Durham, North Carolina
One of the great delights of traveling alone is the opportunity to revisit childhood, that period of time when we discover the universe and become enchanted with all manner of things. So it was while traveling alone today I found myself curious about a Museum of Life sign on the Interstate; wanting a break from long-distance driving in 105 degree heat. A drive of barely one mile in a shady neighborhood brought me to a place obviously designed to tantalize small boys. The tiniest sniff of discomfiture wafted over me as I walked from a shady spot on the far side of an incendiary asphalt parking lot with a battalion of young mothers pushing strollers and yelling at pre-school children to ‘Stay by me!’. After all, what is a guy like me doing alone in a place like this, unsupervised?
So popular is this oasis of pediatric enchantment; I had to wait fifteen minutes to get a surprisingly expensive admission ticket. Conducting the barest amount of field anthropology, I noticed the large air-conditioned carpeted admissions hall gave the young mothers significant angst. Interesting exhibits in this hall give children things to look at while waiting through the maze typical of amusement parks. Mothers continually barked at would be explorers to ‘stay close.’ Mothers have instincts about dangerous wildlife nearby. After all, what is a guy like me doing alone in a place like this, unsupervised?
Did I really want to give two gold doubloons to feel like part of the edgy wildlife exhibit? Figuring I had already invested my energy to find this place and wait in line I proceeded with an electronic wire transfer from my bank and was admitted into another world. De rigueur in childhood is enchantment with bugs of every type. Sometimes I think the insect kingdom was invented just to give smalls boys something to be utterly fascinated with. The keepers of this life kingdom know this. Three buildings are given to the weirdness, beauty, and impossibilities of the six-legged kingdom. At least in this amazing display of the meanest six-legged eating machines young at-risk children were totally preoccupied with these astounding critters.
A boy still too young to have been taught free-floating fear was absolutely taken with a large plate-glass window containing thousands of Harvester ants, busy building a subterranean city of a hundred levels. My nameless little friend just had to show this below-ground wonder to someone. I happened to be nearby photographing the giant hissing cockroaches from Madagascar. No less than four or five times this young explorer insisted I leave the cockroaches and jump into the ant kingdom. No less than four or five times a hyper vigilant parent insisted this young explorer really wanted to look at something besides ants. After all, what is a guy like me doing alone in a place like this, unsupervised?
A large glassed conservatory contains a magnificent collection of tropical plants and clouds of tropical butterflies. One can almost reach out and sweep up clouds of color into one’s face. Beauty can be such an immersion experience. While trying to catch up on the childhood I never had myself, I noticed a very large Blue Morpho butterfly flitting about. Never being able to successfully photograph one in the Amazon, I was elated when it settled down on a large leaf and allowed me several minutes to take images with impunity. Several small children were fascinated with it and wanted to know its name. Happily, I told these fearless entomologists about Blue Morphos – how their brilliant blue is really a structural color and not a pigment. Alas, hyper-vigilant mothers hurriedly jerked them away. The lepidopteran colors lost just a bit of their brilliance for me. After all, what is a guy like me doing alone in a place like this, unsupervised?
Walking through life-size exhibits of dinosaurs in the forest, I felt a bit more at home. After all the exhibit was designed to display the giant, weird, and very dangerous forms of life that existed in the steamy Cretaceous Period. Torrid heat made the displays very realistic and perhaps mothers were slightly less vigilant out here. On the far side of the Cretaceous Period in the children’s interactive play area I knew better than to stop, loiter, or take pictures of kids living out their childhood dreams as paleontologists; digging for giant bones of the Alamosaurus. For certain, museum curators and zoo keepers do not want newspaper articles describing incidents of unplanned ‘wildlife’ being found in the predator exhibits. It would be disastrous for revenues and delay my journey home. After all, what is a guy like me doing alone in a place like this, unsupervised?
After several hours, feeling like it might be to the museum’s advantage to include me in their exhibits of dangerous predators, I wondered about something much more dangerous than big teeth, stingers, or claws – fear. Our culture has become infected with pervasive fear for personal safety. A single incident with a child is aired five hundred and thirty seven times on Fox News and all the young mothers in the YMCAs see it while exercising on the safety of exercise machines in controlled environments. Fear detonates in these mothers and the minute they get their children out of monitored childcare rooms their children learn a new way of living.
Young mothers do spread the word about danger to each other. Soon an epidemic has taken over the land. No long available are the sublime gifts of smiles given to strangers who want nothing more than to visit a childhood lost to alcoholism and drug addiction, to be enchanted by the wonder of life.
The most oft-repeated admonition in all of scripture is, “Be not fearful.” I once was told this admonition is given some 489 times. I’m not certain if this is an accurate count or not, but the point is well taken. As early as Genesis 15, scriptures admonish us to not be fearful. At the very end in Revelation 21, the fearful are cast in a pejorative light. Fear will steal far more from all of us than I could ever do, even if alone in a place like this, unsupervised.
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
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