Many years ago, when evaluating creeds of different religions, I was amazed to find a Mormon concept of the hereafter whereby you gained Christ-like status in your own territory. I use territory as I was in sales at the time and I may not have the Mormon concept right so please forgive me, my Mormon friends.
Fast forward to current times where I’ve been trying to understand biology and cell function and reached the conclusion that we are but a bundle of cells. The cells are many and varied and as a bundle, they work in concert to keep the body, me, alive. Thus, I concluded they are equivalent to a society, working together according to some set of rules or laws, each playing its role in maintaining “homeostasis”, just as a society tries to maintain stability and order.
This brilliant insight was dashed when I was reading Song of the Cell and discovered that the Prussian father of pathology, Rudolf Virchow proposed the model about 170 years ago. Virchow used the model to create the society analogy, which didn’t sit well with the ruling class at the time and he was dispatched to the Eastern most regions of Prussia, that would be called the “Russian Front” during WWII. It was a while before he was able to work his way back into society, though never forgiven for his political incorrectness.
The model is fascinating. We start our lives as a zygote, with massive cell division occurring in-utero. Stem cells, through cell expression, become blood cells, bone cell, heart cells etc. much as we as members of society, play different roles we are called to perform based on our orientation. Apparently, we have more neurons, cells in the nervous system, at birth than we will ever have in our lifetime. Consider cancer cells. These are cells that are divisions of our own native cells, but take on a different role as they want to take over and even use spy-like behaviour to cloak themselves from being detected as aberrant members of cell society. In human societies cancerous cells do exist as “the other”. We cannot agree on who are the cancers, as the left sees the right as cancerous and vice versa.
To get to the I am a God part, the thing called me is the total package, but how much do I know about my flock? The individual cells are working hard to keep me alive, so they must think the total package is their god and need to keep me thriving. If “Me” is their god, am I playing my role in taking care of them? Does intentionality on my part play a role in being a “good” god? Do I have specific responsibilities, or do I behave like the pantheon of Greek or Hindu gods? Should I be the Christian god of love, or the Old Testament god demanding fealty? Should I be ”American Dream” god, where the pursuit of happiness is paramount?
What grounds me is the fact that I share this earth with over eight billion other gods that behave more like the gods of Greek myth, each selfishly guarding their domain, or at least their perceived domain. The responsibility to my cells is avoiding over-indulgence that kills more of them, even as they sacrifice themselves to keep me alive (martyrs?). The responsibility to my fellow gods require the same, not indulge in practices that are a detriment to fellow travellers on our god, planet earth. We need to do our share keeping our God alive. We are not doing a good job of that currently and we won’t until we discover how to respectfully interact with the other gods.
