A Precious Gift
In 2014, someone decided to make yet another movie about the biblical apocalypse of the great flood. They gathered Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson to play out the story of Noah. First interesting choice made by Director Darren Arofonsky, perhaps due to the presence on set of the fabled Sir Anthony Hopkins, the classical Shakespearean actor who trained under Sir Laurence Olivier and was guided by the craft of Sir Richard Burton, was to have Crowe (a Kiwi) and Connelly (who hails from the Catskills) to play the parts of Noah and his wife Naameh with British accents. Do we somehow think that Noah, the grandson of Methuselah and a guy starting a family at the age of 500 (good genes in that family, I guess) was of Anglo-Saxon descent? Whatever thinking drove that decision, it does seem to give a more historical feel to the saga.
The interesting thing about the story, which appears in the book of Genesis as well as the New Testament and even the Koran, and is even said to be taken in some way from the story of Lord Vishnu in Hinduism, is that it is a part of the religions of 70% of mankind. Of the rest of the human race, half of those simply have no religion, so it is fair to say that mankind has a need to believe in original sin and the ultimate punishment of man through its destruction by flood. The juxtapositioning of good versus evil in man is an inescapable theme that speaks to the same aspects of man that we have all seen and continue to see over and over. If only it was clear what constitutes good versus evil. The movie does a good job of portraying Noah as a flawed human being who is determined to do God’s bidding as he understands it. And the problem is that Noah must exercise harsh justice in the pursuit of what he feels is righteousness. As Tubal-Cain, a descendant of Cain, and thus a symbol of the evil of man, tells Noah’s second son, Ham, “Noah watches children drown in order to save beasts.” The story is so much more than a simple one of man’s salvation and the recreation of innocence. It is the more realistic and accurate portrayal of all the trade-offs that exist in the world that make the lines between good and evil less than clear.
There is a scene in the beginning of the movie, before the flood, where Noah reflects on the young girl who he and his family have saved and taken in. This is the girl Ila, who is matched with Noah’s eldest son, Shem and is the focus of the controversy of whether man is meant to survive of be punished through extinction. Noah has taken the view that his mission is to save creation by restoring the world with the beasts of the land, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, but not man. He has cast man as an evil failure of the Creator that is meant to perish upon completion of the task of recreating the world. Shem asks Noah why God chose him for this task if he is not the good man. His reply is classic when he says that God chose him because he knew he would finish the task. In other words, the end justifies the means. We are raised to believe that Noah was a source of goodness and now we are forced to see that Noah was just a man, and as such, was not capable of standing in judgement of mankind. All very confusing in an ethical sense.
I generally do not consider myself a religious man though I have spent my time over the years studying the Bible. I am not sure that those who wrote the Bible (and I think we all understand that the authorship goes well beyond Christ’s Apostles), whether the Prophets, the Sages, the Historians, the Scribes or God himself, thought through the complexity of the moral dilemmas that seem present in the story of Noah and the flood. I would like to think this did not all rest on Darren Arofonsky, as good and moral a man as he may be, but was some sort of collective wisdom of the ages, gathered into a meaningful story to give us all some degree of understanding about the challenges of the human condition.
Today on the road as I was riding my motorcycle back up to my hilltop, I saw a car with a load of bumper stickers on it. The one that jumped out at me said “Vote With Kindness”. For some reason, it seemed meaningful to me in this election week. In the aftermath of the election, there has been a growing number of comments from all quarters, as you might expect with a largely uncertain outcome that seems to have been less dramatically Republican than expected, or at least touted by the media and the rabid parts of the Republican Party. These moments seem so much harder than they used to be. There is a vehemence and obstinance to everyone’s position. Everyone is unmoved by any arguments from the other side, and the strangest thing seems to be that the arguments don’t seem to be the guiding principles being followed, but rather just which side everyone’s on. Kindness, no matter how many times it gets invoked, does not appear to be a compelling argument under the circumstances.
This is how my discussion goes with my most red friends. They say they want less government. We hear that echoed near and far, including from people like Elon Musk, who says on Twitter, his new personal megaphone where you are not allowed to imitate him without declaring it a parody (as Kathy Griffin has just learned as she got a lifetime ban for doing so), that he wants a red wave to keep a separation of congressional and executive branch power so that the government is immobilized. This has become a common war cry of Republicans who think ANY government is bad. I find myself wondering if that means that with a dominantly republican congress, they will work against a Republican presidency. I’m guessing that Lindsey Graham will stand up and explain why we all misunderstood that whole concept when and if that time comes.
I send the recent good news on inflation and they ignore it. They then brag about the DeSantis win in Florida and when I acknowledge the Florida red wave, they think I mean the results aren’t valid and remind me that they have voter ID in Florida (methinks they do protest too much). They then suggest that Florida has it right about voting implying that at least they get same-day results (I guess they think I’m in favor of the Arizona, Nevada and Georgia approach). When I declare my dislike that Ron Johnson and JD Vance won in their races (notice I did not deny anything), the retort is that I have a a half-dead President in Biden and a senator that can’t talk (referring to Fetterman, who they call “Hoodie”). I wonder what Michele Obama says about them going low when I went high. I suggest that they are both moral men, unlike many elected Republicans. The retort is that I would think Johnson and Vance moral if they were Democrats.
The discussion devolves into why policies should not matter more than character, but they claim that disruption is needed and character is somehow secondary. From there we further sink into a debate about whether January 6th was an insurrection or a mere protest. When we get through that (unresolved) we find ourselves back at them wanting less government and me wanting more kindness and humanity that can only come from government. They do not feel government can create kindness and humanity, they believe it can only come from people and a belief in a higher power. Wow! After a federalist versus state’s rights debate we are back to the no-government versus good-government stalemate. What a journey. That is when I see Noah admit to his adopted daughter that he cannot follow his perception of God’s will and kill her and his newborn granddaughters to punish mankind because they are a precious gift from God and that just cannot be right. If only every Republican could go through whatever Noah went through and figure out what is most precious in life rather than searching for a higher power.