Birds and Beaks and Fossils
I cling to some beliefs like a ledge on a rock climbing wall. I know that if I let go of them, I’ll fall. I’ll try to hold my grip no matter how painful it is. These are the basic principles of my faith and my assumptions about how life works, and if one of them becomes shaken somehow, it really takes a toll on me by affecting my mood, my state of mind, and the way I think about things. You’ll know that I’m wrestling with that sort of belief when you see me looking a bit shell-shocked or pensive. As you could probably guess, examples of these beliefs would be my view of God, my perception of close relationships, the greater purposes of life, etc.

I cling to other beliefs like an old pair of tennis shoes. I like them, and I know they’re comfortable, convenient, and useful to me. But I also realize that some people may object to my wearing them on certain occasions, and I would agree that there are some places where they are just not appropriate. I’m not so closely connected with them that I would not be willing to part with them for some time (or even forever) if it’s for the common good.

My belief in Creation would, for me, lie in this second category. I believe the literal seven-day Creation account that is recorded in Genesis, partly because I have no reason not to. If I believe that God has the power to raise Christ from the grave and that He has some sort of vested interest in my life, the prospect of a seven-day Creation account seems like child’s play. (Pardon the pun when speaking in light of Christ’s teaching that we should have faith like a child.)

Yet, while operating in the politically correct world of 21st century American education, I find that childlike perspectives of the world, such as the seven-day Creation account, are often glossed over by academics as, at best, ignorant, and at worst, fairy tale. As an individual, being faced with such an attitude does not bother me in the least; call me a believer in fairy tales. What does bother me though is when the assumed evolutionism is propounded in educational resources through faulty reasoning. I recently read the following explanations in some science material that I was editing. And I’ll say from the outset that I am not particularly familiar with the intricacies of this argument, so the information that I have gleaned from these 8th grade level resources is admittedly probably watered down.

First, a set of illustrations called attention to the beaks of about four different species of birds. The beaks were uniquely shaped and obviously well suited to accommodate the particular feeding habits of the birds. The question was posed: “Why are the beaks of these birds shaped differently?” My childlike mind immediately screamed that God had created the birds with a beak that would easily allow them to feed properly on the organisms that would sustain them. However, the answer as it was explained in the text was that after millions of years of evolution, the beaks had taken these different shapes in response to the environments and feeding habits of the birds. Stop there and consider those two perspectives. In one, the bird does what is natural to it. It has a beak that is conducive to scooping fish, so it finds water and scoops fish. In the other, the bird hammers away at some food source unnaturally until after millions of years of trying, its body catches on and adapts to this unorthodox method of survival. It seems amazing that the bird survived through those millions of years until the transformation happened. To use a modern human example, Nolan Ryan was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history because he was good at throwing fastballs. In fact, he threw them professionally until he was over 40 years old. That’s why he threw fastballs for a living instead of selling insurance. Sure, he may have survived trying to sell insurance, but he might not have been a great salesman and he certainly would have been missing out on using some of his natural ability. It is not backwards thinking to say that creatures adapt to their environments, but it is backwards to say they continually do something unnatural to them...especially for millions of years.

Second point that irked me. Through natural processes such as erosion, plate shifting, and water displacement, we have layers upon layers of earth underneath us, each layer representing some specific amount of years. We’re talking a lot of years. Throughout these layers of earth are scattered specimens such as civilization remains and fossils and, in Mississippi, arrowheads. The arrowheads are by far the coolest thing down there, so there’s no real debate about that issue, but the fossils present a particularly curious case. Apparently, scientists can primarily identify how old a fossil is by determining in which layer of earth it is found. If it’s from the layer that’s 500,000 years old, the animal died about 500,000 years ago. And once your numbers are up that high, a few centuries missed either way aren’t a big deal. Sounds reasonable. Here’s the catch. You may ask, “How do we know how old each layer of earth is?” And any scientist will tell you flatly, “We know how old they are because of the age of particular fossils that are found in each layer.” At this point, your head should have just spun around twice. We know how old the fossils are because of the layer of earth in which they are found, and we know how old the layers of earth are because of the fossils that are found in each layer. What I’d like to know is which fossil is talking to these scientists. Granted, there is also apparently a categorization of fossils called “indicator fossils” whose ages scientists have determined by some other means apart from the whole earth layer thing, but I think our schoolchildren have right to hear about that method as well...not only the circular reasoning that I saw presented in this resource.

Obviously, the end answers to these debates are beyond me, so it's much easier for me to look at the biblical account of "world history" and say, "God just made it." But hear me now. If I arrive at the Pearly Gates and the Father meets me there simply to inform me that He did, in fact, use three million years of evolution to "create" the world, my dumbfounded response would probably be something like, "No kidding. Man...I was wrong about that one."

Springtime in Jackson
At work yesterday morning, we were putting together the weekly company newsletter, "Friday Facts." The girl who does the final layout emailed the entire office and asked if anyone would like to add a springtime haiku. I immediately threw something together for the newsletter and thought that I would share it with you here on my blog. It's called "Springtime in Jackson."

Pollen on the cars,
Yard man sayin', "How 'bout it?"
Hand me a Kleenex.

I smirked gleefully as I saw my impromptu haiku appear on the company newsletter...and maybe you did the same just now as you were reading. But then, my curiosity got the best of me. (And here's where some of you might wanna stop reading because I went into "research mode." If you do stop reading, skip down to the last paragraph where there's a homework assignment.)

I've been reading a book called Encountering God in the Psalms, which attempts to teach modern English readers how to interpret more precisely the truths of biblical Psalms, since they are after all translations of Hebrew poetry. Since I've had poetics on the mind, it struck me as highly presumptuous that some of us would sit around at work in 21st century America and attempt to construct an accurate English variant of a centuries-old Japanese poetic form.

As we know, a haiku is composed of 17 syllables, normally in a 5-7-5 linear breakdown, and since it is unrhymed, we assume that writing haikus is easy. The problem is that when we focus on nothing but the form of a haiku, we have lost any connection to its purpose or appropriate content.

I've consulted a few sources, and here are some points of interest. In the Japanese tradition, haikus are composed in one continuous vertical column of writing--this means, no line breaks. The line breaks in English haikus represent natural pauses or divisions in the thought progression of Japanese forms. Also, because Japanese syllables are on average much more condensed than modern English syllables, some scholars suggest that the brevity and essence of the Japanese haiku could probably be better captured in English through an 11-syllable structure, 3-5-3. Yet, even for the Japanese tradition, the syllabic count does not seem to be the most important thing.

Rather, the essence of haikus lie in their deeply profound mood in observing normal, everyday objects. One researcher encourages English haiku writers to focus on describing a single object or a single mood within the confines of the 17 syllables. After becoming more proficient in this activity, writers should try to portray two images within the same amount of syllables, which forces a comparison or contrast between the things that maybe we haven't thought about before. Cut out adjectives, adverbs, articles, and prepositions; allow the reader to make these semantic connections themselves. In such a way, haiku masters can describe normal things in brief, creative ways.

As a sidenote, Harmon and Holmon's Handbook to Literature lists several Western poets that capture the essence of the haiku without necessarily following its form. The first one listed is William Wordsworth. I've been aware for some time that Wordsworth has a strangely large Japanese following. Perhaps this is why.

Your task for this week...write a haiku and post it on this blog. It doesn't have to conform to the true spirit of the Japanese form, but see what you can come up with in our typical 17-syllable format. (This could be particularly amusing, especially if you're sitting at work with nothing to do.)