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The Price of Gopher Wood

Calvin B. DeWitt

Some stories we came to know so well as children have scarcely been given a second thought by adults. The account of Noah is such a story. The image this brings to mind might include a big wooden boat, a man with a long flowing beard, lions, giraffes, zebras. The giraffes have their necks out a window and a pair of zebras is calmly walking up the gangplank. Observing with our mind's eye, we see animal occupants to be found on a stroll through the zoo; there are no beetles, no frogs, no land snails.

As we clarify our mental image, we realize we are reviewing a picture we colored with crayons in our Sunday school paper or the animal cutouts made with scissors and crayons for placement in a paper ark.

We, the recallers of this childhood story, have become captives of this or a similar childhood image. We may rightly remember the important point that the world was bad, and that God destroyed it because of the rampant evil of the day. We no doubt also remember His promise never to send another such flood, for which promise the rainbow was given as a sign. But the critical ethical and ecological relevance of the story for today's world is obscure; we are captives of a paper ark in a child's world.

Familiarity with our childhood image gives an illusion of understanding. Impressed that we already know, we fail to give the attention this story deserves today. A major point of the story rarely has entered the adult mind.

That missing element of our understanding of the account of Noah was made clear to me in the reaction of a Christian college student returning from a trip to observe the Kirtland's Warbler preservation project in northern lower Michigan: "What a waste to spend all that time, energy, and money to try to save a tiny bird."

God made it clear to Noah that He cared so much for the creatures He had created, that He wanted each one of them to be saved from impending extinction. He asked Noah to build a large boat out of gopher wood at great cost of time, energy, and materials to save not only himself and his family, but also the other creatures. Concerns about time or money apparently were not raised by Noah. Neither were questions about the significance or worthiness of each species. Noah did as the Lord commanded him.

How much less time-consuming and less expensive would it have been to build a smaller boat! Why not just a boat for Noah and family? Or, why not a boat for them and only the animals of use to them?

My response to the student returning from the Kirtland's Warbler country was: "Yes, the price of gopher wood is very high these days. Certainly we could find something more productive on which to spend our time and money!" Knowing the Noah account very well from childhood, she paused thoughtfully, and replied, "I get the point, and it is a good one!"

As in Noah's day, there is again a deluge moving across the land. Of course, God has remained true to His promise, to His covenant; all life has not again been eliminated by a great flood. But we have not been true to God and the preservation of His creatures. We are part of the human tide which is sweeping across the world, eliminating the creatures in the path of our use and abuse of the world's resources. As part of this flood we even might have found reason to criticize and ridicule those few who work to preserve God's creatures from extinction.

While a few speak out against the destruction of the creatures, many others work to convert the creatures into personal profits. Living in the great gallery of the Great Artist, a small minority cry out against the destruction of His creative works; others work diligently to convert the treasury of the creatures into cold cash. The elephant creatures are slaughtered so their great teeth can be reworked into ivory ornaments by human artists; the seals are killed so the coverings which protect them in the cold arctic waters can adorn our women of fashion; the tropical birds are destroyed to provide the feathers for our hats; rare animals are wrenched from their native homes and sold to be placed behind bars in our cities; the great whales are hunted to extinction with ever more sophisticated ships to provide a trickle of whale oil, perfume, and meat for the marketplace.

This careless extinguishing of species in pursuit of human greed runs counter to the value the Creator Himself puts upon His creatures. God brings praise to Himself for several of the creatures He has made. For Behemoth, He asks Job and us to give Him and His creatures due respect.

Behold, Behemoth,

which I made as I made you;
he eats grass like an ox.

Behold, his strength in his loins,

and his power in the muscles of his belly.

He makes his tail stiff like a cedar;

the sinews of his thighs are knit together.

His bones are tubes of bronze,

his limbs like bars of iron.

He is the first of the works of God;

let him who made him bring near his sword!

(Job 40:15-19 RSV)

But the direct assault on individual species of the Creation pales against the flood of lumbering which is raging through the tropical rain forests of the world. In pursuit of converting the work of our Creator and the integrated beauty of these magnificent forests into plywood for our boats and homes, the homes of the creatures are being destroyed forever. Carefully tuned cycles of forest nutrients are broken by laying bare the tropics. Nutrients once reinjected into trunks and leaves by the vibrant forests are irretrievably lost to erosion and percolation. The homes of the creatures are destroyed, and thus also its creatures. The great gallery of the Creator is being trashed. The great treasury of the Creation is being converted to ash.

Where are the Noahs? Where are the courses and curricula in ark-building? The whole Creation is standing on tippy toes, waiting...!

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, ed. TENDING THE GARDEN: ESSAYS ON THE GOSPEL AND THE EARTH. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987).

E.O. Wilson and Francis M. Peter, eds. BIODIVERSITY. (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988).

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Please mail any comments to Dr. Mark Lassiter.