In his book, The Return Man, V.M. Zito has a character explain about the zombie brain: “Basically, our memories are stored in the higher section of our brain, the part that only more evolved mammals like humans have. But experiences in our lives that take place under strong emotion are tagged before they’re stored, by a more primitive part of our brain–a part that predates our evolution, back to the lower animals. This primitive brain is a pretty scary place. Aggression, rage, hunger. . . all the basic survival instincts originate here.”
The character continues with an illustration from a case in the 1800s, in England. “Three men in a lifeboat after a shipwreck, facing starvation, killed and ate the cabin boy. What happened was that their malnourished bodies conserved energy by shutting down the higher brain, then operated out of the lower brain. The reptilian brain, it’s often called. Evolved functions, like ethics and compassion, went right out the window. The men’s reptilian brains saw a simple choice–eat a boy, or die. So they ate.”
The fall season of Walking Dead just concluded. Last season’s final episode revealed a startling development: whenever a non-zombie dies, the body reanimates into one of the walking dead. Everyone is infected. While this isn’t normally the case in zombie movies and books, it isn’t new. Mira Grant, in a zombie trilogy wrote about viral loads in humans that were kept in check by the bodies immune system. It was only if those loads exceeded a certain point, or increased through a bite, that the person died and reanimated.
So a few nights ago, it dawned on me that these people having a virus that can explode at anytime is a perfect analogy for our sin nature.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Galations5:17
It seems to me, there are an awful lot of zombies walking around, operating out of their lower brains. Or operating without any brain. Brain Dead! Who builds a couple bombs and plants them at the end of the Boston Marathon? Brain Dead, Lawless, Wicked People. But that’s obvious. They have been given over to an evil nature. Their higher brains starved so long they simple don’t reason, only act in senseless, evil ways.
Then there is the momentary lapse of consciousness, falling to the primal brain functions. There’s the law enforcement officer leaving his loaded sidearm on his bed, where a child finds it and shoots a woman, killing her. Or the Special Ops Soldier that is showing off his weapon to a woman and ends up firing it into himself, and dying as a result? And there is the normally good driver making a poor judgement, and running into someone, and that person being injured?
They fell victim, became a casualty, of the war of the flesh of which the Apostle Paul spoke. The remedy?
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16
Paul makes it sound as if we have a choice. Just walk in the Spirit. We must walk with discernment. We must walk with consciousness. We must walk with our heads up, our eyes wide open, and our hands ever ready to be raised to the Lord. We need to stop thinking about tomorrow, or wallowing in the mistakes of the past, and we must walk in the Spirit, TODAY, NOW!
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
Jonah’s Song 