The Middle East: Here’s Why They Fight

Athos here again, still sitting in for Porthos. If you’re just tuning in, I recommend you read up on the background for this (click here). I gave myself an extra day to use the TouchPad to finish up my research and type out my notes from the interviews I got with the leaders of the Heron and Egret forces, and now I’m using it to publish my results in this blog.

Like I said, it’s time to get serious about understanding the major and minor conflicts raging all around us. They are nothing new. We had them in the 17^th century between France and England, and we have them today – from the major conflict in the Middle East between Jews and Arabs, to the minor conflict in our park in southeast Texas between Herons and Egrets.

But is it so minor? What if we could learn from it? Porthos, Aramis and myself can no longer make the kind of impact on history that we used to with our swords. Thanks to the technology Art introduced us to, and our newfound love for journalism, we now seek to make an impact with our words.

The escalating Heron-Egret conflict has changed our pond in the park from a paradise to a dangerous swamp, forcing us to become refugees in the comparative luxury of the 3rd hole water hazard on the golf course. To understand the root causes of the conflict, I did two things. I talked with Heron and Egret military and religious leaders who consented to be interviewed. And I relied on the wisdom that comes from being immortal, having lived over 400 years now with no end in sight.

Here’s the background of the Heron-Egret War as I was able to piece it together.

In the beginning, birds of all species originally relied on their Creator, who they called El, for guidance on sources of food, nesting sites, and raising their young. But a disruptive presence that the birds referred to as Abaddon also grew in influence, falsely promising greater freedom, power and pleasure for birds who rebelled and followed him. But for all who succumbed, lust and greed ultimately destroyed their families.
 

In the cradle of civilization (the Florida everglades), our story starts with Abe, the ancestor of all large water birds with long legs and long necks. Abe was neither Heron nor Egret, but was the father of both species. El had a special relationship with Abe and spoke to him directly, telling him to leave the everglades and migrate to a better place He would show him, where he would be the ancestor of flocks outnumbering the stars.

 Abe trusted El and just took off flying with his mate Sadie -- to what was then a perfect, lush, tropical paradise in southeast Texas. Here is a watercolor painting with an artist’s conception of Abe after his arrival in the Promised Land.

He eventually settled in the park that we three Muskaducks have called home for the last hundred years of our own immortal existence. We were late-comers to the religious and political climate of the region. By the time we arrived, the pond was still nice, but the ancestral paradise had started to fade to a distant memory.

We were told the ancient stories about Abe that were passed down from generation to generation by his descendants, the Herons and Egrets who are now living there. We noticed that their nests were on different sides of the pond, and that the Herons’ version of the stories was different from the Egrets’ version.
 

Their stories started out the same - with what a wonderful place it was when their common ancestor Abe first arrived in the Promised Land.

Pristine water, rich in minerals that prolonged life, used to gush from natural springs to the north and cascade down an outcropping of rock (which later became a source of heated religious dispute between the two families of birds). The terrain leveled off into a long, slow-moving stream that teamed with small fish and flowed like milk and honey into the pond, which was much bigger then. A smaller stream meandered south from the pond for scores of miles and eventually emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. So their source of life – the water of the steam and pond – remained always fresh.

So what went wrong? For starters, Abe and Sadie got impatient with El about His promise of offspring. So with Sadie’s permission, Abe mated with a Whooping Crane that had migrated down from Wisconsin – a wild woman.

She had a son, white like she was and just as wild, who became the father of the first Egret brood, later to be known as Great White Egrets.

Thirteen years later, an aging Abe and Sadie found out that miracles do happen for those who have faith. To all the birds’ amazement, they had a son who became the father of the first Heron brood. They had the same blue tint to their feathers that Sadie did, and were later called Great Blue Herons. Naturally they became Sadie’s favorites to have over for Sunday dinner.

Abe realized he had made a mistake to get ahead of El’s plans and take matters into his own talons. But he loved both his sons and all his grandchildren. And so did El, Who pronounced to Abe that He would bless both broods and make them both into thriving flocks.
 

Abe wanted both flocks to stay together, but Sadie didn’t. El finally granted her demand to shoo the Egrets out of her nesting area. He agreed that the flocks could be separated, but said He would be with the Egrets just as much as with the Herons, and would personally see to it that both flocks prospered. The Herons stayed in a small area on the north side of the pond by the rock waterfall. The Egrets, a much larger flock, occupied all the rest of the pond and its surroundings.

Both groups continued to profess allegiance to El. But Abaddon knew an opportunity when he saw one. It became more and more clear as I talked first with Herons and then with Egrets about their history and traditions, that Abaddon had hit on a diabolical and devastating idea. He saw a way to accomplish his main goal, which was to cut off El’s creatures from His love and care.
 

Abaddon realized all he had to do was infiltrate an institution he’s been using ever since – religion!

He was well aware that neither flock liked him. In fact, they hated him. Both Herons and Egrets had a religious ritual where they would stand motionless on one leg five times every day in prayer to El, asking among other things to be strong in resisting the ever-present, destructive lure of Abaddon.

It’s important not to over-simplify things here, because what Abaddon succeeded in doing took centuries of scheming, intrigue, and even brainwashing techniques that make the cults I’ve read about on the Internet look like Sunday School.

He twisted the traditions handed down from Abe just slightly in each camp, and then kept building on each twist until two religions emerged, both professing to take their marching orders from El. 

But here was Abaddon’s masterpiece – his greatest deception of all. He made each flock think that the other flock did not worship the true El! 

The Herons were absolutely convinced that although the Egrets invoked the name of El, they really followed Abaddon. So naturally the El of the Herons must hate the Egrets.

Likewise, the Egrets were absolutely convinced that although the Herons said they worshipped El, they were really instruments of Abaddon and were hated by the El of the Egrets.

With that brilliant strategy, Abaddon had assured that discord, violence, death, and all the other evil things he loved would be rampant in the region. So time passed, and the Herons and Egrets kept their nesting areas separate, fought each other, and told their chicks very different stories about what had gone wrong, who was at fault, and what El wanted from them.

Whenever the chicks in either flock were taught to hate in the name of El, the true El shed a tear. When religious leaders from either flock preached that killing those who believed differently from them somehow served a noble purpose and pleased El, He grieved for His creation. He had left so many signs of His love for both flocks.
 

El had given three ancient stones to one of the Heron’s leaders named Moshe. El Himself had engraved them with His wisdom, so that all ancestors of His special friend Abe would live full lives in harmony with El and with each other. The Herons enshrined these stones in a special nest they built atop the rock waterfall before Abaddon was able to devise a plan to stop them. 

The shrine always made them feel proud, like El loved them best. So Abaddon decided it was working out just fine to let the Herons keep their sacred stones. Because the one thing he did not want was for the Herons and Egrets to know that El loved them equally, as Abe had.

What neither flock knew was that El had also given a similar set of engraved stones to a leader of the Egrets. But Abaddon was ready this time. Because he needed to preserve the division he had created between the flocks, he could not let the Egrets know that they too had received this love gift from El. So he had their stones buried in a deep well. Abaddon filled in the well and then killed the leader and every Egret who knew about the stones.

El patiently went about His long-term plan to engrave His laws of love not on stone, but on the hearts of all His creation. He grieved with each new outbreak of war and strife, but knew that Abaddon’s reign on earth had an end, while his love did not.

Meanwhile, flocks of crows and skulks of foxes in the surrounding forest yielded completely to the corruption of Abaddon and actually worshipped him outright. They became aggressive enemies of the pond, often attacking without mercy. Ultimately they drove out the Herons, who sought refuge in the far distant ponds of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and even as far away as Upstate New York.

In their haste to escape, the Heron priests in charge of protecting the sacred engraved stones became confused, each assuming that others had retrieved them. In the heat of battle, the stones disappeared from their shrine on the waterfall, and nobody – neither Heron nor Egret – knew where they went. 

One of the traditions of the Heron priests was to pass down a description of the three stones from generation to generation. 

Their whereabouts has remained a mystery to this day. In fact, because the old stories seemed to favor the Herons, the Egrets refuse to acknowledge that the stones ever existed.

In their exile, the Herons continued to serve El the best way they knew how – by strictly observing all the tenants of the religion that had developed at home, and longing to return some day.

The Egrets, who were greater in number and united under their own brand of the religion of the pond, managed an uneasy co-existence with the crows and foxes. They expanded into the entire pond, including the rock waterfall. But after hundreds of years, it wasn’t the paradise it used to be. The stream that had emptied into the Gulf of Mexico was obliterated by highways and malls, and the springs to the north had been diverted into subdivisions so that now only a trickle went over the rock waterfall. And the pond became ever more stagnant..

The time came when the beleaguered Herons were able to migrate back home from exile. It was only natural that they considered the north side of the pond by the rock waterfall to belong to them, as it had when the two ancient flocks had first separated.

But it was also only natural that the Egrets who had been living there for hundreds of years now considered the whole area to be their native home.

So there has been no real peace in the pond ever since the Herons returned, and there have been frequent Heron-Egret conflicts, like the one raging there now. Their talons, meant for catching fish and grooming themselves and their spouse’s feathers in a mating ritual, are used as deadly weapons that they are turning against one another. And blood flows into the once life-giving pond. It is a miserable and unsafe place to live for all the wildlife.

I longed for the two camps to see that not only were they all the children of the same earthly ancestor, but also of the same loving Creator. Then they might be able to bury their differences, share the whole pond, and worship El together.

But of course that was totally out of the question because of what Abaddon had succeeded in doing centuries earlier. The poisonous seed he planted back then had grown into a cancer that is still present today. It is embodied in the quotes from the leaders I interviewed at the pond.

One Heron leader told me this –

   “The Egrets prostrate themselves before the god they call ‘El-ah,’ but that is a disgraceful sham that is not to be believed. They have proven by their disregard for life that their god is false and they are really Abaddon worshippers. For all we know, they eat their own hatchlings!”

In the Egret camp I heard this –

   “The Herons claim a birth right to the rock waterfall based on special privileges and special engraved stones bestowed by their god ‘El-weh.’ Nonsense! What god would displace native birds to make room for the thoughtless aggression of heartless immigrants? No, those Great Herons get their high and mighty ideas from the Great Abaddon! El-ah willing, we will eradicate them from the face of the pond.”

These interviews with the two camps’ military leaders were so discouraging because they show just how hopeless the situation seems. It would clearly take a miracle to turn the tide.

On my second day of interviewing, I witnessed that miracle -- a turning point in our local war, with possible global implications.

(click here to continue)