The Most Intelligent Animal?

The Most Intelligent Animal?

“I want to see the biggest shark in the Aquarium, the really poisonous ray, the tank with the most water….”  Youth in our Blue Theology mission trips often want to see the superlative, the biggest, the most dangerous…..

But I hadn’t heard this request before; “Which are the most intelligent animals here?”  An intelligent (!) member of First Christian Church of Sterling, Colorado (yes, 21 of them flew here for a week of ocean spirituality and stewardship) asked me that question.

Hmmm, probably the otters and the octopus.  Good problem solvers, long memories, can communicate with each other, use tools, learn from past challenges and find a new solution – these are the various definitions of intelligence we were taught when I first became a volunteer guide at the Aquarium 20 years ago.  The giant Pacific octopus, I’ve said many a time to guests, is the most intelligent of the invertebrates, recognizes people, expresses emotion, can learn new, faster ways to get dinner…..

But recently the great Aquarium education staff taught us volunteers a new idea: that each and every animal on land and sea is intelligent.  Because every animal has the intelligence it needs, from single cell to human, to survive.  It’s not about superlatives, who has the most.  It’s adaptation, every creature evolves to do the three jobs we all have: find dinner, not be someone else’s dinner, and be part of a family.  That’s my life also, and I and all my fellow critters have enough intelligence to pull it off.

As I was trying to give this new answer to my questioner, he quickly responded, “Oh, like what Einstein said, ‘Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’”

God the Creator gave every living being the intelligence they need.  I would be superlatively bad at being a fish.  My tree climbing days are over.  But I humbly try to share the particular gifts I have.  Thanks be to God.

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I wrote this post three years ago and share it again today as I look and hope for more intelligence on our planet. As we say to all our Blue Theology groups – God gave us brains for a reason, and is happy when we use them. Bluetheology.com.  Monterey Bay is pretty amazing right now – come and visit!

Jesus Gets Wet

Jesus Gets Wet

Jesus was a land mammal, but when he got wet, special God things happened. 

His unusual baptism we remembered this past Sunday, soaked in the river alongside a multitude, then still dripping, a shout out from God – my beloved!  But Jesus was wet with God from the beginning - nine miraculous floating months in Mary’s womb.  For three years he seemed to hug the shore of the Sea of Galilee, hanging out with fishers, telling stories about abundant catches, sleeping in boats, calming waves and walking on water.  Even at the inland dusty well, he and a Samaritan woman quenched each others’ thirsts with life changing water. 

Jesus’ formative wet experience, his baptism by John in the River Jordan, is pictured in this 5^th century mosaic on the dome of a small baptism building in Ravenna Italy. Like many Byzantine icons it depicts a trinity, but instead of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, it’s John, Jesus and the River Jordan.

Yes, that old guy on the left is how the local pagans depicted their river gods, complete with crab claw crown and river reed.  From Old Man River’s jar at the far left flows the sacred baptizing water.  The artist was probably reaching out to pagan converts to say, yes, your River God is here also in this baptistery, where you, like Jesus, will find new life in water.

Jesus has no clothes on!  I saw this mosaic in 1999 with my then 12 year old daughter – we were both a little shocked.  He’s not just naked, he’s young, beardless, a little like a chubby teen.  He’s getting soaked not just in the deep waters, but from above - that descending Spirit dove, one author says, “is spraying lustral water from its beak.” 

This is my beloved wet son.

At the Blue Theology Mission Station on the shores of Monterey Bay we celebrate all connections between things spiritual and things wet, with oceanside pilgrimages, beach service projects and deep immersion into God’s call to care for all creation. 

For us every day is baptism day, when God saturates us in the Spirit.  Come and Sea!

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Bluetheology.com.  We are booking for 2018 youth and adult service trips and pilgrimages by the sea, and clergy renewal times.  Thanks for your encouragement last week on my idea of compiling some of these weekly “Blue Theology Tide-ings” posts into a book.  Stay tuned!

Sea Star Shining in the East

Sea Star Shining in the East

“Look! A star of wonder, shining in the deep dark!  Let us follow where it leads us.” 

Did you remember to put scientists in your Christmas manger scenes?   Among the unlikely first visitors (shepherds, angels, animals) to the Christ child were astronomer mathematicians, the magi.   (Magi does not mean king; these brave researchers were from Asia’s ancient centers of knowledge.) 

Devoted to their calling, these researchers used the scientific method to study this new star.  They observed a new phenomenon (super nova?), made a hypothesis, tested it out (long journey), studied with their hearts as well as minds (this discovery could change the world!) and returned home to publish their findings. 

(IMPORTANT questions below – please read to the end.)

Marine scientists in our day, like magi, are following sea stars in the deep dark.  For over a century, at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, biologists have collected data every day along their protected coastline, and proved beyond a doubt that the ocean’s temperature is rising and its chemistry becoming more acidic.  (With our Blue Theology youth and adult groups we always stop at the Hopkins Marine Station to thanks God for how holy is the practice of science – God gave us brains for a reason and is happy when we use them!)

Sea stars are suffering deeply from climate change.  Warmer temperatures have drastically changed which kind of stars live here; some species have just disappeared over the century, and new more Southern species have moved in.  As all our CO2 makes the ocean more acidic, it changes the body chemistry of both predator and prey.  It’s like osteoporosis for any marine organism with a calcium base; some can’t survive, others, like sea otters, find less to eat. It’s all connected.  When one member suffers, all suffer.

These sea stars and the modern magi studying them are like the Biblical prophets, sending out a bright warning; we humans are not doing God’s will when we harm God’s creation.

But in the Gospel According to Sea Stars these prophetic echinoderms are also spiritual teachers. God says to Job, “Ask the animals and they will teach you.  The fish will declare to you.”  Here are three simple sea star homilies:

-If the world all around you is deep and dark, be like the benthic sea stars and make your own light to shine in the darkness (bioluminescence) - it scares away predators, and attracts mates. 

-If your world has constant crashing waves, then evolve to have an amazing set of hydraulic tube feet. Take into your body the very water that challenges you (and feeds you) and use it to hold on tight– you’ve got the power within! 

-And if you’re clinging onto something that’s really a danger or threat, just let it go, like that old sea star arm – it will grow back, new life is always possible. 

Stars in the dark show us the Way.  Happy Epiphany!

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Here’s the QUESTION: I am thinking of putting together my four years (!) of weekly “Blue Theology Tide-ings” posts into a book.  I need encouragement and advice.  What format?  Short essay? Diary entries? A devotional book, with daily or weekly reflections?  How to organize it – by church year, by hopes and fears, by different animals?  Most weeks it’s 400-500 words – is that too long?  How much science? How much theology?  Other ideas?  Do you know any publishers or editors I could work with? Please comment with specifics.  Thanks.  (If you want to look back on several years of the posts, visit www.bluetheologytideings.blogspot.com) Also, we are booking 2018 youth and adult Blue Theology Mission Pilgrimage Trips on Monterey Bay.  www.bluetheology.com