PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

June 23, 2024

ISN’T THAT INTERESTING (NOVELTY AND DIVERSITY)

                I am in the process of working my way through a forty-eight lectures course (The Great Courses) by Professor Scott MacEachern on the origins of civilization.  For 23 years Dr. MacEachern was a professor of anthropology at Bowen College and has done archaeological work in Africa and other places.

The first seven lectures provide an introduction to the course.  In them Dr. MacEachern describes how archaeologist go about their work and how they develop models and theories to explain the data they collect.    Professor MacEachern uses examples from Africa, Egypt, China and Southeast Asia, Eastern Mediterranean, Indus Valley, and Mesoamerica.  While the models to account for the development of states in these areas generally follow the pattern of band, tribe, chiefdom and state; however, there are always exceptions.  One of the dangers of doing archaeology is trying to fit new data into already existing models and miss something novel which does not fit into the established models.  One of the things I have taken from the course is the great diversity into the development of civilization and states.  Contrary to the Book of Ecclesiastes, there are new things under the sun.

Almost from the moment we are born, we begin to develop models, systems, and theories about the world in which we live.  They help us to understand and respond to experiences.  As we get older, they become almost unconscious as they function to interpret and give guidance.  We hardly know they are there.  These models, systems, and theories are shaped by our culture, our individual experiences, and by circumstances.

As I have traveled this country as well as Europe and the Middle East, I have been impressed by the diversity of models, systems, and theories people use to understand their world.  Not everyone sees the world the way I do.  I can not assume that someone else will respond to a situation the same way that I might.  To have some idea of how another person sees the world, I have to walk a mile in their shoes and attempt to see the world from their perspective.

In the third chapter of Exodus (Exodus 3:1-22) while tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, Moses sees a bush that is burning but is not consumed.             A novel and unusually experience, to say the least.  When Moses goes to look, the Lord speaks to him.  The Lord is calling Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of the land of bondage.  Because Moses responds to a novel experience in his life, his life and the lives of the Hebrew people are changed forever.

When Moses saw the burning bush, he might have said, “Isn’t that interesting!”  In traveling around the world, I have found the diversity of viewpoints people have interesting. There are truly many different ways of doing things and understanding experiences.  For the most part one way is not better than another, just different.  Variety is the spice of life.

In the course of my daily activities, I will see something that causes me to say, “Isn’t that interesting!”  Sometimes it is God wanting to get my attention.  He has something to tell me.  When I have stopped to take a look, I have been blessed.

We live in an interesting world where people have a diversity of outlooks and models and where there are novel experiences that do not quite fit into our own world view.  Both can be a blessing if we take the time to stop and see.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)