occurs
Don't know whether it ever occurs to you, if it doesn't now it will occur as you mellow into extreme old age and would appreciate two hands to push your walker and two hands to hold your bottle of water or something; but how much better it would have been if humans had been created with four arms and hands instead of just two.
Created or evolved, take your choice.
One creation story in Genesis says God spoke us into being, in God's likeness, in God's own image; so God must have just one pair of arms and hands, although the story isn't clear about the nature of the likeness, whether it's physical, intellectual, emotion or some combination. But it really isn't quite fair, seeing that some angels have six wings, two to fly with, two to cover their face, and two to cover their modesty: surely we could have been given six limbs, two legs and feet and four arms and hands.
The other Genesis creation story says God formed us from dust of the earth and breathed into us the breath of life, which makes us earthlings; and it would have been easy right then to form us with two extra arms and hands.
It's by no means a new idea, as the Vitruvian man shows, although as I visualize it, our second set of arms would come out of our rib cage about halfway down, where they would be the right level for pushing walkers and grocery carts. Or to make it more obvious to you, lower arms for pushing the shopping cart and upper arms for messing with your cellphone. Two arms good, four arms better.
The lower arms could even be shorter, like tyrannosaurus rex, because we wouldn't use them for eating or scratching, just for pushing.
A little forethought would have anticipated this. It's too late now, but it goes to show what happens when things are not taken before a review committee before going into full reproduction.
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But, oh, about the walker mentioned above. For years I've appreciated being able to pick up a grocery cart as I enter a store - - a shopping cart and the sanitary wipe for protection against the slob before me who sneezed into his hand. As I've contemplated my retirement deep into the wilderness of meandering around the park and downtown St Andrews, it has occurred to me that the relentless progression of my CHF is making it increasingly difficult to walk very far, and actually impossible after eating. So, Linda suggested I buy a vehicle with wheels, that I can push and rely on, and also with a seat I can pause and relax into when necessary. It arrived yesterday. Red. I may take it down for a test meander around the Harbour Village garden today. It's actually what resurfaced the idea of an extra set of arms/hands for pushing.
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Up all too early to read "Had To Happen" by James Wood, a long book review in the print issue of The New Yorker magazine that arrived in yesterday's mail (two months late, it's dated March 11, 2024), about Marilynne Robinson's novel "Reading Genesis." Catching my attention by opening with the lyrics of a hymn he remembers from his childhood in the (Anglican) Church of England, Wood cites its appalling theology; I will say to my delight, because I enjoy perusing our hymns with horrifyingly threatening lyrics that go totally over our heads as we sing them to our favorite tunes. I appreciated Wood's book review and point of view far more than I would expect to enjoy Robinson's novel. His background in Anglicanism evidences, at least to me, his history in a religion where people are allowed, encouraged, expected, to think for ourselves. Most of us don't bother, but those who do find it quite rewarding and enlightening.
Anyway, there you are, Thursday a week before May 9 observance of Ascension Day. For an upcoming supper with friends I'm preparing, in case they're interested, a short study of the Ascension, which is one of the seven major feast days of our church year.
RSF&PTL
T88&c