We watch as the lioness crushes the wildebeest's windpipe with casually lethal proficiency. We watch as her pride-mates shred its still-trembling flesh and drink from a gaping trough in the steaming carcass.
But...
The narrator admonishes us not to judge Nature's ways in the light of human sensibilities. Nature does not favor the lion over the antelope. Each performs its assigned role in the indifferently brutal pageant of existence, contributing equally to the delicate balance on which continuity depends.
Lions kill, or die from not killing. And in culling the weak, the old, the infirm, they help to ensure that the wildebeests, along with every other species upon which lions prey, will produce succeeding generations from only the fittest stock. They, the lions, are doing Nature's essential work.
Which brings me to one of the problems I have with prayer.
Because if lions are doing essential work, so too must insidious microbes be doing essential work. Insidious microbes must kill to survive, must kill to obey the mandate to cull.
The wildebeest prays, "Please, God, don't let these lions crush my windpipe and consume my pitiful, tick-ridden body." Much as we pray, "Please, God, don't let these Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus lunch all the life out of li'l old me."
# # #
would it be too negative of me to observe that apparently "praying" doesn't do either the wildebeest or li'l old us much good. Whether we are among the weak, old, or infirm, or among the strongest of our species, if that which would ravage and destroy us is able to capture us, we're toast. The answer appears to be to outwit the beast and avoid capture, which may just be luck, and have nothing to do with survival of the fittest. Shall we pray?
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean, "Shall we prey?"...
ReplyDeleteYes, good catch!
ReplyDelete