...Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return...

You know, there's a certain amount of very beautiful poetry to be found in the Christian bible, much of which expresses profound truths applicable even to those of us who do not consider it a Primary Text. For instance, the passage found in Genesis 3:19 (given here in the lovely King James language):

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Now, I may not agree that we have to work for our food because of an original sin, but I can get on board with the thought that we rose from the earth, and to the earth we shall return. I mean, there is evidence of this all around us- take, for instance, today's photo:

Decomp

That bird most likely ate insects: now the insects eat it, and they in turn shall feed more birds. Whatever bits of bird the insects don't take will go into the soil, from which plants will draw nutrients... plants that feed other creatures, birds and insects among them. And so on, and so on. It is, as Disney so aptly put it, the Circle of Life... (although to be frank I'm okay with them not showing the part where Mustafa's body went on to nourish other creatures. Definitely okay with that...)

But the point I'm trying to make here is that there are truths and beauty and value in all kinds of texts, even ones we disagree with on basic principal. It's important to keep that in mind, and not shut down at the mention of something we don't think is "right". Because not a one of us is so wise that we've nothing left to learn, if only something so simple as how to express a truth we already know in a different manner.