Providence by Daniel Quinn Read Free Book Online Page B

million years, we’ve taken the substance of the world and made it into human flesh for three million years, and willy-nilly the world has taken that flesh back for three million years and redistributed it through the entire web of life on this planet.
    Where would you draw a line between the human and nonhuman worlds? To which world does the wheat in our fields belong? If it belongs to the human world, what about the thousands of species that thrive in and around the wheat—and the tens of thousands of other species that thrive in and around them? It doesn’t even make sense to say that this house belongs to the human world. Carpenter ants and termites are making a meal of it as we speak, I can assure you of that, and it would be a miracle if there weren’t some moths in there snacking on our sweaters. The walls are inhabited by hundreds of different insects (most of which, thankfully, we never see), and funguses, molds, and bacteria flourish by the thousands on every surface.
    No, it’s nonsense to try to find two worlds here that can be separated into human and nonhuman. Biological and philosophical nonsense.
    I’m not only not a lover of what is commonly called nature, I’m not even a lover of the outdoors. You can’t see much of it right now, in the middle of the night, but there’s a regular jungle right outside those windows.Make your way through that jungle for about twenty feet—more or less straight down—and you’ll come to a lovely little stream. I’m sure it’s lovely, though I’ve never seen it. I’ve never traveled those twenty feet, and I doubt if I ever will. I bless the stream and wish it well. I don’t need to see it to do that.
    I give you this background so you can appreciate this fact: For my first three weeks at Gethsemani, I was kept inside. I mean I didn’t set a foot outside for even a moment—and was completely content not to set a foot outside. It was a constant round of chapel, classroom, refectory, chapel, cell, chapel, classroom, refectory, chapel, cell. The weather may have conspired in this, I don’t remember. I didn’t even notice that I’d been indoors for three weeks, wasn’t thinking about it at all, when one evening after we’d talked, Merton said, “I think it’s time you went outside.”
    One evening Merton said, “I think it’s time you went outside.”
    I stared at him blankly. I’d practically forgotten that there was such a thing as outside. Father Louis explained that the next morning he and the novices would be going out to perform various chores, and I could come along and gather kindling.
    Go out and gather kindling? What a marvelous idea! I, the non-nature-lover and nonoutdoorsman, was suddenly enchanted by the prospect of standing out under the open sky and breathing in the chilly spring air. Suddenly I was sick to death of books and walls, stale air and electriclights, hard floors and chairs. Suddenly I was overcome by a longing to hear wind in the trees, to see birds in the sky.
    The next morning I woke up breathless, literally bursting with anticipation, though of course there were all sorts of things to get through first, like Mass and breakfast and our first class of the day. Finally, when the class was over, Father Louis came over and told me I could stay behind and read while he and the others went to change into work clothes. I’d be going out in my usual clothes, a sport coat and flannel trousers.…
    Why didn’t I change as well? Well, let me see. How to explain it? I didn’t have any work clothes of my own to change into, and the others weren’t changing into jeans or overalls or anything like that, they were changing into Trappist work clothes. In other words, they were exchanging an indoor religious costume for an outdoor religious costume, and since I was still a postulant, I couldn’t join them in that.
    Even so …? Yes, that’s an interesting question. Even if I wasn’t changing clothes, what was the point of my staying