for mice, not too loud, squirrels, somewhat concerned and snakes: an all-out Eve protestation. I went for my shotgun but, frankly, did not know at which of God’s creatures to shoot; they both looked like good and evil or just confused and while Peg hates all snakes, she’s not too fond of crows either.

I did note that by the time I was ready to fire, Mother Nature had taken matters back to the situation ante without any damage being done. Apparently, the knowledge of good (live and let live) and evil (senseless death) had not been eaten of by either creature. Maybe there’s a lesson there; I wish I could ask my old Sunday School teacher.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Founding Documents

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Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 71 into law Wednesday, 17 June 2024. Governor Landry stated, “If you want to respect the rule of law you gotta start from the original law giver which was Moses, … he got his commandments from God.” Louisiana HB 71 decrees that every public school in Louisiana and every non-public school that receives state funds shall display the Ten Commandments in every building and every classroom it uses.

 HB 71 sets forth its version of the Ten Commandments that must be displayed as follows:

“The Ten Commandments

I AM the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shall not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

Louisiana schools may expend public money to install the documents or may solicit or accept donations for those purposes. The Bill makes no attempt to discuss the contents of these provisions nor does the Louisiana Legislature explain why it posits the Ten Commandments played any role in forming the law of the United States.

However, the imminent philosopher of myth and law, Joseph Campbell, explained how our Founders looked to the Enlightenment for guidance, not to the Bible or any religion:

“Now let us ask: what about the symbolism of the Bible? Based on the Old Sumerian astronomical observations of five to six thousand years ago and an anthropology no longer credible, it is hardly fit today to turn anybody on.

In fact, the famous conflict of science and religion has actually nothing to do with religion, but is simply of two sciences: that of 4000 B.C. and that of A.D. 2000.

….

The Biblical image of the universe simply won’t do anymore; neither will the Biblical notion of a race of God, which all others are meant to serve (Isaiah 49:22-23; 61: 5-6, etc.) nor again, the idea of a code of laws delivered from on high and to be valid for all time

….

The problems of our world are not even touched by those stone-cut Ten Commandments that we carry about as luggage and which, in fact, were disregarded in the blessed text itself, one chapter after they were announced (Exodus 21:12-17, following 20:13).”

Campbell goes on to explain how our modern legal world is not and cannot be based on religion:

“The modern Western concept of a legal code is not of a list of unassailable divine edicts, but of a rationally contrived, evolving compilation of statutes, shaped by fallible beings in council, to realize rationally recognized social (and therefore temporal) aims.”

Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By, 1972,
ISBN 0 14 019.461 4, at pp. 88-89.

Or as political commentator James Carville more succinctly and prosaically stated about the HB 71and similar legislation, “It is the dumbest waste of time I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Amazon, The New Tower of Babel

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In Genesis, Chapter 11 God observed the tower that King Nimrod and his Babylonian people had built to reach heaven and the gods and said, “Behold the people is one and they have one language … now nothing will be constrained from them.”

So the gods destroyed the tower, convoluted the one language into many and stopped human progress toward godly status. The Tower of Babel was the ultimate example of the axiom, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Now I do not understand why God would not want people to reach for the heavens, but He certainly devised the perfect way to stop us. Of course, in Exodus Chapters 20 and 34, He warns us He is a jealous being and in Isaiah Chapter 55 He tells us not to try to figure Him out as His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Just a few frustrating moments of trying to understand what the jangling television commercials are saying or an attempt to make sense out of the song lyrics mumbled and slurred into multi-million dollar sound systems designed to make sounds intelligible, will remove any doubt that our contemporary cacophony of colliding incoherent babel surpasses all understanding. Human progress has been hoisted on the effete petard of the universal response to all attempts to communicate, “Huh?”

It is as if the gods have become overly concerned about humanity’s movement back to a universal language, Amazonia perhaps, and have come down to earth to stop us from “all just getting along” by shopping over the Internet. After all, if we can communicate from sea to shining sea via a few simple electronic clicks, there is much less likelihood of a major miscommunication and ergo a misunderstanding that might escalate to conflict. Heck, we might even learn to work together on all sorts of projects, world famine, global warming, the World Cup, who knows what heights we could reach?

Well, if Jeff Bezos is the new King Nimrod and if Jeff really does simply work full-time giving his billions made from Amazon away to charity, I can foresee the Old Testament gods getting concerned. And one way to staunch human progress is to release upon the world Satans of the communications world, you know, movies, cable tv, commercials and what passes for contemporary music.

The goal of the gods might be to attack human progress by having leaders of competing countries such as China and the US of A rely upon translations of news broadcasts in which snippets of the highly paid but incomprehensible speakers instead of enunciating important concepts, peaceful coexistence for example, mumble a leader’s language so that the words come out as threats of nuclear war.

Now I realize this whole column may be based on a false premise of my being personally challenged. Maybe you, Gentle Reader, have no difficulty making sense out of what is muttered during TV, radio, movies, plays, concerts, sporting events, and even sermons. If my failings are simply my personal problem, good, and amen. However, if the whole world is being prevented from understanding what the heck is truly being said and meant, I suggest this new Tower of Babel may soon come tumbling down.

On the other hand, there is a cure to this polemic pandemic, could everyone please slow down and speak up?

Cabin Fever

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It is official. Peg and I have the fever. No, not that new-fangled COVID fever, but the original fever spoken of in Genesis, Cabin Fever. Why God could not leave well enough alone I do not know. After six days of hard work, He sat back, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good” (Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 31). I guess “very good” was not good enough because after one day of rest God noticed, … “[T]here was no man to till the ground” (Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 5). For all those Biblical scholars, such as my sister, who posit God is actually female, this is strong support for their position. A perfect world could be made more perfect if there were a man to do work around the Garden of Eden.

Of course, Adam could not just lounge around grazing on all but one of Eden’s delights and enjoying eternal life, God had to give him Eve so there would be someone to point out this perfect world needed countless repairs and maintenance, sort of like our little log cabin on the prairie. The week before Christmas brought COVID’s resulting Cabin Fever boiling to the surface at JPeg Osage Ranch.

I do not know how the perfect home Peg fell in love with three years ago magically transformed into a property that constantly requires immediate repair. All I know for sure is I am much more adept at leisure than labor and Peg sees it as her wifely duty to save me from that condition. After all, it was Eve’s sin that brought man’s punishment of work into our lives.

Starting with COVID’s first reported cases in December 2019, Peg and I have gradually adapted from a life of travel, interaction with friends and family, concerts, movies, ball games and dining out to a world with only one other person in it. We have each developed coping skills to handle what may be a life sentence of one-couple isolation. I have reasonably and considerately allowed Peg her own space to do as she pleases such as laundry, housework, juggling family finances via the internet and gardening; there’s that Eve legacy again. Peg on the other hand seems to have a visceral reaction to my approach which is to memorize cable news reports and change sweatsuits occasionally. Hey, I do not concern myself with her choices.

Two years of Cabin Fever finally erupted into full-blown crisis this past weekend when Peg noticed a tiny water leak in the bathroom. It would not have rotted through the floor for quite some time and that is what I politely told her. Well, her reaction was not fit for a column in a family newspaper. She demanded I turn off the fascinating program I was watching on archeological discoveries in the Bermuda Triangle and loudly said, “Do Something!”. Something turned into one full day of me attempting to understand the mysteries of plumbing then another two days of going without the use of the bathroom and waiting for a plumber who told us, “It’s hopeless after your input, now everything will have to be replaced. That will be $100 for analysis of the problem, $200 for parts and $300 for labor. Of course, that’s just an estimate; it will be more if you insist on helping.” When the plumber left, I calmly pointed out to Peg that for the price of a few wet rags we could have saved all the bother for some time. Again, her response was not printable.

So here we are in our own little Garden of Eden waiting for someone to cure COVID and perhaps return us to the halcyon days of yore. One positive thing is, since Peg is not talking to me, I can finish the entertaining program I’m now watching on the mating dances of fruit flies without interruption and without Peg’s demand that something must be fixed, “Right Now!”.

By the way, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that you and yours have a COVID-free New Year. As for Peg and me, I can only wish for at least an occasional maintenance-free week or two during the long dark period between the Super Bowl and the start of the 2022 football season.

7 Days vs 45 Minutes

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Both the Quran and the Bible claim the World was created in 6 days by a God who even took a final day to rest up. I am okay with this explanation. It is simple, understandable and interesting. It certainly beats all the hours needed by me in an attempt to dimly comprehend the physics, chemistry and biology behind evolution. However, this is not a column about the age-old discussion about science versus religion. No, this is a plea to the sadists who write the directions that accompany Do-It-Yourself home improvement projects such as installing a ceiling fan.

If God needed only 6 days to create the World, it is pretty obvious to me He did not have to decipher some instruction manual written originally in Chinese then translated into what resembles English. God had the advantage of proceeding unencumbered by misleading photographs of parts and diabolical descriptions of which part goes where. My assumption is Satan was still in God’s good graces when the World was created or he had already been cast out of heaven before God decided to amuse Himself with Adam and Eve.

Apparently Satan did not attempt to confuse God with some phony How-To book on Creation as did the fiends who wrote the instructions for installing the ceiling fan Peg demanded I put up last weekend.

Let me first point out the light Peg told me to replace had been put in by me only 10 years earlier. I had no trouble unscrewing the old one and connecting the black wire to the black, the white wire to the white and the green ground wire. After all, I have had about 20 years of formal education and labored at numerous jobs that required I follow instructions, being a husband for instance. If things are simple, I am your man.

But when I opened the 39 page instruction manual for the “Impreso en China” (made in China?) ceiling fan and light I had the same sinking feeling I experienced when I sat for the Bar Exam. It did not help that the portion written in Spanish made as much sense to me as the part in English.

The most nefarious part of this guide into the depths of the “simple” procedure was the statement on page 5: “ESTIMATED ASSEMBLY TIME – 45 MINUTES”. Yes, this was all in capital letters and in bold type. I could sense the glee of the group of nasty nerds when they wrote this great Creation Myth. God would have just thrown up His hands had these sadistic purveyors of obfuscation been around to “help” Him develop the World.

Not a Problem

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I recently received a respectfully worded request for excusal from jury duty. I granted it. The potential juror claimed a religious exemption. I am not a theologian although one of my nephews just received his doctorate in Theology from Oklahoma Baptist University. He makes no claim for religious exemption from jury service. I say to each his own.

Should a person assert sincerely held beliefs that her or his god, faith, philosophy or belief prohibits jury service, so be it. Such positions, if rooted in the First Amendment, are fine with me. Religion should not be involved in our legal system. That’s what James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the revolutionaries meant to protect.

Those of you who are called for jury service and just find it inconvenient but not in violation of any religious test may think it is unfair to excuse persons who enjoy all the benefits provided by America but refuse to participate in a core responsibility of citizenship. You might feel the same about conscientious objectors to military service or those who refuse medical treatment for their children on religious grounds.

I see such decisions much as I do allowing protestors to demonstrate in support of or against things the majority may oppose or favor. If the Constitution does not protect those with whom most citizens disagree, why have a Constitution? Those whose beliefs fall within the parameters of generally accepted beliefs need not be concerned with their free exercise.

The gracious acceptance of those views most of us adhere to calls for little praise. However, America shines like the beacon most of us want Her to be when She protects those who need protection from the rest of us.

As to the potential juror, I say, and by the way so does the Supreme Court, if you are sincere in your minority belief, the majority will respect your right not only to believe it but also to exercise it.