Unintended Environmentalist

As I walked up the steps to the second floor entrance of the building I work in, a dark blotch on one of the steps caught my eye.  I looked down to see a brown, rather ordinary moth.  Not exactly like the one pictured here, it had a darker, coffee-colored tint and a thin orange line on the edges of its wings.  Why I didn't just walk on is a bit of a puzzle.  In any case, it occurred to me that this moth was going to get squished sitting there.  I have a couple of motivations for not wanting that to happen.  One is that I don't like unnecessarily squishing creatures in general.  (What constitutes a 'necessary' squishing of one of God's creatures is a subject for another time).  The other is I really do not like the sensation of squishing something under my foot.  Of course, snails are THE WORST.  You know, the crunch and slide feeling when that happens.  Don't you?  Of course you do.  Ick.

So, with roughly equal measures of compassion for the moth and for fellow humans who prefer not to squish them, I gave the moth a gentle nudge.  It fluttered off in that ungainly way that moths do.  However, as I cannot fly at all, the fact that the moth can even get airborne is a cause of wonder.  Just as I turned to continue up the stairs, a small bird swooped down, snagged the moth, and flew back into the tree it had come from.  I have seen hawks flying around with prey in their claws and I know from watching that excellent Pixar nature documentary "A Bug's Life" that birds do eat bugs.  This was my first experience with it in action.  Now, it very well could be that the moth would have met a similar fate without my "help".  But, as I thought about that sequence of events, I wondered: how often do I truly know how to do good?  How often do my attempts at fixing a problem have unintended consequences?  A small thing, really.  A moth, which in the best of circumstances may live a few months, plucked out of the air and gone.  Then I also remembered, my life, too is only a few drops in the span of eternity and I need wisdom to make the most of my days (Psalm 90:12).

Coconut Cult

It started out simply enough.  A handful of unsweetened, shredded coconut tossed by my wife into her morning smoothy.  It had to be healthier than the sweetened coconut from the bakery section of Albertson's.  Besides, other than an occasional sip, I didn't drink her smoothies.

How did I live without it?

But, soon I noticed other things.  How coconut would crop up in conversation.  The remarks about how robust indigenous peoples of coconut-laden Pacific islands were, their ageless skin and longevity and low cholesterol levels.  Little brown bags of coconut sugar appeared, nudging out the C&H sugar I had grown up with until it vanished from our kitchen cupboard.  I knew we were committed when I was given the task of storing 5-gallon tubs of coconut oil in the garage.  Olive oil and butter, which had supplanted Crisco and margarine in the murky past, now found themselves usurped by this new sovereign of saturated fats.  

All positive symptoms of health and well-being were attributed to this influx of coconut in its various forms.  Any deficiencies in health, quite naturally, were rooted in a lack of coconut intake.  Anointing with oil, with its ancient history of medicinal and spiritual powers, was revived as a lost art.

Soon, our home was a depot supplying jars of oil to other believers.  Clandestine meetings to transfer the goods became common.  We were part of an intricate network of coconut consumers with our own special language and group norms.  New recipes and home remedies were a constant source of delight.  We pitied the un-initiated while simultaneously seeking to bring them into the fold.

The sign that we were members of the coconut elite was the introduction of coconut flour.  No longer satisfied with freshly ground wheat flour, we had to use coconut flour. Not really flour at all, coconut flour is the meat of the coconut smashed beyond recognition.  In this pulverized state it can be used as a replacement for flour.  In theory.  

Gathered at the Mighty Coconut Shrine

I began to feel I was missing something.  That perhaps our club was a little too exclusive and demanding.  Yet, how could I deny the truth?  My doubts were always countered by reams of facts, cross-referenced and hyper-linked, presented by experts in authoritative books and professional web sites.  My good cholesterol was up, the bad was down.  Over time, the temptation of banished foods dwindled.

Just when my conversion seemed complete, someone had the courage to call a spade a spade.  Or, more accurately, to call a coconut a nut.  An out-of-town friend made a few astute observations about the ritualistic behaviors of our 'coconut cult'.  After recovering from the shock of his apparent heresy, I timidly admitted my doubts.   In spite of surviving most of my 53 years without relying on the miracle nut, I had fallen prey to orthorexia!  And so, the scales fell from my eyes.  I have now entered weekly reparative therapy at In-N-Out Burger.  Freedom never tasted so good.