Deuteronomy. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
After 40 years of wondering, the Israelites are about to enter the land God promised to their forefathers. Their leader and prophet, Moses, won’t be entering with them because of his sin in the wilderness, God ordained that he would not go in. He appoints Joshua to lead the people.
This is the setting of Deuteronomy. The name means “repetition of the law” because Moses takes the opportunity to reiterate to this generation the history of Israel and the law God has given them. Much of the Deuteronomy is a reiteration of the laws found in the books that precede it.
The law, recorded by Moses in writing, was comprehensive. The ecclesiastical law covered religious ceremonies. Other laws dealt with crime and punishment, dealing with accidental deaths, sanitation, construction, safety, marriage, family, commerce, foreign affairs, war, property, inheritance, contracts and other issues of importance to a people who are to live together peaceably. It was not he first recorded law, and it contrasts with its antecedents in its relative humanity, value of life, and emphasis on God. The Israelites were to eradicate the inhabitants of the promised land, God had proclaimed it as a judgment for those nations’ wickedness, but otherwise they were to treat law-abiding foreigners who live among them with fairness, even generosity, which was rare in ancient times and certainly not what they were experiencing when they fled Egypt.
Deuteronomy is not necessarily boring or devoid of new material. It is full of hope and warnings for a nation that was finally coming into its own. God, speaking through Moses, foretold that the people would fall away from the law and that trouble would follow. He foretold that they would seek a king some 400 years before they put a crown on Saul’s high head. The coming of Christ was also predicted.
Moses also composed a song. It was intended to help the people to remember their God, their history, and the law. After teaching them the song, he blesses the tribes of Israel.
It seems sad that Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt and in the wilderness, and who was faithful in comparison to his fellows, would die before he could enter the promised land. God led him up on a mountain to see the whole land that another generation of Israelites, raised in the hardships of the wilderness and fed from God’s special provision, would take. With this vision in his eyes, alone with God on a mountain, he died.
Even at this moment of Moses’ death, we see a picture of God’s justice and mercy mingled. It was just that Moses should not enter the promised land. However, Moses had the unique privilege to have is body laid in a grave prepared by God Himself. The funeral may be the most sparsely attended in history, but the Almighty officiated.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Exodus
Genesis
Leviticus
Numbers
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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query wilderness. Sort by date Show all posts
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Aldo
Leopold had a long career working with and studying nature as a government
forester, university
professor, founder of the discipline of wildlife management. He is remembered
as author and popular proponent of wilderness based on his book A Sand County Almanac.
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A Sand County Almanac is a
collection of essays
in three parts. The first part is a tour of his Wisconsin farm covering each
month of the year. Actually, it is not a farm in the sense of being a business
that produces food
and fiber. It was abandoned as a farm and hiding place for illegal stills when
Leopold bought it as a semi-wild getaway. To be fair, though, it was abandoned
as a farm because of practices that destroyed much of its productive capacity,
and Leopold’s theme is land management. He approaches that theme gently in the
first part. A reader can have the sense of strolling around the place with
Leopold as he points out the plants and animals
that live there, full-time or seasonally, and shares his enthusiasm for them.
In the second part, Leopold expands the scope to cover many places in
the central and western United States,
and even a few places in Mexico and Canada. These essays
also recount his personal experiences relating to wild lands. In some of these
essays he begins to touch more firmly on points of land management and policy.
In the final part, Leopold’s essays are more direct. The point of the
book is that, if Americans, or people generally, want to have a rich landscape,
wildlife, and land that is productive for generations, we need to value land in
a new way and take new approaches to managing it.
The culmination of this discussion is the land ethic. Ethics
are essentially about community, and
the appropriate and acceptable relationships
between the members of the community and each member and the community as a
whole. A land ethic treats the land as a part of the community. In land,
Leopold includes “soils, waters, plants, and animals.” Land is a part of our
community that produces things of both economic
and ineffable value. The land ethic implies that we have obligations to each
other and to the land to conserve it. Conservation
isn’t simply a matter or protecting specific areas, plants or animals. There is
a place for policy, but the ethic is also individual, and a successful
conservation efforts will mean landowners will need to treat the land and
something inherently valuable. We would conserve ethically out of a sense of humility,
realizing that the land is much more complex that we understand, and that our
progress can outpace our understanding with possibly irreversible undesirable
results.
Reconnecting to the land, and learning to value it, is encouraged by
Leopold. Arguably, the first two parts of the book are intended to give the
reader a sense of connection to the land. On the policy front, he suggests that
many of the things we do to connect people to wilderness is destroying the
wilderness. A land ethic could be a curative for this because aware people
could connect to the land (especially wild plants and animals) close to home,
even in cities, and be able to appreciate even wilder places from a distance.
He goes so far as to suggest that amateur wildlife research could become a new
type of sportsmanship, and cites cases were amateurs managing their own small
plots have contributed to our understanding of wildlife.
It should be noted that, in addition to being a collection of
thoughtful essays on nature, A Sand
County Almanac is beautifully written. He can be poetical and political
in the same sentence, such as “Hemisphere solidarity is new among statesmen,
but not among the feathered navies of the sky.” He expresses himself with a
gentle, homey cynicism as when he wrote, “Education, I fear, is learning to see
one thing by going blind to another.”
*
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County
Almanac and Sketches from Here and There. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1949.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Numbers
Numbers. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
Numbers gets its name from the census of the Israelites that is described in its first chapter. This census counted men 20 years and over who were able to go to war. That is 603,550 potential soldiers. It’s not a stretch to image the total population exceeded 2 million.
In addition to censuses, Numbers covers history and law. The history is largely the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness before entering Canaan, the land God promised to their ancestors.
When God first lead Israel to the borders of Canaan, the Israelites sent spies in to check out the land. The spies reported that the land was rich in all the ways God promised. Ten of the twelve spies also reported that the inhabitants were powerful and couldn’t be overcome, so the people refused enter the land. God let there own words stand against them as a judgment; everyone of the Israelites age 20 and greater died as nomads over the next 40 years except the two spies who called for the people to conquer the land at the first instance. These two men, Caleb and Joshua, would be the only ones in their generation to enter Canaan.
An interesting thing about the book is that God continued to protect Israel in this period. The established kingdoms in the area became nervous about 2 million people wondering around looking for a place to settle. However, except when Israel entered unauthorized war, God never allowed a foreign power to harm them.
The Israelites had as much trouble within as without. One of these was an uprising to overthrow Moses, which God intervened to end. It should not be surprising that there was much contention amongst people who were depicted as inveterate complainers.
During this time, several laws were given and reiterated. Many of these dealt with the roles of priest and Levites. The later chapters cover laws related to inheritance and the apportionment of land to the tribes and families, which was an important matter for the soon to be conquerors.
Another issue of importance to conquerors is the size of the army they can raise. Toward the end of the book, the leaders conduct a second census. By this time, Moses, Joshua and Caleb were the only people over sixty who had been present for the first census. Of the surviving generation, there were 601,730 fighting men, so the population of Israel changed little from the beginning to the end of its time in the wilderness.
As the rebellious generation passed away, so did the great leaders of the nation: Moses and Aaron. New men were appointed to the civil and priestly leadership of Israel.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Exodus
Genesis
Leviticus
Numbers gets its name from the census of the Israelites that is described in its first chapter. This census counted men 20 years and over who were able to go to war. That is 603,550 potential soldiers. It’s not a stretch to image the total population exceeded 2 million.
In addition to censuses, Numbers covers history and law. The history is largely the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness before entering Canaan, the land God promised to their ancestors.
When God first lead Israel to the borders of Canaan, the Israelites sent spies in to check out the land. The spies reported that the land was rich in all the ways God promised. Ten of the twelve spies also reported that the inhabitants were powerful and couldn’t be overcome, so the people refused enter the land. God let there own words stand against them as a judgment; everyone of the Israelites age 20 and greater died as nomads over the next 40 years except the two spies who called for the people to conquer the land at the first instance. These two men, Caleb and Joshua, would be the only ones in their generation to enter Canaan.
An interesting thing about the book is that God continued to protect Israel in this period. The established kingdoms in the area became nervous about 2 million people wondering around looking for a place to settle. However, except when Israel entered unauthorized war, God never allowed a foreign power to harm them.
The Israelites had as much trouble within as without. One of these was an uprising to overthrow Moses, which God intervened to end. It should not be surprising that there was much contention amongst people who were depicted as inveterate complainers.
During this time, several laws were given and reiterated. Many of these dealt with the roles of priest and Levites. The later chapters cover laws related to inheritance and the apportionment of land to the tribes and families, which was an important matter for the soon to be conquerors.
Another issue of importance to conquerors is the size of the army they can raise. Toward the end of the book, the leaders conduct a second census. By this time, Moses, Joshua and Caleb were the only people over sixty who had been present for the first census. Of the surviving generation, there were 601,730 fighting men, so the population of Israel changed little from the beginning to the end of its time in the wilderness.
As the rebellious generation passed away, so did the great leaders of the nation: Moses and Aaron. New men were appointed to the civil and priestly leadership of Israel.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Exodus
Genesis
Leviticus
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. 1996. New York: Touchstone, 1997.
Undaunted Courage is a biography of Meriwether Lewis. It is also, to a large extent, an account of Lewis’ expedition, co-led by William Clark, up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast and back again.
The Lewis and Clark expedition, the bicentennial of which was celebrated in 2004 through 2006, is rightly presented as the centerpiece of Lewis’ life. Ambrose shows how Lewis’ early life in the plantations and wilderness of Virginia, as a militia officer during the Whiskey Rebellion and under the political tutelage of Thomas Jefferson uniquely prepared Lewis to lead a company of explorer-soldiers with a broad mission. His life after the expedition was brief and troubled.
The western exploration, beginning in 1804 and ending in 1806, is the major focus of the narrative. It was more than simply a trip. Lewis and Clark were charged with scientific observation (particularly geography, botany and zoology), Indian diplomacy, establishing trade, and what might be considered a touch of espionage. With the exception of Indian policy, Lewis, Clark and their men performed admirably.
Lewis, throughout the mission and afterward, wanted to make it clear that he and Clark had equal parts in the leadership of the expedition. It is extraordinary that this worked so well. One gets the impression for the book that Lewis was the senior of these equals, which may explain it. Even so, Lewis seemed to prefer the close companionship of trusted peers and friends.
Lewis achieved great success while still relatively young, in his early thirties. Early success can be tough, but Lewis seems like a man who can handle tough situations. However, his few years of life after the expedition seem to be characterized by failure. Certainly, the political situation in the Louisiana Territory, where Lewis was appointed governor, was very difficult, and he may not have been cut out to be a politician and bureaucrat. However, he left important matters that were easily within his grasp undone. Notably, he never published the expedition journals, which more than anything else may have sealed his fame, supported his policies and multiplied the fruit of his exceptional labor.
The final years of Lewis’ life, which ended in suicide, raises many unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions. Even so, Ambrose’s biography of the man is an interesting story, and sometime and exciting tale of his great adventure.
Undaunted Courage is a biography of Meriwether Lewis. It is also, to a large extent, an account of Lewis’ expedition, co-led by William Clark, up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast and back again.
The Lewis and Clark expedition, the bicentennial of which was celebrated in 2004 through 2006, is rightly presented as the centerpiece of Lewis’ life. Ambrose shows how Lewis’ early life in the plantations and wilderness of Virginia, as a militia officer during the Whiskey Rebellion and under the political tutelage of Thomas Jefferson uniquely prepared Lewis to lead a company of explorer-soldiers with a broad mission. His life after the expedition was brief and troubled.
The western exploration, beginning in 1804 and ending in 1806, is the major focus of the narrative. It was more than simply a trip. Lewis and Clark were charged with scientific observation (particularly geography, botany and zoology), Indian diplomacy, establishing trade, and what might be considered a touch of espionage. With the exception of Indian policy, Lewis, Clark and their men performed admirably.
Lewis, throughout the mission and afterward, wanted to make it clear that he and Clark had equal parts in the leadership of the expedition. It is extraordinary that this worked so well. One gets the impression for the book that Lewis was the senior of these equals, which may explain it. Even so, Lewis seemed to prefer the close companionship of trusted peers and friends.
Lewis achieved great success while still relatively young, in his early thirties. Early success can be tough, but Lewis seems like a man who can handle tough situations. However, his few years of life after the expedition seem to be characterized by failure. Certainly, the political situation in the Louisiana Territory, where Lewis was appointed governor, was very difficult, and he may not have been cut out to be a politician and bureaucrat. However, he left important matters that were easily within his grasp undone. Notably, he never published the expedition journals, which more than anything else may have sealed his fame, supported his policies and multiplied the fruit of his exceptional labor.
The final years of Lewis’ life, which ended in suicide, raises many unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions. Even so, Ambrose’s biography of the man is an interesting story, and sometime and exciting tale of his great adventure.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
The Power of Fifty Bits by Bob Nease
Our brains handle an amazing amount of information. Almost all of it happens without our conscious awareness. Our conscious mind has a narrow bandwidth of about 50 bits per second according to engineer and designer Bob Nease.
The result of this narrow bandwidth is that much of human behavior is characterized by inattention and inertia. In his book The Power of Fifty Bits, Nease suggests that we accept the limitation of our brains and design things in a way that help us make and stick to good decisions.
Nease has practice in designing such systems. As the chief scientist at Express Scripts, he and his team looked for ways to get people to use less expensive drugs and pharmacies, refill prescriptions on time and stick to treatment regimens. He calls the techniques he developed “fifty bits design.”
Because our brains have so much information to handle, they use shortcuts. These shortcuts are not always adaptive to modern life. They are still geared toward tribal life in a dangerous wilderness.
He focuses on dealing with these shortcuts. We feel a lot of pressure to fit in; we follow social norms and go along to get along. We are very averse to loss. We seek to enjoy rewards today and push off losses as long as possible. As a result, it is easy to have good plans and intentions, but hard to actually change our behavior.
Nease offers strategies to interrupt, circumvent and utilize these strong tendencies to turn people’s good intentions into actions. You can interrupt a process briefly to require a choice between options. You can ask people to commit now to actions in future situations. You can make the desirable choice the default and require action to change it. You can get attention by inserting a message where people will already be looking. You can frame choices in more compelling ways. You can make a good choice a side benefit of doing a fun or desirable activity. In all things you can make good choices easier to implement and bad choice a little harder.
It is hard to do justice to these strategies in a few words. Nease provides examples from his own work and from the research of others. He also provides insight into which strategies are best suited to certain situations and how they can be used together to greater effect. He also considers some ethical considerations of using fifty bits design.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Procrastination Equation by Piers
Steel
Nease, Bob. The Power of Fifty Bits: The New Science of Turning Good Intentions into Positive Results. New York: HarperCollins, 2016.
Friday, August 10, 2012
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