Pooping. And the nature of God.

I was going to write about my first two weeks of being a vegetarian, and discuss the ease of completely cutting meat out of my diet (which has been quite surprising) and then also the few difficulties that have come with it (just last night I enviously watched my friends eat BLT’s) and the most surprising difficulty: that of pooping.*

*I thought being a vegetarian would keep me “regular” but it’s been the exact opposite.   Sometimes it takes a couple days to force something out, other times I’ll average 1.96 poops per day, which is a drastic shift from my omnivorous .78 PPD.   My body is just confused. (As is my mind.)

This line of thought took me somewhere much more existential and theological than I had anticipated.  I had to ask: God, why poop?  What was the reason in that design?  Why have it be so disgusting?  So smelly?  So messy?  And then it took me even deeper and more practical.  Did Jesus like pooping?  Did Jesus ever have diarrhea?  Did he have really big, painful poops?  Did he have to wipe?

You may be asking, are these valid, edifying questions?  And the answer is: of course.  Watch this logic – we use moments, situations, relationships, circumstances as ways to illuminate the nature and love of God.  For example, marriage is meant to show us the relationship between Christ and the Church or the relationship with our parents can be comparable to the relationship that God the Father has towards us, his children.  Therefore, it’s only appropriate to ask, what does pooping tell us about God? 

Whenever we ask ourselves a question like this, the best and first thing we should do is look to scripture.  Here’s what I found: “Designate a place outside the camp where you can go [poop].  As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you [poop], dig a hole and cover up your [poop].  For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you.  Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.” – Deuteronomy 23:12-14. 

There’s a lot to unpack in these verses, and it may be difficult to find a direct take home application now that the blood of Christ has purchased both sins and toilets.  I went and opened up Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.  As extensive and in depth as Grudem’s book claims to be, there was no chapter on poop, nor was the topic even referenced in the index.  Disappointing to say the least (I’m not alone on this, as John Piper’s review shares similar sentiments.)*

*“Grudem does an admirable and intelligent work in explaining faith-practical topics such as the Trinity, the Omnipresence of God, the authority of Scripture and so forth.  He however, does not address the theological implications of poop and the process thereof.  Unfortunate, disappointing, and irresponsible.  Do not buy this book.” – John Piper**

**Not real.

After much meditation, I concluded:  Poop in moderation, funny and edifying.  Too much poop: disgusting, possibly sinful.

For the first point a hypothetical experience will point us towards truth.  Imagine corporate prayer time, and in the middle of interceding someone farts.  Laughter will, one hundred percent of the time, occur.  This is also why Adam Sandler  and the Farrelly Brothers movies are so successful.  People like poop jokes. 

For the second, I’ll provide a more personal example.  Sometimes during the worship set, when I’m at church – because of the anonymity and safety of the loud music – I will fart.  No one hears it, which is good. And most of the time it doesn’t smell, and even if it does, if I play it right (acting as confused and disgusted as those around me) I can play it off on someone else.  Now let’s say the person next to me hears it and/or smells it, they’ll start laughing and I’ll start laughing, and it’ll be funny.  And then maybe he farts too and that’s even funnier and we both start laughing.  But then this is a rapid and destructive example of diminishing marginal return.  Think if EVERYONE farted during worship. Mass chaos.  I don’t even want to imagine it.

You know when after you poop, and you spray an aerosol freshener in the bathroom to try to make the room smell nice, but all it really does is just produce a stale rotten fruit smell, in addition to your poop smell?  Well this is what it’s like with farts.  One fart doesn’t merely cover up the other, they create a synergistic fusion, becoming this conglomerate mass of poop stench.  (I don’t know the scientific particulars behind it, I think it has something to do with electrons).  That many farts in the sanctuary = not a good thing.

That’s why God says go outside the camp to do your business.  If one prankster is the serial pooper of Israel, haha it’s funny.  “Oh Martha come here and look!  Jerry pooped outside our tent last night.  Ha! That little rascal.”  But if ALL of Israel pooped within the camp?  That’s a biblical plague.  (Egyptians sadly agree.)

So what does poop tell us about God?  He has a sense of humor, but one of moderation.  Love God, love people, poop enough  but not too often.