Rodent Regatta

It hasn’t changed since Adam and Eve, since Cain slew Abel or since David slew Goliath. You wonder what kind of trash talking Abel must have been doing that made Cain resort to ”taking him out to the field.” Here’s how the story goes:

Abel was a herdsman and Cain a farmer. Time passed. Cain brought an offering to God from the produce of his farm. Abel also brought an offering, but from the firstborn animals of his herd, choice cuts of meat. God liked Abel and his offering, but Cain and his offering didn’t get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk. God spoke to Cain: ”Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you’ve got to master it.”

Cain had words with his brother. They were out in the field; Cain came at Abel his brother and killed him. God said to Cain, ”Where is Abel your brother?” He said, ”How should I know? Am I his babysitter?” Genesis 4:2b-9 The Message

Do you know people like this? Caught up in jealousy, they lash out. Caught in a wrong, they lie. Can’t you just hear Abel? Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, God likes me the best! Cain may have simply gotten fed up! As Barney Fife said, ”Sick and tired…”

Now fast forward to Goliath’s trashtalking:

Goliath stood there and called out to the Israelite troops, ”Why bother using your whole army? Am I not Philistine enough for you? And you’re all committed to Saul, aren’t you? So pick your best fighter and pit him against me. If he gets the upper hand and kills me, the Philistines will all become your slaves. But if I get the upper hand and kill him, you’ll all become our slaves and serve us. I challenge the troops of Israel this day. Give me a man. Let us fight it out together!” 1 Samuel 17:8-10 The Message

Then, when presented with the boy who would fight him, Goliath pops off again:

As the Philistine paced back and forth, his shield bearer in front of him, he noticed David. He took one look down on him and sneered – a mere youngster, apple-cheeked and peach-fuzzed. The Philistine ridiculed David. ”Am I a dog that you come after me with a stick?” And he cursed him by his gods. ”Come on,” said the Philistine. ”I’ll make roadkill of you for the buzzards. I’ll turn you into a tasty morsel for the field mice.” David answered, ”You come at me with sword and spear and battle-ax. I come at you in the name of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel’s troops, whom you curse and mock. 1 Samuel 17:41-45 The Message

Some of you thought trash talking originated in the NFL or NBA. Not a chance. Human nature hasn’t changed one iota since the beginning of time. Sure, we value our trappings, power and prestige, but so did Cain and so did Goliath. We may think that with all of our knowledge, all of our prosperity and all of our focus on getting ahead, we’re somehow better. We’re not. We suffer from the same frail ego that caused the original sin. For those who don’t know that last story, the boy with the slingshot needed a single stone to end that fight once and for all.

We spend way too much time on all the wrong things. We work too much. We fight too much. We argue too much. We strive too much. We complain too much. We’ve lost the ability to find and hold onto serenity.

In 1670 Blaise Pascal wrote: ”I have discovered that all man’s unhappiness derives from only one source—not being able to sit quietly in a room.”

Someone clever then remarked, ”I have discovered that all man’s unhappiness derives from one source-not being able to lock certain people in a quiet room.”

A good friend emailed this to me this week:

I feel exactly like…the Romans must have felt right before the empire went off the cliff. I read something by I believe Col. North the other day that the greatest strategist today is Osama bin Laden. He sees our internal decay, our discarding of our religious roots, our great expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan, our spreading ourselves thin militarily, the growing power of China, the high birth rate of our Moslem enemies, the radical black Moslems who are ”graduating” from our prison systems (due, I might add, to our insane drug war), our growing Moslem population, and the dedication that our enemies have to their cause. He sees the grand sweep of history and believes that time is on the side of our enemies.

Wow! That sums it up. If we don’t find a way to turn things; if we don’t find a way to suspend our focus on ourselves long enough to see the bigger picture; if we continue to try to one up one another, the thread of history will lead us to that same cliff that sent Rome to its doom.