What I'm Reading: Intimate Allies

[thisglimpse]

There are so many good things to say about this book, and I will get to them.   But first, I want to write about two theological issues I have with it.   Anybody reading this, I invite you into dialogue about these.

1.  The assertion that Adam was lonely, and that's why God created Eve.
               I blogged about this last year here ,

Comments

[pinkroo]

I loved reading this. I wish you could talk to Tremper about it--he'd love the discussion.

[thisglimpse]

yeah me too.

Later this month I'll be at the NAIITS )North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) Conference in South Dakota, and I hope I can find someone there to discuss the indigenous view of creation with more fully.

[maeuschen]

Perhaps Longman needs a different word? I have a nasty plant which grows in my yard unwanted. It has broad leaves which look like they belong to an overgrown dandelion, except they are covered with sharp spikes which break off in your skin if you grab them. They bear green and yellow grape-sized fruits which are ugly to behold and poisonous to eat. I found out this week that they are horsenettle plants, solanum carolinensis, a kind of nightshade native to this part of the world.

In order to bring about the kind of order I would like for my yard I need to remove these plants, but they don't want to cooperate. They seem hostile, but I know that's more of my own anthropomorphic projection. They aren't really out to get me, they just seem to be. So what is a better word for their relation to me than hostile? They aren't just indifferent.

Goodness -- I hope the author doesn't intimate that our marriage relationship in our fallen world should be anything like our environmental relationship! I certainly don't see my wife as

[thisglimpse]

it is interesting to think about this the way you are: i was taking more of a macro approach, and you're going micro. Hostile parts of a creation seem different than hostile whole creation - especially when the hostility is an act of protection, which i think is what a botanist would say about horsenettle

[anonymous]

Willie,

I have spent a lot of time in what I called the bear woods. I love the woods, for 25 years spent almost every free moment there. And I have also experienced peacefulness. But I have seen often active hostility. Have you ever read the book by Annie Dillard, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. I read it back in the 1970s, and I am reading through it again. I challenge you to consider reading it. By the way, why do you find it dangerous to believe that God would create something because it would make a human being happy? I thought you put it in a hostile way by writing "serving man's need". Did you do that on purpose. Thanks for sharing about the things you are learning from our Native American brothers and sisters. Have you seen the movie Into The Wild? I haven't seen it or read the book, but I want to.

With love,
Sam