Trying to Reconcile Cruelty in Nature with a Loving God
Living life without answers, in a big world, in small purposeful ways
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds.
~ Jonathan Larson
When I was completely disconnected from God for years, people used to say:
“All you have to do is look at nature and then you WILL believe there is a loving God”.
That never worked for me.
Not then.
And only partly now.
I would look at nature and see the predatory wasp that lays its eggs inside other insects so that its young can eat the host insect from the inside out for food (and kill it in the process) once they hatched.
- **Warning video shows larvae of wasps hatching and eating insides of caterpillar***
I would see the lion preying on antelope for survival and holding them down by the throat to slowly suffocate them once they were caught while the other lions ripped the antelope’s belly open often while they were still alive and started feeding.
At the same time, I admired the fluffy baby cubs I also kept that picture of jaws dripping with blood, and the horrified slowly dying animal’s eyes in my mind.
I am aware that an adored cat may play mercilessly with a mouse(whose babies may be left abandoned and orphaned in their nest to starve to death slowly) and eventually kill and eat it. Or, only eat its tail and leave the rest to rot.
I can adore and cuddle a kitten and yet still think of its ability to cause harm to another in part to survive.
I have never been able to separate the bad from the good in my mind. They are always intertwined.
Death and life.
Horror and awe.
I cannot separate the two.
Nor, should I have to.
When I look at nature I see the harsh, judgmental and condemning God I grew up with and was taught to fear.
I also see a loving, caring and humorous God.
I still do not know how to reconcile the two sides.
- I see tiny, vulnerable chicks in a nest built painstakingly by parent birds, who may go without food for days, and which they will protect with their life.
- I see the way that a blade of grass or small plant will seed and grow in the midst of a whole carpark of concrete or human-made structure otherwise devoid of life. This teaches me about the power of organic living things to find and fork out an existence in a hostile world.
I feel the bliss of melding into nature when I swim in a river, or sit under the shade of a large tree, or gaze up at the huge milky way at night in a place with no street lights to obscure the view.
How do I reconcile the two?
Death and Life. Pleasure and Pain.
I see them as intertwined and part of each other.
We all are born to die from the day of our birth. It is inevitable.
We will die either by accident, design or from old age.
Without death, there can be no life.
The forest is a prime example.
The bed of the forest floor from which all life in the forest springs, is a thick mattress of decaying matter. If you plunge your hand under the mountain of leaves, it is cool underneath, moist and teaming with insect, bacterial, and fungi life. All of these minute life forms are busy breaking down dead trees and leaves, and dead insects and animals so new growth can take root, and grow.
Our bodies will go back to make up the composition of the earth when we die, as do the bodies of every other living thing that has ever existed, plant, animal, insect and all organic and inorganic matter.
All the nutritious food we eat is grown in ground rich in compost (made from decaying matter, both organic and inorganic).
Some insects, birds, and animals have evolved symbiotic relationships over thousands of years.
Certain flowers need certain butterflies or bees to pollinate them before they can reproduce.
Certain wasps have evolved to lay their young in the bodies of certain other insects so that their young can survive.
The death of one leads to life for another species.
All carnivorous life is predicated on death. The survival of one depends on the death of another.
It is the circle of life. Death and life together. They are hand in hand. They are forever conjoined.
How does that relate to my belief or not in a loving God?
I no longer believe in a personalized God.
If a personalized god exists (humanlike in emotions and ways of being although with ultimate power) then he/she must have created the situation where the death of one leads to life for another.
They must be against one and for another, and how can you reconcile this with a loving God?
You can’t.
Not for me anyway.
I know that some creationists believe all animals were originally created as herbivores and that Adam and Eve were created to NOT eat meat. It was sin that led to all life on earth being cursed and being the way it is today.
However, the scientific evidence does not back this up, with fossil evidence and skeletons of animals going back thousands of years confirming the predatory nature of most of them.
Also, the evidence is overwhelming that prehuman brains developed so rapidly due to the addition of meat and cooked food in their diets.
Personal Belief
I do believe in some universal force of consciousness, some enormous energy from which all life and living beings spring from and returns.
I believe or hope that there is some level of spiritual consciousness (beyond our earthly understanding) that exists, and for which being born on earth, and being given a body to live in and come through to experience life on earth in, is bound up somehow with learning life lessons, and becoming spiritually more evolved.
Carl Jung spoke about a collective unconscious that he believed is shared by individuals of the same species. I am fascinated when exploring his concepts.
I can’t go any further than that in my reasoning and mind.
I don’t have any answers.
It is an answer that currently partly satisfies my yearning for understanding how life is all connected and interconnected and answers in my mind the question of, “What is the purpose or point of it all?”
How does this answer relate to the reality of thousands dying of hunger in different countries, babies being born and living only one day, people being raped, or imprisoned for years, and millions of other horrific events are occurring? How do I reconcile the ideological concepts of why we have suffering and pain with this lived human reality?
Greater minds than mine have tried, and it has been discussed and debated by philosophers and religious minds for centuries.
I do not know. I have no answers.
Humans do terrible things to each other, and to other species.
Cruelty beyond imagination is done regularly by humans to the point where our whole species is threatened, and other species are dying and becoming extinct at a higher rate than any other time in history.
So, how do I live my life trying to reconcile these things and still feel connected to something greater than myself and keep my peace of mind?
I wake up each day determined to meditate for at least 15 minutes and find the place within me where my thoughts still and I feel some form of connection and peace.
When I go on my daily walk I focus on how I am feeling in nature, part of but separate from, smaller but also significant, insignificant and yet not alone.
I focus on the way the wind feels on my face, the way the sun’s rays feel, the smell of flowers, the miracle of all I see around me with wide open eyes.
And I breathe.
Give thanks for it.
Feel enlivened by it.
Feel my soul feel full from awareness.
I focus on what I can do:
- In relation to being kind.
- Conservation.
- Caring for other species.
- Caring for my small patch of earth.
Others may laugh and feel it is pointless and insignificant, but for me, it is not.
It brings purpose and definition into my life.
In my little but lived life, these things are important.
In the little green frog’s life and gecko’s life whose patch of earth I water each night with my hose — it is important.
I focus on the small things, not just the big things.
Other people can focus on the big things as that may be their destiny. Their purpose. Some people are made for big things.
I am made for small things. For small influence and change and meaning.
And that is alright.
It is enough.
It is enough to be small in a big world.
And I feel alive and happy when I practice and do these things. I realize I do not have the answers to all my questions and perhaps I never will until I die (and even then maybe not)?
I have gotten to a place in my life where that is okay. I am alright with that. I am alright with not having all the answers.
But I know what I can do to make my life and living meaningful and purposeful and enjoyable.
And I do that.
Living life without answers, in a big world, in purposeful small ways.
