I know that this man, the person with the highest leverage to destroy our planet, has described himself as a “stable genius.” His closest colleague in destruction, we are told, is some sort of Mars-bound savant from South Africa. His V.P. is a Yale-trained lawyer who knows how to play the long game. I can ascribe intelligence to this man, but only if we describe it as “animal intelligence,” as cunning. It’s not the wisdom that is described in Scripture. It’s more whatever documentarian Werner Herzog saw in the eyes of the grizzly bear that killed the deluded and tragic Timothy Treadwell.
In the 2005 film Grizzly Man, Herzog examines Treadwell’s life and the grizzly attack on October 5, 2003 that killed him and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, while in Katmai National Park in Alaska. Treadwell was a bear enthusiast, and in his saner moments, a true conservationist. He had shot more 100 hours of video footage of himself in grizzly territory over the course of multiple summers. This meant that Treadwell also captured his growing delusion: a false sense of security that he would be okay with these creatures because he loved them so deeply, and in fact longed to become one of them. “Very late in the process of editing this film,” Herzog’s narrator’s voice says, “we were given access to Treadwell’s last video tape. Here he may have filmed his murderer. The killer bear we know was a male whom years earlier the park service had anaesthetized. They extracted a tooth which established him as being 28 at the time of the attack, quite old for a bear. They also tagged him by a tattoo on his inner lip. They had given him a number only, 141. Bear 141, that's all we know of him.” The scene on that final videotape changes to a bear in the water. “And here, could this one be bear 141?” Herzog asks. “What looks playful could be desperation. So late in the season, the bear is diving deep for one of the few remaining salmon carcasses at the bottom of the lake. Treadwell keeps filming the bear with a strange persistence.”
At this point, Herzog gives us his most profound commentary: “And what haunts me is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half- bored Interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a saviour.”
The next line: “Amie Huguenard was screaming.”
I’ve seen footage from the Oval Office similar to Bear 141’s: his torso hunched over, his red tie tangling between his legs, hands clasped before him, smirking for the cameras, barely aware of the other Head of State sitting in a chair next to him. Bear 45-47. (There’s biblical precedent for this: Jesus called Herod “that fox” in Luke 13:32). And so many of our family and friends, it seems, have no idea that they have devolved into the madness that was Timothy Treadwell's, or the collateral damage that was Amie Huguenard.
If we must call it intelligence, call it an animal cunning. If you call it wisdom, then please do what the editors of the New International Version of the Bible do: use air quotes in order to differentiate it from “the wisdom that comes down from heaven.”
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness (James 3:13-18).
I have a handwritten note taped up near my desk that gives me both guidance and hope in the multi-faceted struggle—including political—of the climate crisis. It is from Proverbs 21: 22: “One who is wise can go up against the city of the mighty and pull down the stronghold in which they trust.” This is our work. One of the advantages of doing this work during dark times is the clarity that comes with it. If you ever begin to doubt whether you have the wisdom needed to pit against their animal cunning, don’t worry about it. Concentrate instead on being pure, peace-loving, considerate, deferential to others, full of mercy, full of good fruit, impartial and sincere. These things make it almost impossible to miss the mark.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss,
On behalf of Climate Intercessors Leadership Team,
