Giant Lobsters and Procreating Whales: Praise the Lord from the Earth, You Great Sea Creatures

A Big Lobster Statue in Canada

Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths (Psalm 148:7)

True religion, like great art, enlarges our attention– sometimes shockingly, sometimes gently. True religion awakens our sense of the depth of Creation and correspondingly of ourselves, and reminds us that life is surging on.

These two stories are for free. The lobster is first; the whales are second. Enjoy.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

One of the biggest and oldest lobsters ever caught in Britain has been saved from the pot and will live out the rest of its long life in an aquarium.

The massive crustacean measures close to one meter (3 feet) in length and weighs more than 4 kg (9 lb).

“He’s a fantastic specimen and by his size alone he has got to be at least 50 years old,” said Lindsay Holloway of the Blue Reef aquarium in Portsmouth, southern England where the lobster now lives.

“He is an amazing creature and it’s quite an achievement to have reached such an impressive age,” he added.

The lobster was caught in around 14 feet of water by a compassionate angler fishing for sole in Bracklesham Bay, off the coast of West Sussex.

Lobsters are among the planet’s oldest inhabitants with fossil remains found dating back more than 100 million years. They are also extremely long-lived with some reaching ages of over 80 years.

The aquarium said the heaviest recorded crustacean is an Atlantic lobster nicknamed Mike who was caught in 1934 and tipped the scales at an awesome 19 kg.

via Huge lobster caught off England’s south coast – CSMonitor.com.

And from Al Jazeera:

Silence reigns over San Ignacio lagoon in North Mexico. The only sound is the hum of an idling motor in the launch that has brought the half-dozen tourists to the centre of the lake. They grip the side of the boat, straining to see movement in the depths below or squint off into the middle distance with cameras held in eager hands. It is a tense, expectant still, broken only by the occasional excited squawk of a false alarm.

Suddenly a huge flipper rises into the air, flails around and slips back into the icy waters of the lagoon. Seconds later another appears, before the water is alive with a windmill of giant flailing extremities. As the tourists coo and point, three huge bodies briefly rise to the surface before disappearing from view as the complex gyrations continue.

This is the mating of the grey whale, taking place in the most public of bedrooms. They travel up to 10,000km each year to enact the ritual, beginning the long swim in the icy waters of the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi seas between Russia and Alaska before heading here, to the balmier water of the Northern Mexico Bajan California peninsula. It is the longest migration of any mammal in the world.

Breaking waves: The story of the grey whales – Features – Al Jazeera English.

 

Where a Conservative Case for Gay Marriage Needs to Go

A January 2010 Newsweek article by Ted Olson makes what is entitled “the conservative case for gay marriage.” You can read his case here. His attempt is good, but he doesn’t go far enough. A truly conservative case for (that’s right, for) gay marriage is actually stronger than what Mr. Olson proffers.

He makes a two-pronged argument. First, since (as conservatives maintain) marriage is the foundation of a stable society, so all the more should marriage be extended to those people (homosexual couples) who want to be married. The more marriages, the better. Second, he identifies equality before the law as a bedrock American principle; marriage equality must inevitably follow.

As I pointed out in a recent post here, the deeper conservative argument on this question has to do with God’s nature as Creator, and humanity’s special relationship with that God. While nodding in that direction, Olson doesn’t go there.

What the conservative case for gay marriage needs to show, is that the union of two committed, loving, same-sexed humans has a place in the divine life: that there are ways to manifest the life of God in and through homosexual unions, and that those ways are life-producing and life-affirming, even if they don’t include begetting children. Rowan Williams, currently the Archbishop of Canterbury, reflects theologically on sexuality in a piece called “The Body’s Grace.” His reflections are directly relevant to a truly conservative case for gay marriage. We’ll look at “The Body’s Grace” next time.

 

Same-sex Marriage: The Strong Version of the Conservative Argument

Two arguments against the recognition of same-sex marriage are: 1. that it goes against the tradition that marriage is between one man and one woman; and 2. that homosexual sex is contrary to natural moral law. Neither argument is trifling. The second argument– that homosexual sex is contrary to natural moral law– is the one that so-called “conservatives” need to trace more finely.

If they did trace it more finely, it would go something like this: Humanity has a special relationship to God. God is our Creator; we are God’s creatures. Our purpose on Earth is to praise and glorify God, which means to show forth– in thought, word, and deed– the divine image in which we are made, and to manifest the life of God in our lives. One of God’s most powerful attributes is that God creates; God brings forth life– in a profound way, God’s very essence is Life itself. Therefore, to create– and especially to create life– is a sacred power in the human being, precisely because of its closeness to God’s own creating, creative nature. Homosexual sex is against natural moral law because such sex does not– cannot– produce life, and is therefore contrary to humanity’s purpose in life– which, again, is to manifest the life of God in our lives. (Please bear in mind that I am not owning this argument. I am merely setting it forth).

Most conservative arguments against same-sex marriage stop at moralizing (heterosexual sex is good; homosexual sex is bad– it says so in the Bible), and don’t reveal the moral and theological reasoning behind the conclusion. Liberals are rightly critical this kind of peremptory moral judgment.

For their part, liberals have largely failed to engage the questions that this strong version of the conservative argument raises, namely, What is humanity’s relationship to God?; and How does sexuality relate to the purpose of human life?