Reflection on history and my cousin's death

A few days after we arrived in France, we get a i-Phone call at 2:34 in the morning. The caller ID said it was my cousin John in Napa. He only emails. He never calls. So I answered even though I knew it would cost me $19.95 per minute.  Cousin Dave answered. Dave's news: his brother, my cousin, had just died. Didn't know the cause. Cousin John was 58; I'm 64. He's dead. I'm in France.

His death colored my thoughts through the rest of France. When visiting the large chateaus, I thought about how most of us live simple lives which will be forgotten in a generation or two. Most of us will never become famous. Even though we live the best we can, history will quickly erase us.

Somehow I found myself photographing lots of cemeteries for the rest of the trip. Was that my meditation on history and death?

Gevrey Chambertin village cemetery seen across Premier Crus Petits Cazetiers vineyard. I like the idea that there has been a vineyard and village here for at least a 1000 years, probably longer.

After the Flood, first thing, Noah plants a vineyard

If you had just spent more than a month on a cramped wooden boat packed with two of all the planet's animals–think huge smelly number of beasts and critters, perhaps getting seasick floating on a flooded earth, what would be the first thing you did when you stepped on dry ground?

If you were Noah, you would plant a vineyard and become a winemaker. Why? That Bible story in Genesis 9 always amazed me. I picture a waterlogged earth covered with flood mud much as the Willamette Valley was covered with silt brought down from Montana and Washington by the Missoula floods some 40,000 years ago. Then I picture this old bearded guy–some 600 years old–with the foresight to have taken grape cuttings with him on the boat, stepping off the arc into the gooey flood mud to plant a vineyard. What are the priorities here?

Then Noah's after-the-flood vineyard story continues as a drunken affair where he curses one of his sons–Canaan–to become a slave, affecting the rest of human history. Now that's a vineyard story that's hard to match.

So why do vineyards and wine take on so much importance in Biblical history? Any ideas as to what varietal Noah planted?

Wine god Dionysius and Jesus

Warning: This posting might be controversial for some.

While doing some research about the origins of wine, I came across Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Check out what Wikepedia has to say: "the inspirer of madness, and a major figure of Greek mythology. He represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its social and beneficial influences.

"He was also known as Bacchus and the frenzy he induces, bakcheia. He was also known as the Liberator, freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to bring an end to care and worry. Scholars have discussed Dionysus' relationship to the 'cult of the souls' and his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead."

Now check this out: Some compare Dionysus, the Greek wine god to Jesus. Both were said to have been born from a mortal woman but fathered by a god, to have returned from the dead, and to have transformed water into wine. Some argue that Christian notions of eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Jesus during communion was influenced by the cult of Dionysus.

I'm amazed on how much has been written about this controversy. Just Google: "Greek wine god Dionysus and Jesus".

What do you think?