Wondering if cyclosporiasis is in my future

The FDA said during a recent press conference that it has been investigating five different clusters of cyclosporiasis since the start of the parasite season in May. However, to this point, they have not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora. The CDC states that thirty-four states have reported cases thus far.

My state is one of them, which is a little concerning. I have felt a little queasy lately, which is somewhat concerning as well. However, my stomach has been unsettled in part, I think, because of the unsettling possibility that I have eaten something carrying the Cyclospora parasite and am now in the early stages of an illness I would really like to avoid.

Since it can take a couple of days to a couple of weeks after ingesting the parasite for such symptoms to manifest, I won’t know for a while whether my fears are unfounded.

The Cyclospora cayetanensis parasite measures between eight and ten millionths of a meter in diameter. Since I don’t have an ultraviolet fluorescence microscope (and wouldn’t know how to use one if I did), I have no ability to detect the bacteria on food before I eat it. I am therefore dependent upon people who work to keep it off the food I consume. If they fail, I am then dependent on doctors who prescribe medications to treat the illness that results.

Therein lies a larger point.

A sling on my neighbor’s dog

My wife and I were walking past a neighbor’s backyard the other day and saw him standing next to his golden lab while doing something I’d never seen done before. In his hand was what appeared to be a grey fabric sling. It was wrapped around the dog’s back right leg, holding it in the air.

My neighbor explained that they had repaired their pet’s ACL. The lab couldn’t put weight on the leg, so they had to hold it up whenever the dog wanted to move around. I asked him how long this will last. Four to six weeks, he answered.

Reflecting on this strange conversation, I wondered how I would process this situation if I were their lab. Clearly, I wouldn’t understand an ACL or its repair. All I would know is that my owners were restricting me from going where I wanted when I wanted. 

Part of me would want to pull away from them and their sling so I could walk as I wished, but part of me would trust them, given their care for me over the many years we lived together.

If I made the former choice, I would only make my suffering worse while grieving the people who love me. If I made the latter choice, I would eventually experience healing I could not now understand in the care of those who can understand my situation far better than I can.

The gap in knowledge between their dog and myself (what philosophers call the “epistemological distance”) pales in significance compared to the distance between my knowledge and that of my omniscient Father. While loving dog owners do much for their pets, my Father sacrificed his only Son on my behalf.

Why, then, do I so often do what I want for myself rather than what he wants for me?

My visit to a podiatrist

Part of the answer is found in our current place in history.

There was a time on the American frontier, it seems to me, when most people did most things in common. They built houses in the wilderness, planted and cultivated gardens and farms, and defended themselves and their families from threats common to the day. Their enemies were disasters, diseases, and people over whom they had little agency, so they knew they needed the help of God and their neighbors to survive and flourish.

These days, specialization rules society. As I walked past roofers repairing a roof this morning, I realized I have no idea how to do their job. I saw earth-moving equipment in a nearby field and admitted I could not operate such machinery. I passed the offices of two lawyers and an accountant and conceded that they would never hire me to work for them.

However, I can employ people to do everything I cannot do. Doctors care for my body, dentists care for my teeth, and optometrists and ophthalmologists care for my eyes. I had to visit a podiatrist the other day and was grateful for his very specialized knowledge.

The implicit result of such social sophistication is that I can delude myself into believing I can take care of myself by doing what I can do and employing people to do everything else. The God who protected frontier people from storms and predators seems less necessary to my survival.

Until, of course, I run into a problem humans cannot solve. For every person who has ever lived and died, that day one day came. Unless the Lord returns first, it will come for me as well.

“The safest road to Hell”

But that day is not yet here. So far today, I have managed my life and circumstances acceptably. My recency bias therefore persuades me that the events of the last few hours and days will be replicated in the coming hours and days.

Even if I turn out to be right about the rest of this day and week, however, my self-reliance will cost me all that the Holy Spirit could do in and through my life if I were as dependent on him as I should be. His “fruit” will grow more fully in me as I abide more fully in him (Galatians 5:22–23; John 15:5). The character of Jesus will be formed in me to the degree that I am in intimate communion with him (cf. Romans 8:29).

I therefore wonder if the enemy’s strategy is more fulfilled in my life through happy circumstances I can seemingly control than through dire crises I cannot. CS Lewis’s Screwtape advised his apprentice tempter, “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” I now think the safest road to heaven may be the opposite.

Which road are you traveling today?