One of my best childhood memories involves monarch butterflies. I believe I was in kindergarten when I first learned about the monarchs' life cycle: the caterpillar weaving himself a cocoon, taking a long nap, and waking up as a striking orange and black butterfly. I remember walking in the fields near our house to find milkweed for our classroom caterpillars. I vaguely remember harboring a few cocoons in mason jars and watching the life-cycle work its magic. Today, there are houses where those fields once attracted their brilliant summertime residents. The milkweed is gone, and sadly, so are the monarch butterflies.
I was blessed to grow up when I did, to have those afternoons tromping through milkweed-laden fields. In the years that followed, the demolition of the ecosystem behind my house became a harbinger of much graver destruction. Those breeding grounds and many others like it would be bulldozed or sprayed with pesticides, killing the caterpillars' lifeline and stymieing population growth. I saw this happen before my very eyes; what I did not see was the other half of the decimation. In recent years, monarch wintering grounds in Mexico have been subjected to landslides due to extensive logging. Additionally, climate change has affected the migratory patterns of butterflies, hindering their ability to survive the winters and reducing their chances of reproduction. And even if they do reproduce, their children will most likely starve in a world saturated with chemicals but devoid of sustenance.
Now, twenty-five years after my first monarch experience, I learn that 2015 may be the year when the dazzling monarch finds its way onto the endangered species list. In the past several days I've seen numerous articles predicting such a fate. Ironically, these articles showed up in the news only a few days after I'd finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Flight Behavior. The recent findings brought reality to a sad plot that first appeared in a work of fiction. The world is changing, and the treasures of my childhood will not be available to the generations that follow.
Kingsolver's story of the butterflies was woven into the story of Dellarobia, a young woman trapped in a life that was too small for her. When butterflies appeared by the millions on her in-law's farm in Tennessee, her world was expanded and transformed. Global warming and environmental degradation had led to the loss of the butterflies' winter habitat in Mexico, so they chose a mountainside in Tennessee, which was far too cold to sustain life until spring. The researchers that migrated with the butterflies opened up Dellarobia's eyes, not only to possibilities that lay beyond the four walls of her small home, but also to the fallacies of the conservative right. She was challenged to think, to dialogue, and she realized that life's questions do not always have neatly-packaged answers - at least, not the answers we want to hear. Her tight-knit, conservative community centered around a revered pastor named Bobby Ogle. Her husband's family, and most of her friends followed him blindly. When he wasn't around to tell them what to think, they tuned in to the conservative media outlets. Thus, when the butterflies landed in the mountains nearby, they believed it was a miraculous act of God, not a perilous consequence of global warming.
What I love about Barbara Kingsolver is that she's able to deconstruct this mentality without totally dismissing the people that she's criticizing. As a native of Appalachia herself, one could ascertain that these characters are indeed her own friends and neighbors. I too grew up in a poor, rural community, and fell prey to the teachings that put Scripture at odds with science. Those who espouse this anti-science mentality often surround themselves with speakers and pundits who echo the views they've heard from the pulpit. Yet one of the reasons why Kingsolver has become my own literary role model, is because she recognizes that people are a product of their environment. She understands complexity. In areas where good schools are not available it is difficult to break the chains. In communities where education is lacking, such things as science are deemed "the enemy" and intellectuals are often viewed with suspicion. Dellarobia is the only member of the community to bridge the gap between the locals and the research team that comes to study the butterflies. Even she struggles to trust them, and understands that they too are products of their environment. They are products of homes that could afford computers. The graduate students she befriends grew up in neighborhoods with good schools and access to universities. They did not grow up in homes where parents had to struggle to provide basic necessities, where books were a luxury, often coming second-hand and out-of-date. As Dellarobia grapples with the close-minded nature of her community, she astutely perceives that all sides have a tendency to hover near their own kind, at one point realizing that, "Nobody truly decided for themselves. There was too much information. What they actually did was scope around, decide who was looking out for their clan, and sign on for the memos on a wide array of topics." I read this and immediately chuckled, feeling keenly guilty of the same tendency. (I regularly joke about the fact that the NPR reporters are my best friends. They come with me in the car, they talk to me while I'm making dinner; I laugh at all their lame puns, and download the podcasts whenever I miss a show. They are indeed "my clan.")
As Dellarobia begins to step outside the mold she is often ostracized by her own community and her own family. But for her, the truth of the butterflies was far more important. What was once a thing of beauty has now become a dire warning. Knowing the truth causes her to question her faith, her marriage, and her path in life.
Like most good books, these questions are left unresolved. In fact, I've written my own little "happy-ending" in my head (my apologies to Barabara Kingsolver). I too have considered the gap between science and religion, but come to find that it is not very difficult to bridge. I've never been content with the "God works in mysterious ways" explanation that seemed to quell Bobby Ogle's congregation. God works rationally, scientifically, and purposefully. And He's given us a brain. I think He intends for us to use it.
So whether you're a fundamentalist Christian or a atheistic hippie - or a little bit of both - please understand, science is not our enemy. It is not morally good or bad. Sometimes it's messy, sometimes experiments are done poorly, and sometimes the wrong conclusions are drawn. However, more often than not, science gives us answers. What we do with those answers determines the morality of our lives and our societies. Science has allowed child mortality rates to decrease exponentially and it has allowed us to live longer, more productive lives (vaccines rock!). Unfortunately, science has also allowed us to ravage the earth in ways that God never intended. Instead of being stewards of the plants and animals He created, we all too often dominate the earth abusively. Yes, science has allowed us to grow bigger, tastier crops with less natural predators, but at the expense of some of God's most beautiful artwork (i.e. monarch butterflies). God has given us dominance over the plants and the animals, but does that mean chickens should live in cages with no room to turn around or stretch their limbs? (props to California for getting this question right!) God has given us this earth and the responsibility to care for it. Unfortunately, we have replaced this God-ordained responsibility with one of our own design: the quest for profit. This is yet another reason why I believe Christ would not condone modern capitalism.
No, we're not all farmers, but we all eat and we all consume electricity. Perhaps we could drive less, and use our gas savings to pay a little more for free-range eggs. Perhaps we could frequent farmer's markets and seek out pesticide-free produce. If everyone were to adjust just a few elements of their daily routine, perhaps the monarchs will survive to be studied by another generation of eager schoolchildren.
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