Spiritual Lessons from Biology

" Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.  He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him." -  Psalm 126 v5&6 "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." - Psalm 30:11 "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 My grandmother came down with a case of pneumonia, and i went to visit her in the hospital.  They kept her in the ICU for days, trying to revive her.  Yet, for all their efforts, she worsened daily.  Eventually they put some kind of helmet over her head to help her breathe.  Trying to speak to her through that contraptio...

"Love one another deeply, from the heart." -  1 Peter 1v22 "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." -  1 Peter 4v8 “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” - Romans 12v9&10 Traffic in Denver has exploded.  Construction and road maintenance cannot keep up.  Furthermore, many people on the roads have recently moved here from places without snow, making the roads extra dangerous in winter.  Accidents are on the rise, as well as road rage.   Yesterday i was driving somewhere, and i was becoming frustrated.  i kept shaking my head, raising my eyebrows, tsk-ing my tongue, even laughing out loud at the sheer insanity displayed by other cars in front of me.   i was in a hurry, and grumbling to myself wasn't helping.   At one point i found myself in a turn lane at ...

“ Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.” (Hebrews 12v1-2) Humpback Whales migrate farther than any other mammal on this planet, and they do so with astonishing accuracy.  Their trajectory is reportedly less than 1 degree off at any given time during their 6,000 mile journey.(1) How are these whales capable of such precision?   Sea turtles often follow a particular current.  This is impossible for humpbacks as sea currents are highly variable for the duration of the trip.   Sharks take cues from the earth’s magnetic fields.  Not so for the humpback whales; magnetic north changes as much at 12% along the way.     Migratory birds often follow the sun.  Yet the sun alone cannot explain the whales’ near-perfect navigation.  In a report from “Biology Letters” (2), humpbacks from the same area were found t...

My choice for ‘Best Colorado Bird’ seems to change with every season.  For a long time i favoured the Peregrine Falcon for his speed and power.  Next i fell in love with the mountain hummingbirds; floating jewels of the pine forests.  As of now i fancy the Magpie. Magpies are common.  There is nothing splendid about their colouration.  Yet i could watch them for hours.  The way they move is simply captivating… their walk echoes  the gait of an ancient therapod.  i love the expansion of feathers leaping out from wing and tail as they swoop in to land on a tree.  But what i love most of all is the way they talk. Like all corvids (crows, ravens, jackdaws, bluejays), magpies speak different languages.  Alarm calls, assembly calls, scolding calls, distress calls, and many others are used in its repertoire.  Magpies also imitate other species in their vocalizations, and a youtube search will bring up all kinds of stories of Magpi...

There was a time when i could not sleep.  Each night when my head hit the pillow, a heatstorm of fearful thoughts began billowing up in my psyche.  i would worry about the following day, and i would regret the previous one.  i'd analyze, reanalyze, and re-reanalyze until i felt sick.  And over all of these thoughts hung a burning orb of anxiety. I recently read a beautiful bit of literature out of South Africa.  In low latitude deserts, daily air temperature may reach 50ºC (122ºF), with surface temperatures reaching 70ºC (158ºF)!  A normal mammalian response to such heats would be sweating, panting, or licking its body.  These responses are called “evaporative cooling”, but such responses are impossible for desert mammals because they would dry up like a furry raisin in a matter of hours!  So how do they dump heat without dumping water?  The Oryx of Saudi Arabia has an answer. Temperatures above 43ºC cause brain damage.  Yet the O...

i recently went to Oregon where i spoke at Portland State University on the topic of God and Science.  one morning i woke up early and decided to check out the ocean.  i left the beach-house and followed my nose towards the brine.  When i arrived at the beach, i couldn’t help but gasp.  The entire shore was covered in indigo.  i crept closer and closer, wondering at the strange phenomenon.  After stooping down to inspect the blue colours i came to realize the sand was painted in billions of tiny jellyfish.  i’d never seen anything like it in my life.  It was beautiful, but the weight of death saddened me. Further down the beach i found a twisted piece of driftwood, covered in mussels.  The mussels reached out their feathery hands to taste the morning breeze.  But each time they did, seagulls swooped down and ripped them from their shells.  i wished i could save them, but the thought seemed childish as soon as it passed through m...

The life of a Sandgrouse is lived in storms.   Their habitat is a sea of sand, burning and corrosive.  There is no shelter from the heat or from the deadly sandstorms that rip across the landscape.   The ruddy deserts of Africa are barren a landscape as you can imagine.   Yet the sandgrouse is perfectly at home here.  They scour the desolate plains to find seeds deposited in the sand months or years ago by plants; seeds carried in storms.   After a brief rain falls, they fly as far as 50 miles to find a puddle.   These conditions may sound nearly impossible, yet biologists are fascinated to find that the Sandgrouse not only survives, he thrives .   This bird exhibits many unique features attributing to a lifestyle thriving in storm.   For instance, Sandgrouse chicks must survive the battering heat of day under the shade of their mother.   They have neither the feathers nor the strength needed to fly the 50 miles or so to a wat...