An Edenic Message: Panic-Buying.

In last week's blog, I shared some of my experiences with international travel, centring on the provincial small town and how God will continue to work within one of them, Red Deer in the Canadian province of Alberta. It has in itself gained an unusually high level of readership in just a week, which I find encouraging.

In it, I emphasised how visiting an "untouristic" town such as Red Deer can be a revelation to the backpacker on how the indigenous of a particular country live, without having to "put on a show" for the benefit of the tourist. The latter includes being swamped by shops selling tourist trinkets, seen just about at every other shop along the precinct. Although I have never actually walked through the main thoroughfare of Red Deer itself, I have visited smaller townships such as Amarillo in Texas, San Luis Obispo in California and even Monterosso-al-Mare in Italy, where at the time, picture postcards on sale were difficult to find. 

Such a phenomenon of tourism has, to my opinion, spoiled the indigenous culture which thrived, for example, within one particular location, the Old City of Jerusalem. At my first visit there, in 1976, each of the souks - narrow streets which are roofed over - had its own characteristic depending on the market it specialised. Thus, Souk David, the main thoroughfare leading from Jaffa Gate towards the Haram-al-Sharif, or the Temple Mount was, in 1976, pungent with spices and exotic vegetables. And the street which crossed Souk David, the Souk-ha Katsavim, was the meat market, where even unskinned sheep's heads hung outside the butchers, its lifeless eyes staring continuously at the throng of passersby. Maybe unsettling to the modern Westerner, to the locals, such didn't get a second look unless purchased for the family table.

A Souk in Jerusalem Old City.

However, I had to mind the donkeys which pulled carts of merchandise to restock the shops. And the donkeys were not shy when it came to defecating. Poop lying in the middle of the street was part of a normal way of life in that part of the world, as was the central gutter which ran through the streets.

Middle-Eastern music was characteristic back in 1976, and it was often heard emitting from radio units people carried. Then the Muslim call for prayer sounding loudly from minarets located at various points of the city. Such prayer calls can also echo through the Kidron Valley, where the residential housing district of Silwan was to pay attention to such calls. 

How things have changed by the time I last visited the city with my beloved pregnant wife in 2000! Gone were the gutters running through the centre of each street. These were bricked in, but the original course can still be seen. Narrow, specifically-built tractors carry the merchandise to the shops, replacing the donkeys. Instead of poop dropped onto the ground, exhaust fumes from the tractor petrol engines temporary pollute the air. Many shops which once sold spices and other traditional fares now sold tourist trinkets and all sorts of souvenirs. One shop had a display of inflated beach balls swaying in the gentle breeze, along with national flags, modern fashion clothing and luggage, particularly cheap holdalls, all making a kind of symbol as Middle-East culture compromise to become bedmates with Western tourism. Also, Western music has replaced the traditional Middle-Eastern music and singing which helped make the 1976 backpacking trip so unique.

And so the municipal authorities in charge of Jerusalem has made great efforts to modernise the city into a tourist-friendly environment, yet on the cost of diluting the spirit of Middle-Eastern culture and atmosphere which, for thousands of years of gradual development, had made Jerusalem what it was, and still so in 1976. After all, what would be more off-putting than to keep on side-stepping donkey's excrement lying here and there on the street?

And for swimming at the Great Barrier Reef? It was a wonderful privilege to snorkel over such marine life back in 1997 whilst backpacking Australia. But at least I was grateful that there were three, actually four, creatures I did not meet face-to-face, the Shark, the Moray Eel and the Sea Cucumber, and oh yes, the Box Jellyfish or Sea Wasp, with its fatalistic sting. The shark, which visits the reef regularly at night I believe, is the appropriately-named Reef Shark. Then the moray eel, that elongated fish which has a habit of poking its head from a gap in the rocks, both it and the shark have a pretty nasty bite! But the sea cucumber? Very tame, even timid - why should I be put off from being in its presence?

Fortunately, sea cucumbers tend to live on the seafloor of deeper waters and therefore unlikely to encounter one at a coral reef. This creature is basically a living tube, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other, itself quite large by comparison with the size of the rest of the animal. As the sea cucumber defecates, it leaves a pile of poop lying in the seafloor. For me indeed, it's not a pleasant sight regardless of the diving mask. Perhaps for you, it might not be so off-putting. But to me it is. Therefore, in what might have considered an act of mercy, I saw neither of these glorious creatures whilst at the Great Barrier Reef.

Rear-end of Sea-Cucumber, about to defecate

I guess it's all to do with our innate sense of disgust, is it not?

Therefore what I saw only this morning confirmed what I have heard so much about in the Media. Believing that what it says in the newspapers was a lot of hype to boost sales, was true after all, right here outside my own front door. Empty shelves. Yes, the shelves which normally stock loo rolls. Various people were strolling along the aisle, gazing at wonderment at which only two or three hours earlier those shelves were fully stocked up. But as they stood completely empty, it became quite a unique sight among all the other shelves in this huge superstore. I even had a chat with one of the duty managers, and he said to me that the shelves were stocked to the full only that morning, and they will not be restocked for the rest of the day.

It's one of the most puzzling angles of human nature. So far, the national advice given over the COVID-19 virus pandemic was if anyone begins to cough often or have a temperature above 37 degrees Celsius, then he should isolate himself, staying indoors for seven days. Only if there is no sign of recovery after the week had elapsed should then the NHS be called, dialling 111 or seeking the service on the Internet.

And if such advice is followed, then why the need for so many rolls at home? These days, rolls come in a six-pack, nine-pack and twelve-packs. It would take a family the size of an average school classroom to get through a nine- or twelve-pack of loo rolls in just a few days! Here, I see the result of a combination of fear, panic - and disgust, each emotion interacting with each other to bring about such drastic action.

The subject of defecating is never talked about, certainly not openly and certainly not at the dinner table! Neither is it something to dwell upon and there's the sense of relief when the loo is flushed.  To add to this, how is it that, if Evolution was true, then every living organism, including mankind, is unable to absorb and digest everything eaten? If we as humans are right at the very pinnacle of organic evolution, surely, after as much as half a billion years for a cell to evolve into a human, that one shortcoming remains persistent - the body cannot absorb everything it takes in and therefore has waste to dispose of, and such action among humans results in a sense of disgust, embarrassment (hence the need for privacy) and repulsiveness. Thus the need for the Old City of Jerusalem to get its act together to attract tourists from the West.

Yes, I find extraordinary that Evolution has perfected (or nearly perfected) the human eyesight and the extreme complexity of the immune system, even the intricate, vast complexity of the genome, yet fail to perfect the workings of the alimentary canal.

Or there is the alternative revelation from the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Here it says that in the beginning, God created everything which, including every lifeform, as very good. And that includes our first parents.

It was immediately after the Fall when God spoke to Eve, telling her that he will greatly increase the pain in childbearing, and in pain, she will produce children. (Genesis 3:16.)

This seems to indicate a great change in Eve's anatomical structure when the Edenic Curse was initiated. And that's only the very tip of an immense iceberg. According to the apostle Paul, since the initial Edenic Curse, the whole of Creation has been groaning, it is now still groaning since it was unwillingly subject to the bondage of corruption as it waits for the redemption of God's people. (Romans 8:18-23.)

The whole Creation enslaved to corruption. That is certainly not good at all. That was why before the anatomical change in Eve, I sincerely believe that the alimentary canal might have terminated at the ileum, near to where the appendix is located. That is, Creation was at first so good that disposal of digestive waste was not initially part of the agenda, for the body was able to digest and absorb all of the nutrients fed to it. And that applied to all the animals as well (even if many Christians may disagree with me at this point.) With entropy now at work in all things, order deteriorating into disorder, the whole of Creation is now waiting for the redemption of all the saints.

Shelves totally empty of loo-rolls by mid-morning...

That natural feeling of disgust, shame and even embarrassment over defecation seems to prove the verity of the Bible. The presence of such an infectious virus is proof of the reality of the Edenic Curse. The effects of the Fall and its resultant Curse is felt among ordinary folk, consumed by anxiety, going out to panic-buy loo rolls, of all products, under a potential threat of a couple of weeks of self-imposed quarantine. None of any of this can be called "very good" in the same way God called it.

One has a choice: To believe in the shortcoming of organic evolution despite having half a billion years to get it right.

Or to believe in the revelation of God's Word, which says that his creation was at first very good. That is until the entrance of sin and death into the world, followed by the Edenic Curse which has enslaved the whole of creation unwillingly to sorrow and decay.

After all, there were no loo rolls in the Garden of Eden.