Reflection on October 24, 1979

http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb6.htm

The simple fact that we can have an opinion, be subjective, makes us unique among all creation. Imagine if you could not form an opinion, that everything was simply black or white, no grays, no choice. Animals have no choice, only instinct to act. The lion going after the gazelles grabs the slowest one. He doesn’t sit and look at them and pick the fattest one of the one with the least hair. He chases them and the one closest or slowest he grabs and eats. There is no opinion, there is no subjectivity, it is instinct and action. We do have instincts as well. Our inclination, our instinct, is to sin. We have the choice to control that and to not follow it. Animals do not. A vicious dog attack is never the dogs fault.

I wrote earlier that I thought about the indissolubility of marriage being more of a conclusion than a premise for the Theology of the Body. Even though it comes at the beginning and leads us into the discussion, it has the feel of a conclusion we should come to. But the solitude of man is not. It appears to be a fundamental (if not the fundamental) premise of Theology of the Body. Man is unique from animal, he is fundamentally different than all the rest of creation. Because the world does not believe in that, are we surprised the world rejects the Theology of the Body. Before the world can accept this theology and all it concludes, including the indissolubility of marriage and closer to point the definition of marriage in general, it must accept the premise that man is in solitude and unique from creation.

JPII writes that the fact that man was given a body might have caused him to believe that he was like all the rest of material creation. At the moment man was shown all the animals to name, he could have had two reactions: I am like this or I am not like these. Man realizes he is different. I was thinking about this solitude and realized that of all God’s creation, man is not just separated from material things but also in solitude from the purely spiritual as well. Man is not angelic, and will not be. (Sorry It’s a Wonderful Life and Clarence)

There is mention that “the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground”. (2:7) God did not just form the body alone, but man as a whole, body and soul, came from the ground. How our soul came from the dust is a mystery, but it was there. I was thinking that God made our body out of the dust and breathed our soul into us, making us man. But it says God breathed “life”, not soul. Man was fully formed from the dust and then given life with the breath of God.

So, being a farmer is man’s oldest and first profession. I am proud to say that my father was a farmer, that I grew up on a farm, but completely humble enough to admit that I am too lazy to be a farmer. I will never understand how my father managed the farm and a more than full time job. I don’t know where he found the time to do all that and still seem to go to all the activities I know he attended. And the land was for us to till. This is another way that we are unique from the animals. They may gather and store, but I have never seen the birds out planting their seeds to grow their own bird seed. But that made me wonder about animals that build their own shelters or beavers building a dam. A bird doesn’t plant seeds, but it does build a nest. Where does that fit in on the scale of tilling the land verses animal instinct.

http://youtu.be/ZRDaPEaDJ7E