J.J. Buckfart* communications * environment * leadership * science *

Source: flickr.com, Michael Holden

God communicates an important principle to the nation of Israel. While the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God miraculously provides provisions for them. As God provides, he places an important limitation. The Israelites must not take more than they need for that day. It’s like God is saying, “You need to rely on me. You mustn’t forget who is providing for you.” The Israelites follow their emerging pattern of disobedience found throughout the Torah. They disobey God’s edict not to be pack-rats and find out the hard way the results of their disobedience.

I think this principle – taking only what you need, taking only what God permits – is a good principle. From this story, I get the sense that God doesn’t want people to be greedy. A principle that naturally can lead to more sustainable consumption; taking only what we need.

Jesus’ teachings echo this principle as well. Jesus tells the story of a rich man who was enamored with collecting more and more stuff. Little does the rich man know that his accumulations are in vane, as his life will be taken from him.

In financial terms, capital can be described as any source of profit while interest can be described as a sum paid or charged for the use or borrowing of money (or perhaps capital – I know I am stretching this a bit).

Why is it so hard for us to not live only on the interest of nature’s bounty. In the 1990s we saw Canadian Atlantic fish stocks crash. We were dipping into nature’s capital, not nature’s interest. As we gobbled up the capital of the cod fish stocks, our actions caused what some call a negative a cascading effect.

Image source: www.flickr.com (Shawn Ford)

I find it fascinating that the Bible contains late bronze-age wisdom that clearly pre-dates modern science, germ theory and microscopes.

God seemed to know a thing or two about microbiology and bacteria before modern science ever did. God instructed Israel on how to keep healthy by properly dealing with human waste. The people of Israel were given clear instructions on how to dispose of human waste.

And you thought the Bible had  irrelevant stuff in it.

You may recall the Walkerton tragedy, where negligence lead to human deaths when water was contaminated with human feces. Human feces can cause serious diseases and parasites.

It should be noted that all cultures have some cleansing protocol when dealing with human feces. Perhaps instead of learning sanitation via “trial an error,” Israel had the benefit of learning such things directly from God. All they had to do was follow God’s commands.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bristol_Stool_Chart.png