Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Who Ate Roger Williams?
The real problem in the world is what to do with the corpse. Should it be mummified? Should it be preserved? Will God come looking for everyone’s body at the Resurrection of the Dead?
It seems when we start talking about death we have to wonder about the body. Hopefully for some of us, the body will decay and never be heard from again—unlike the case of Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony.
When he was exhumed for the purpose of reburial, an interesting and curious phenomenon occurred. The root of an apple tree had penetrated the head of his coffin, and in fact, in his own head it had driven its way in growth down through the spine, wrapping itself around the vertebra.
And when it got to the hip of his skeleton, it separated, and one root went down one leg and another root and down the other leg right to the ankle. Then the roots absorbed the chemicals of his body that went into the wood and fruit of that particular apple tree. And people—without realizing it—practiced cannibalism.
Not good. No one wants to feed a colony. But what happens to the body is an interesting thought. And what becomes of my soul may not be what becomes of my body.
www.stofel.com
It seems when we start talking about death we have to wonder about the body. Hopefully for some of us, the body will decay and never be heard from again—unlike the case of Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony.
When he was exhumed for the purpose of reburial, an interesting and curious phenomenon occurred. The root of an apple tree had penetrated the head of his coffin, and in fact, in his own head it had driven its way in growth down through the spine, wrapping itself around the vertebra.
And when it got to the hip of his skeleton, it separated, and one root went down one leg and another root and down the other leg right to the ankle. Then the roots absorbed the chemicals of his body that went into the wood and fruit of that particular apple tree. And people—without realizing it—practiced cannibalism.
Not good. No one wants to feed a colony. But what happens to the body is an interesting thought. And what becomes of my soul may not be what becomes of my body.
www.stofel.com
© 2007 by Robert Stofel