Not As We Know It

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According to an article from the Associated Press yesterday, scientists are having to rethink life. Some of us do that on a regular basis anyway, but there is actually cause for this scientific reevaluation. Bacteria have been discovered in Mono Lake, California, that utilize arsenic to sustain life. The article also notes the announcement that the number of stars in the universe has recently been increased on a magnitude of three times the old estimate and that potentially life-bearing planets are regularly on the increase. Seems that we may no longer be alone. No one knows what forms life may take “out there.”

The eye of a lesser god?

I wonder what impact new life forms will have on religion. I suppose there’s not a revelation immense enough to shock a true Fundamentalist from his/her confident “God could do that” outlook, but when we find life not as we know it, does it not affect all of our worldview? Even the definition of life is up for grabs. Is the earth itself alive? Did the animists have it right all along? Does arsenic-based life have a soul once it evolves to hominid status? Would they have equal opportunity housing? When such revelations come to light, I would find it comforting to have Mr. Spock at my side, stating in his flat, unemotional voice, “It’s life, but not as we know it.”

Life was complicated enough to begin with, what with trying to hold down two part-time teaching jobs and many secretive efforts to launch new careers. Religion can’t let go of this information, however, as one of the prime definitions of the divine is as the guy who creates life. Religions such as Buddhism and Jainism – religions that believe taking any life is wrong – will certainly have more work cut out for them. When it is boiled down to its prime components, religion is ultimately concerned with life. Monotheism has no room for a Hades or Ereshkigal. One might only wonder who the gods of the arsenic eaters might be.

Black Monks and Grim Reapers

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Last night I assisted my daughter with a stint of volunteering at the local community “haunted house” for charity. This is one of the high points of October, so I was glad to be asked. I reprised my role that I developed for Nashotah House: in that context the character was called “the Black Monk,” based on a local ghost story. While I was on the faculty of Nashotah there were plenty of students who swore the Black Monk story was true, the actual event involved an early student who drowned while trying to walk across water (something many students think they are capable of) – this was actually during the winter, however, and Upper Nashotah Lake is not always as thickly frozen as people assume. The poor student broke through and is buried in the cemetery on campus. Halloween was a major event at that Gothic location until a new, evangelical administration came along. During a haunted hayride, the kids of the community lumbered along on a hay-wagon while costumed students jumped out to scare them. I played along in a costume my wife made where my face was invisible and the flowing black robes eerily blended into the night.

In my current secular context, of course, I was simply The Grim Reaper. This character has a very ancient pedigree. Religions from the earliest times have personified Death as a character that all people inevitably meet. The Mesopotamians had Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, the Ugaritians had Mot, the god whose name is “Death,” and the Hebrew Bible has “the Angel of Death.” We are often not given a physical description of this baleful but sometimes beneficent supernatural entity. When Revelation was finally penned, Death is one of the four horsemen, and he rides a pale horse, but we do not find many physical details. In the fifteenth century Death was pictured as a skeleton, often with a scythe. His role is that of the classical psychopomp, or guide to the next world. He is not evil, but when the doorbell rings you’d rather hope it had been Avon calling rather than the G.R.

Carlos Schwabe, Death of the Undertaker

Appealing to the fear of the unknown, I lurked last night in the shadows, face completely obscured, not speaking, stepping out to reminded holiday revelers that what is really scary is that which we can not define. When playing the silent ghoul, sudden movements are not necessary to frighten, shouts and screams are unimportant. The simple reminder of mortality and the unspoken question “is he here for me?” are sufficiently frightening on their own. Whether the Black Monk or the Grim Reaper, this character has a natural place on the chilly nights of October. And sometimes it seems there is just not enough October to keep all of us in line.