I had to laugh. In a conversation I was having with a friend of mine about raising pack goats we talked about nutrition, training, and the infrastructure it takes to keep the goats in top shape and corralled. I ran through the extensive list of my failures when in came to keeping a, flower hungry goat, from ransacking my wife's flowers. It's amazing how one can stay motivated to fix a problem when their are manicured flowers and a wife involved.
Goats are super smart and extremely bull headed...if they want to get into something they will eventually find a way. They will push themselves, even to death at times, to get what they want. It's a great trait for packing on the trail, but really sucks when you are trying to keep them from eating everything that's considered civilized.
My goats are even more extreme being the athletes of the goat world, as they have to follow me through elk country. We rely on their bullish resolve, athletic build, and agility to get our gear up the mountain. Adding all of these things together becomes a recipe for escape that even Houdini couldn't match. All of the traditional goat keeping methods became a riddle that were easily solved by my industrious packers. The "No Climb" fencing was climbed. Tall fencing was jumped. Wood fencing was chewed. I was at my wits end until I realized that I had to make a lasting impression, one that would take their will away.
After all the tpost driving, latch building, and hole fixing the answer came to me like lighting in a little white wire.
I bet the goats would remember a shocking experience as well as a climbing one!
So I went to work, surrounded the top of the climbed on, noclimb fencing with a poly/wire strand and hooked it to a solar charger. A device that would deliver a high voltage shock to whatever grounded it. All I had to do was hide and watch. I didn't have to wait long, Bow (my string lead) started his usual routine, he sniffed his way to the area of the fence that he used as a ladder. Step by step he climbed until the meaty side of his neck grounded the fence. The voltage popped, sending a charge that could be physically seen in Bow's reaction, he turned in mid air and ran back to the barn. One by one each of the goats had to test the fence, but after two or three shocks they decided that the entire fence was evil, and that it might grab them if they get within a foot of it. Their memory is so good, and resolve so solid that I don't even have to keep the fence charger on anymore, as the goats act as if they are breaking some ethics code if they get within a foot of it. With careful observation and a bending of my will, I used the goats charistics agianst them, and was no longer in the goathouse with my wife.
So why was I amused by the conversation with my friend? I was amused at how much he thought he knew about goats. He had been so intrigued by the idea of pack goats that he spent had spent a huge amount of time researching how to raise and care for pack goats, knew all the text book answers about their care, even suggested that I may have bought the wrong "no climbed fencing." That wasn't what I found amusing, as I often catch myself nerding out over ideas that catch my attention. No, what amused me was how he went on and on about all the books he's read, all the goat experts he talked to and he cited studies off the top of his head. He even concluded that his knowledge about packgoats surpassed most in the goat packing community. He was truly impressive, a real wealth of knowledge, but also amusing as he didn't own goats, and has never even been around them other than docile plump pygmies at a petting Zoo. It was also amusing to watch the arrogance of ignorance. All of his theories and scientifically proven methods work great on paper, in a controlled research environment, but rarly include the varriables lived out in real life. They say "knowledge puffet up," and boy howdy does it. So much so, that I couldn't get a word in edge wise. He was so busy pontificating that I couldn't get a word in, to tell him that I had read the same studies and tried the methods he quoted. All I could do is think, once you lived with goats you'll understand.
With the overbearing emphasis of higher education and the advent of the internet, culture looks a lot like this story. Information and the "ology" of it has created a bunch of people who are more impressed with their knowledge of a subject, than the actual subject itself. They have replaced what is, with what could be. Theories that work in a petrie dish, but fail in the enormity of what it means to be alive.
The "ologies" of this post modern culture, biology, siciology, and even theology have become the objects of worship. They are the new neopagan gods of old reborn. They claim authority over God. They usurp authority over defining gender, race, and morals...even everyday life. The Idol worship of carnal human knowledge has created a culture that glorifies the physical human brain that's trapped in books, theories and systems. An Idol that presupposes that thought is a product of a machine, and anything that doesn't fit in that mold is hocus pokus.
The problem is that's not human. It's not reality. It a tapestry of lies. Its an idol that tries to close the universe. It's decieving toung lacks any answers to life's biggest questions. It yells obscenities to drown out the still small voice that tells us what and how to think. It slaughters the spiritual.
This is where we find ourselves in 2023. Just a bunch of people filled with useless, or even worse yet, dangerous knowledge living in a closed universe created by carnal man... and its driving us insane. We can't live completely inside man made philosophical theories, or the what ifs, as such things are only half of what we are made of...the portion of dirt.
No, to be truly human we have to venture into the metaphysical, the experiential, spiritual man. The Breath of God part. A real part of us that resides outside of the data and numbers. The part of us that lives in intuition, love, and morality. The part of us that drives us to the connection to why of all the why's, and to the summit of all definitions. The part of us that drives the rest.
We have been conditioned to drive our truth from the observations of a incomplete and sick world. Like a expert with no goats we beat our heads, trying to mold reality to our will, wondering why the goats are out and reeking havoc. We have thrown out the main ingredient... the substance! The Owner! The shaper of reality itself. We keep building fences while our goats are amuck, and then blame the holes on eachother. All the while bellowing to the government, laws, or institutions to save us, but they are helpless as they are as lacking as us. We call for revolution, yet basing it on the same quick sand of our own ideas that got us here. If we don't come back to the definer of everything we can define nothing. If we can't define anything...our goats will continue to eat the flowers until there is no beauty left.
Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Rom 8:7 (NKJV)
Rom 8:7 NKJV -
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.