People Injured in Fish Attack

Yes, you read that title correctly. According to CNN, 70 people were attacked by carnivorous fish while swimming in an Argentine river. The fish, apparently, is related to the piranha. Interestingly enough, the name of the river that is home to these flesh eating fish...Parana, different spelling, same pronunciation! Not exactly a river I'd be prone to diving into but the article says that it's a busy spot this time of year as it's summer in Argentina.

Thankfully, no one was killed; though a little girl did lose part of her pinky finger, and the picture in the article shows a man with a nice chunk out of one of his toes. This incident happened on Christmas day but the president of a local fisherman's group and the sub-secretary of Natural Resources all played down the incident saying it's only an occasional thing. As in: occasionally you'll go swimming here and flesh-eating fish might decide to take a nibble, no biggie! I bet it's a big deal for the 7 year old missing a part of an appendage.

So, here I am reading about these fish attacking people and I'm wondering if perhaps believers should be a little more aggressive in their attempts to reach people with the Gospel. Not that I am saying we should go up and take a bite out of them but neither should we be hiding behind our bumper stickers and cross necklaces. There's got to be more to us; our lives should be a little bit more impactful, putting holes in non-believers' comfort zones. Being so radically pure, kind, patient and loving that people are thrown off by our presence; that our differences infiltrate their happy little apathy, their blissful ignorance, and the Light we shed on them leaves them bleeding for a Healer so that our Savior can swoop in and rescue them from the world's piranha field.


I know I'm a little off; I never claim to be anything but. So, when I see the whole fish attack from a Spiritual perspective it's so much bigger than the ichthus swallowing the Darwin footed fish; it's a full on assault on the lies that people are blinded by. Another thing that grabs me here is that the people in Argentina frequently swim in a river named Parana; it's like the people that named the river were warning each other and yet nobody cares. So, when violent fish attack, people shouldn't be surprised. Thusly, when everything in the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, then people shouldn't shake their heads in disbelief, because God warned them it was all going to burn. I think that's why the King wanted us to be fishers of men; we've got to pull these guys out of the Parana pits!

Everything with a Grain of Salt - Shark Week

So, it's Shark Week on Discovery. Thankfully, Verizon has provided the whole thing On Demand. Thusly I had the joy of watching the first day's episodes this evening. This means that I saw the piece they did on Megalodon and I am definitely not the only one. In fact, CNN reported, "The "Megalodon" show brought in record ratings for Discovery, with 4.8 million viewers tuning in. In the 26-year history of Shark Week, "Megalodon" is the highest-rated and most-watched Shark Week episode to date."

The CNN article seems to be pretty angry with the Discovery Channel for airing this show which implied, though failed to prove, the current existence of megalodon. I have to laugh at the whole thing because of course they cited that, " as National Geographic notes, the megalodon has been extinct for millions of years..." Perhaps you are wondering why I find that funny? Well, who at National Geographic has been around for millions of years? Yes, I get that they use so-called carbon-dating (this link will take you to an article on that topic) to ascertain when such extinct animals swam in the deep.

I guess I am of the mindset that all kinds of pre-historic things can still be out there. I'd prefer to cite the Word. Job spoke frequently about a being that he called the Leviathan. Isaiah describes it as a serpent (Isaiah 27:1 - I envision the  Loch Ness Monster); Job talks about reeling it in with a fishhook (Job 41:1 - I think megalodon) and David writes that it frolics in the sea (Psalm 104:26) . The truth is, as  "The executive producer of Shark Week, Michael Sorensen, points out...with 95 percent of the ocean unexplored, who really knows?" It doesn't seem like something to get your panties in a wad about.

Listen, if the Bible can reference large creatures that are extremely horrifying, I really don't have a problem believing that megalodon is still out there. Does that make me a quack? If so, ok. Look at what Job warns, "When Leviathan rises, the mighty are terrified; they withdraw because of his thrashing..." (41:25 HCSB). I suspect the people that were in that cage when that giant thing swam by were pretty terrified, not to mention the people whose boat got sunk. Science is great, don't get me wrong, but the truth is, science came from man's desire to prove God's existence and has since turned into the complete opposite. I'll tell you what my dad always tells me, "Take everything with a grain of salt."