We talked for about an hour about all things Bible -- where it came from, what's the best translation, how people use the Bible to argue different sides of the same issue, why the Bible says people lived for centuries, and what's with all those names for God. I'm afraid I rambled an awful lot but it sure was fun.

Some weeks ago, when the summer ahead seemed endless, I opened a hulking book that has been quite a ride -- Galilee, by Clive Barker. Immortal beings intersecting with extraordinary human beings in ordinary settings. It's wild, not least because the narrator is a curious being and so self-aware of telling the story (another layer that's intriguing). Besides that, I've been watching old episodes of Saving Grace, True Blood, and the pilot of Neighbors from Hell (didn't do it for me), Supernatural, and the Gates. So many more! -- and I'm open to suggestions. Hope you enjoyed a magical Fourth~

Some weeks ago, when the summer ahead seemed endless, I opened a hulking book that has been quite a ride -- Galilee, by Clive Barker. Immortal beings intersecting with extraordinary human beings in ordinary settings. It's wild, not least because the narrator is a curious being and so self-aware of telling the story (another layer that's intriguing). Besides that, I've been watching old episodes of Saving Grace, True Blood, and the pilot of Neighbors from Hell (didn't do it for me), Supernatural, and the Gates. So many more! -- and I'm open to suggestions. Hope you enjoyed a magical Fourth~

1) Audiences do recognize the biblical language, themes or characters and that's enough because the Bible continues to resonate or at least suggest something greater than what immediatley meets the eye.

2) The creators know that only a few people are going to know the reference but think, "Who cares? We know it's in there. It's cool and adds levels of meaning that are super-rich. The minority who pick up on it are going to love it."

3) It keeps people like me in business. Ok, no. That's definitely not their reason... and it's hardly a business for me. But I do love catching those biblical references, contemplating how the creators integrated and interpreted them, and what that means for the greater story or art.

What do you think is the explanation?

Meanwhile, I rescued a big painted turtle yesterday from the humiliation of canine objectification as the setter batted and danced around it. I carried the turtle down to the pond thinking surely it would take its time emerging from the security of its shell. But no! Once she caught sight of water, that turtle was off, no worse for wear...

Biologists in FL are working to preserve native species threatened by the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, and they've dubbed it "Operation Noah's Ark." Echoing that story in the biblical book of Genesis, Jack and Anne Rudlow are collecting what critters they can house in their Gulf Specimen Marine Lab to preserve and then release when the danger is past. The whole matter is so heartbreaking.

So many good people who have worked so hard over so many years to conserve, preserve, do the right thing. And then this. In a virtual instant, irresponsibility wrecks havoc on a colossal level. So many innocent creatures- -- dolphins, fish, birds, and turtles -- suffering torturous deaths because of our insatiable thirst for profit and cheap energy.

And I think of the little girl I met in Richmond some weeks ago. A beautiful child with long blond hair that fell in loose curls to her waist. In all her eight years, she had never cut it. Yet she determined that the next day she'd join whoever else showed up (at the Children's Museum, I think it was), to cut it all off -- "to help with the oil." The program is called "Matter of Trust." Her mother, wistfully running her hands through the girl's hair, explained that they'd been told that human hair has a unique capacity to sop up oil. In my mind, "obscene" was the word that pierced the sorrow. Compare her sacrifice, her concern and commitment to BP's profit, politicians' popularity, and our obstinate demand for oil.

Sorry for the downer, but there it is. Meanwhile, the sun shines its summertime heat on the green Virginia hills, storm clouds thunder through at night, and Beaver Beverly's guy Vernon has ambled up from the pond where she's busy working to have himself an afternoon snack of the maple shoots sprouting in the shade. He's within the dogs' scope and territory... if they'd just raise their big sleepy heads to look. They're all safe for now.  

I still had a couple of hours to hop across the street to the Oriental Institute Museum before it closed. A place I've been wanting to visit for quite some time, they've got an incredible collection of artifacts from the ancient Near East excavated and analyzed by some of the world's leaders in the field (so to speak - hah). Spent some time taking in the truly colossal (about 40 tons, over 16 feet tall) lamassu -massive winged bulls with beneficent human faces. A pair once flanked the entrance to Sargon II's throne room in Khorsabad at the end of the 8th century BCE (721-705 BCE). A final stop: Powell's, specializing "in quality used, rare, and discounted books, especially academic and scholarly." Hopped the number 6 bus back north and had the happy luck to visit with a couple of women interested in Bible Babel. Charlene bought the last copy I was toting and helped me figure out how to get back to the hotel. whew! Off to dinner and home to Virginia tomorrow ~ 

"Remember." The Bible is full of commands to remember. It is itself a testimony of remembrance, a witness to the power of memory, and its commands humanize with their instructions. Of hospitality and kindness, "Remember that you also were foreigners, strangers in a strange land." Of faith and community, "Do this in remembrance of me." To recognize the sacred and sanctify the ordinary, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

Being without my computer, the days were different, slower. I wrote by hand, read huge chunks of books for ideas and a big-picture sensibility (rather than recording with detailed notes). Thanks to Audubon, I identified a pair of green herons and watched as Beverly, a large almost black beaver, munched the mini maples around the periphery of the pond out back. I cleared bamboo and braised local lamb shanks. I spent time with the ones I love -- two- and four-leggeds alike. 

Then it was Memorial Day. Dinner with new friends and the invitation to share gratitude. Thanks for this place, these people, the food. But thanks, too, for the ones who have gone before. Honor to their memory -- those who have sacrificed in our armed services, yes, but also to those ordinary and extraordinary individuals whose lives, vision, and selves helped shape the ideas, conditions and company I enjoy today. My great aunt Lucille, Thomas Jefferson, those who fought to ban DDT, Louis Pasteur, my boyfriend's father.

Truth is, I have a terrible memory. I want to remember that as I age so that I don't worry unnecessarily about my forgetting. But, well, you see the problem there. Maybe, though, forgetting can lead, as in the case of my computer, to different kinds of remembering. Deeper remembrances -- of our tiny-ness, of our dependence on and debts to others, of what is holy. Now where did I put those keys?

But as Louis Jenkins' poem that Garrison Keillor read on today's Writers Almanac reminds us, "Everything changes." He observes, "Dinosaurs did not disappear from the earth but evolved into birds and crock pots became bread makers and then the bread makers all went to rummage sales along with the exercise bikes."

I've been thinking with church groups lately about what the Bible says about environmental issues, and how different the message can be when we consider that everything changes. That we today can radically transform our conditions, that we can take for granted safety from wild animals and the weather and have no worries about access to food makes Genesis 1's command to subdue and have dominion mean differently than it did in its ancient context.

In the case of Galilee, it means a fishing ban -- active care and wise restraint -- in what would seem on the surface to be directly opposed to Jesus' encouraging such industry. The biblical notion of controlling and ruling over the non-human natural world is transformed into intelligent stewardship. Paradoxically, that would seem to be exactly what the biblical texts promote.