I saw a video the other day, taken by someone from his front door during Hurricane Sandy. It showed a good-sized shark swimming around his front yard. “Farewell and adieu to ye fair Spanish ladies…”
All right, it was a freak flood caused by a major hurricane, not Jaws‘ revenge. But one of my buddies from Chessgames.com, who lives in the Netherlands, reported a national freak-out this summer when a wolf turned up in Holland. (Full story at http://phys.org/news/2013-08-wolf-netherlands-scientists.html )
There’s hardly any wildlife left in Holland, he says. “People are excited when they see an occasional squirrel–or sometimes even a rabbit. Anything larger will induce various degrees of panic.”
Well, at least one scientist thinks there might be a small population of wolves in the Netherlands, probably having migrated there from Eastern Europe. In the hypersuburban town where I live, a bear turned up last summer. Uh-oh.
Those of you who’ve been reading my Bell Mountain novels know that the return of exotic, dangerous wildlife to lands inhabited by civilized nations is a sign that God is going to change the world.
Sharks in this one’s front yard, a bear in that one’s back yard, and wolves wandering among the windmills…
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Lee, Is the idea of “the return of exotic, dangerous wildlife to lands inhabited by civilized nations is a sign that God is going to change the world” one you originated for your series or is it based on a prophesy in scripture somewhere?
It’s a little bit of both. It was inspired by prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah describing places like Babylon, Nineveh, and Jerusalem in a state of desolation, inhabited by man no more, but by an assortment of wildlife. That, of course, only happens after God’s wrath falls on these cities.
It was also inspired by a lifelong hunger to see prehistoric animals alive. God created them, so in some important way, they must have been good. Why, then, did God ordain extinction for so many life-forms? The more I grappled with that question, the more I came to wonder whether, in removing them from the earth we know, God simply put them somewhere else in the universe. No scriptural support for that! It’s just my own wishful thinking.
And so, in writing a fantasy in which the power of God is very visibly active in the fantasy world, I hit upon the motif of animals, of a generally prehistoric gestalt, returning to countries from which they had long since vanished. To me it would be a symbol of renewal, of redemption–the overall theme of this series of novels.
I would love to see how readers respond to that motif–but no one has written about that yet.
Lee, have often pondered that question myself..but..have over the last seven decades arrived at the conclusion that God created all of these prehistoric creatures and growths as a “preparation” for the Earth as we know it..much as you and I would “fertilize of put foundation material” in our garden. EVERYTHING has a meaning or purpose in His plans…even the little atoms and virus. Whenever I view a skelton of one of these hugh beasts…I stand in wonder, at the magic of His Hand!
Please..”Hurry up Jesus”!!
Amen! We can’t hold out much longer.