Thursday January 20, 2022
“My wife keeps getting younger,” friend Bob bragged the other day. “Since I married her, she’s had a new hip, a new knee, a new kidney, and a new shoulder.”
He was joking, of course. But it’s no joke. Most people my age have replaced some of our original equipment with spare parts. I have a titanium elbow. Another friend walks on two artificial knees and two artificial hips.
And almost all of us benefit from eyeglasses, hearing aids, and enhanced teeth.
I read an essay, years ago, that wondered what the boundary was between human and artificial. How many parts of the body can be replaced before we lose our identity as individual human beings?
A couple of weeks ago, news reports gushed about a man who had received a pig’s heart. Is he still fully human? How about the many people who have been kept alive with mechanical hearts – are they still fully human?
Is a Buick still a Buick if it has a Chevrolet engine?
Continuous replacement
Science is no help here. Because not one of us still has all our original parts. According to research, the human body replaces itself every seven to ten years. Totally. Except for some brain cells.
Skin cells wear off and rejuvenate every few weeks. Liver cells, every year or so. Bones, every ten years.
The fastest turnover happens with stomach cells, which spend their lives in an acid bath.
Interestingly, I gather, cells have their own memories. People with total amnesia still know how to turn a doorknob, climb stairs, or even talk. They have muscle memory, if not mental memory.
No one has transplanted a brain. Yet.
The How Stuff Works webpage says that “Some areas of the brain, like the olfactory bulb that helps us smell and the hippocampus that helps us learn, can and do rejuvenate. But the cerebral cortex -- the brain's outside layer that governs memory, thought, language, attention and consciousness -- stays with us from birth to death. Because these cells aren't replaced, their loss over time can cause maladies like dementia.”
Dementia – and strokes – tend to affect mainly short-term memory. A late friend didn’t know who I was, but she could remember details of the church camp she went to as a child.
“The great thing about having a stroke,” another friend assured me, “is that we can have this conversation again in half an hour and it will all be new to me.”
Artificial intelligence gurus claim that an entire lifetime of a human’s memory could be stored on a computer chip. Would that make the chip human?
What makes us human?
Setting aside religious dogmas and ancient creation stories, what does make us human? Maybe it’s the ability to ask that question.
It’s not our individual inventory of cells that makes each of us human. The inventory keeps changing. I am not the same body I was ten years ago.
It’s the continuity of those cells, the unbroken progression of life that makes me who I am. Just as it’s the continuity of a community that makes it a community.
That’s worth celebrating. I’m not wearing out as I grow older. I am constantly being renewed!
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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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Your turn
Judging by the responses to last week’s column, every reader but one found the “caveats” about Christianity entertaining. A few even found them insightful.
Barb Taft: “Very witty and also true. Thanks for the chuckle.”
Karen Toole: “That was an incredible piece of writing. It was beyond humour in that it made me laugh, read in awe, and cry. After a lifetime in various forms of various ways to share spiritual health care, I have concluded that religions, and in particular Christianity, are toxins; we spend most of our lives trying at least to turn it from poison to a healing substance. Sometimes one wonders if rescuing the bible, defending God, examining the sins of scripture, finding original blessing and reclaiming Jesus has had any real effect. Maybe the smile message we should be about is ‘Don't swallow it!’”
Lutheran pastor Jim Henderschedt: “You left no stone unturned with this one. I found myself chuckling while thinking, ‘Preach on, brother, preach on.’ And, you sly guy, I even saw reflections of myself. I guess you hit the nail on its head once again.”
Vic Sedo, also Lutheran: “I don't think you missed a thing. Your column should be nailed onto every religious building’s front door -- a new 95 Theses.”
Frank Martens, who describes himself as an atheist: “You spoiled your whole column on ‘Beware of Christianity’ with the closing paragraph that suggested that we ‘take Christianity regularly’.”
Tom Watson added “One more caveat: Be cautious when confronted by a new thought that conflicts with something you've always believed; it can lead to changing your mind, which can be quite destabilizing.”
Wayne Irwin thought of a caveat for a different industry: “I am reminded of the many ads for investment companies - who, it seems to me, should also caution: ‘Please ask your doctor if giving all your money to us will be good for you!’”
Isabel Gibson: “As my husband is fond of saying (usually when I'm complaining about something), ‘Nothing is all good or all bad.’ My father (a lifelong church member) used to say that there was a good case that organized religion had done more harm than good.
“But it is a bit startling to see its associated caveats actually spelled out . . .”
I’m still getting mail about two past columns: the one about lost causes still being worthwhile, and the one about shedding sentimental tears. Even though I’m not printing those letters, I do appreciate hearing your views – and your experiences.
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Psalm paraphrase
According to my records, I have used this paraphrase of Psalm 19 more often than any other single paraphrase.
1 Quarks and electrons, crystals and cells;
stems and trunks and limbs and bodies--
2 on the land, in the water, in the air--
the elements of the universe wait to expand our understanding.
3 Rocks have no words, nor do cells have syllables,
4 yet their message can be read anywhere.
Even the fiery stars,
5 racing at unimaginable speeds through space,
6 yield their secrets to those willing to probe the limits of God's universe.
7 And what do they find?
An underlying harmony, a delicate equilibrium
built on the value of every thing,
living or inanimate, past, present, and future.
8 There are no exceptions.
No one is above the law of interdependence.
9 Life dies and becomes new life;
spirit and flesh are one.
My fate is inextricably linked to yours,
and our fate to the trees and insects.
10 This is the beginning of wisdom.
It is better than wealth, more valuable than possessions.
11 Awareness of it will change us forever.
12 But we are too often blind;
we close our ears to the voices of the winds and the waves,
to the insights of the rocks and the plants.
13 God, keep us from thinking we know it all;
human minds cannot encompass eternity;
an assembly of facts does not equal truth.
14 Keep us open to wonder, to beauty, to mystery,
O greatest of mysteries.
You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.