A Different Perspective on Evolution
By the time you read this, I will already be a few days into a practice I started a few years ago. I am not really sure about the number of times I’ve read and/or listened to the entire Bible in a year. When I began that again a few days ago, I was, as you might expect, reading the biblical account of creation.
Coincidentally, a few days earlier I was thumbing through the pages of a Bible that belonged to my late father. He had made a practice of writing notes in the margins of the text of scripture, but he also used just about any space he could find to write some of his thoughts and/or material he had found elsewhere. Along with all of those handwritten notes, he had even paperclipped some notes he had found to a page in the back of his Bible. What follows below was on one of those paperclipped notes.
I’ve done a little research and found that what you are about to read was originally written “sometime around 1923.” Since my father would have been eleven years old then, I’m fairly certain that he was not the original author. Due to the fact that I found it in his Bible, though, l think that he at least deserves credit for that. I’ve found that there are some minor changes in various versions of the poem, but, to me, what is reproduced below is the “official version” because of where I found it.
I think that you might agree with me that what you are about to read is a different perspective on evolution. Not only that, but it is for me some real food for thought.
THE MONKEY’S VIEWPOINT
Two monkeys sat in a coconut tree
Discussing things as they’re said to be.
Said one to the other, “Now, listen you;
There’s a certain rumor that can’t be true.
That man descended from our noble race.
That very idea – that’s a real disgrace.
No monkey ever deserted his wife,
Starved her babies, or ruined her life.
And you’ve never known a mother monk
To leave her babies with others to bunk
Or pass them on from one to another
‘Til they hardly know who is their mother.
And another thing you’ll ever see
A monkey build his house around a coconut tree
And let the coconuts go to waste
Forbidding all other monks to taste.
Why, if I built a fence around this tree,
Starvation would force you to steel from me.
Another thing a monkey won’t do
Is go out at night and get on a stew
And use a gun, or club, or knife
To take another monkey’s life.
Yes, man descended – the ornery cuss,
But, brother, he didn’t descend from us!!!”
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
