The Moose

Hello. A couple of months ago I read "Into the Wild", a book by Jon Krakauer describing in detail the last years of the life of Chris McCandless. It's about a guy who graduates college, donates his life savings to charity, burns his cash, and lives life on the road for a couple years before heading up to his ultimate adventure of attempting to survive Alaska. It's inspiring because McCandless is such a positive, refreshing contrast to society, very similar to the lifestyle we are called to live, without ever citing Jesus as a reason.

Well, one day while he's hunting in Alaska he shoots himself a moose (I hope I see a moose in person sometime soon, I think I'd like them). Only problem is he struggles to preserve all of the meat and it ends up going to waste, well, to the wolves. McCandless describes this act of killing the wild animal without being able to make good use of it as, "The greatest tragedy of my life."

McCandless was reading through Henry Thoreau's Walden at the time. He marked a passage which included the lines, "The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you." Kind of harsh, but I think he's onto something here.

Now I'm not sure how biblical this mindset is, but it is hard to picture Jesus disagreeing with it. The fact is, we live in an obese nation, and being weary of eating any more than we need to can be a respectable habit to have. I understand the importance of feasts and celebrations with friends, but living in a country that consumes an absurd amount of food in proportion to its population, while we are all so aware of all those out there with very little, this mindset seems quite appropriate.