Thoughts Negligible

They were my organic pleasure in this brick and mortar dungeon, those trees. Sitting in the backyard of my aunt's home here in Norman I could spy the last holdout of nature against urban sprawl. But I should've known it was coming. This outcrop had to go too.

I came home from a long day of classes to find earthmovers behind the house, in the open fields that had not been "developed" yet. The tallest tree, one of 50 or so feet, was shaking back and forth as I stepped out onto the back porch. It was as if it were pulling itself back into place at every shove of the tractor. This tree, maybe sixty years old, maybe one hundred, was resisting with all its might. And in all that time it had survived storm and hail, drought and flood, disease and parasite--all to be taken down by one man in an iron suit, its fall leaves tumbling down at each swish and sway. When the torture was over it would return to serenity, stoic strength, but all the while knowing it hadn't a chance. It was painful to watch. I may have even whispered to myself, "You bastards." But what did I expect, for man to leave anything standing as long as his grasp could reach it? It's one thing to know it happens, but to see it affected me more than I would have expected.

It took all of ten minutes to fall. How the mighty do fall! With each shove the ancient tree weakened. It got to where it couldn't recover its upright stature. Then crack. Crack. CRACK! Falls to a 40-degree angle and rests. Before a breath could be caught, the tractor puts the buck under an exposed root system, lifts up and pushes, finally severing what once was so planted in the ground. The metaphor used for centuries, of strength, durability, vitality, supplanted before my eyes in moments. I could almost feel the swish of branches still filled with leaves as they smashed to the ground. The fence line was clear, revealing another row of houses. I sat there stunned, feeling the same way I did when I saw a hawk rip a small bird out of a tree last summer, with a hundred other birds spurting out of the trees like hell. But that was terrifying and natural, this seemed more like a bodybuilder flexing his muscles in front of a crowd.

And I know it happens, and must. Otherwise we couldn't rape our planet so effectively or quickly, and American middle class families of three wouldn't be able to own 4-bedroom homes of 1800 square feet, two-car garages, and their own pretentious plots of green. This, my friend, is the American Dream! Who should be denied it, except for African Americans and Mexicans, those who haven't earned it and those who don't deserve it according to our latent racism and classism? This land is your land, this land is my land, friend!

(not a study in Scripture)
I'm reading an interesting book called The Bible After Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age.

The Tower of Babel, historically seen as a negative for human relations and relations with God, is one of my favorite myths of the OT. According to Dr. Collins, two effects were negative: the attempts at bridging heaven and earth and the scattering of the people and diversification of tongues--the confusing of languages. What could be more disheartening for the human race--post-Edenic exile--than the destruction of community, the dissolution of linguistic commonality? It is language that binds us to all those who share that language, in case you haven't noticed, but it is also language that binds us as a human race as well. So is the point of the story the dissolve of community? Only partly, for anthropology and linguistics still point to our essential unity as a species, our cross-cultural alikeness. One linguist even has a theory that says all languages were birthed from one family; his examples are to examine the root words of several disparate languages and show how similar they really are. Like all of us, no?

But in postmodern critique of biblical criticism something changes--among many things: the second ill effect is turned on its head. No longer is the confusing of languages seen as a bad thing. It's supremely good! It's liberation from oppression and univocality. Collins says that some critics see the tower as symbols of domination and oppression, and for that effort to be confounded is to be the greatest liberation. But what of oppression and domination, did it end with the tower? Derrida says the tower represents "incompletion, the impossibility of finishing, of totalizing, of saturating, of completing something of the order of edification, architectural construction . . ." There you have it. The ultimate obfuscation of human community is a good thing. I may not completely disagree, but it's a very interesting example of the postmodern turn. Notice how cultural, historic, and linguistic context is unimportant here. Why would it be?

(By the way, a new movie comes out in the next week or two called Babel, with Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett, and it looks terrific! I can't wait! It's the not-so-postmodern interpretation of the effects of the story.)

On that Day Rabbi Eliezar brought forward every imaginable argument, but they [the rabbis] did not accept them. Said he to them: "If the halakhah agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!" Thereupon the carob tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place--others affirm, four hundred cubits. "No proof can be brought from a carob tree," they retorted. Again he said to them: "If the halakhah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!" Whereupon the stream of water flowed backward. "No proof can be brought from a stream of water," they rejoined. Again he urged: "If the halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it," whereupon the walls inclined to fall. But Rabbi Joshua rebuked them, saying: "When scholars are engaged in a halakhic dispute, what have ye to interfere?" Hence they did not fall, in honor of Rabbi Joshua, nor did they resume the upright, in honor of Rabbi Eliezer; and they are still standing thus inclined. Again he said to them: "If the halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven!" Whereupon a heavenly voice cried out: "Why do ye dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halkhah agrees with him!" But Rabbi Joshua arose and exclaimed: "It is not in heaven" (Deut 30.12). What did he mean by this?--Said Rabbi Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a heavenly voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline (Ex 23.2)

Rabbi Nathan met Elijah and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour?--He laughed [with joy], he replied, saying, "My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me."