My father-in-law is notorious for watching the Nature channel. I love this about him. If you wander into the den to find him sitting in his easy chair watching t.v., he’s doubtless got the Nature channel on, or some sort of documentary about wildlife of some sort. I find this infinitely admirable: a great way to have some down-time while still learning a thing or two or even just reinforcing your respect for our environment.
A few years ago we rented Winged Migration, an exquisitely filmed documentary about the migratory journeys of different varieties of birds. It was stunning visually and with regard to content: the distances some of those birds traveled, the hardships they endured, the losses they suffered were Really Something.
For Christmas last year we received The March of the Penguins, and this, too, is epic. The cinematography is truly beautiful. I found myself marveling at the persistent existence of Antarctica with its shifting seasons and winds. That this alien environment shared space with our relatively cozy continent seemed untrue at best; that it could support life in the form of such unlikely birds seemed stranger still.
Recently my family and I have been enjoying Planet Earth, a documentary series featuring different biomes from around the globe. The first episode was a bit of a revisit of Penguins: it dwelt on the coldest regions of the earth and, in this study, explored the life of the emperor penguin.
But this time, as I watched it and listened to Sigourney Weaver’s languid tones describe and praise and warn about this wildlife, I got just a little annoyed. The penguins, she was telling me (as had Freeman in Penguins), were enduring the coldest and most violent storms on earth. They were starving. They were struggling to survive. They were, in all truth (she warned me) having a Perfectly Dreadful Time.
And how could I doubt that? Indeed, I had not doubted it until this particular viewing when I became, as I said, a bit indignant.
Why? I’ll tell you.
I am a tree-hugger. Not a die-hard tree-hugger, but I’ll take any concern you might present re. man’s flippant or even detrimental action on the environment seriously. I think God really meant it when, in Genesis 2 (or is it 1?) He basically handed All Of His Creation over to us (mankind) to care for and look after. And I think that, by and large, we’ve been pretty insensitive and uncareful and a bit cavalier about this particular task. Happily, His creation has the remarkable ability to “bounce back,” but we shouldn’t mistake His skill for our wisdom, discretion, or, even, obedience.
The thing is that I can be pretty easily manipulated by documentaries. You can– without trying all that hard– make me tear up over an elephant calf who loses its mother. When the polar bear is out hunting for walrus, I don’t know who to root for. Yeah, I’m a little sentimental that way.
So when Sigourney (or Morgan) starts bemoaning the agonizing cold that the penguins suffer, or the incredible journey that they undertake, or the horrors of their miserable, starving experience down there in Antarctica, I’m all ready to feel sorry for the penguins. I am.
But this last time, as I said, I started becoming indignant. I got wise. What the heck, Sigourney? Why are you trying to make me feel bad about this? This is where the penguins live. This is what the penguins are supposed to do. They don’t feel bad about it. This is what they’ve always done and, if left well enough alone, this is what they’ll continue doing. It’s a system that we wouldn’t choose if you paid us (unless you are paying us enough to make a really stellar documentary film), but it Works Well For The Penguins.
Tonight we watched an episode in which a mother humpback whale was keeping her newborn (10 feet long, 1 ton in weight) in the warm and safe waters of the equator. But, we were warned, the mother was starving. Starving.
I don’t know. I’m thinking that Mother Humpback knows instinctively Exactly What She Is Doing. I’m thinking that, like any mother, she’s perfectly happy to let her food get cold while she’s making certain that her baby is well fed. She knows where her dinner is, and she’ll get to it when it’s time.
I do feel bad about the continued whale-hunting that’s going on in the world, but I’m not worried at all about this humpback, and I don’t think I should be.
I guess I could always ask my father-in-law.
