On God and Bones

As I was walking today, I looked down and saw the lower spine and leg bones of a bird (probably a dove). Cat-1, bird-zip. It got me thinking, though, about God's designs for His creations. Those tiny, straw-like leg bones looked like they could snap in a stiff breeze, but most of the time a bird's bones last, unbroken, for it's whole life. The bird soars on stiff breezes and spirals through thermals. It swoops away from cars and cats and raptors. For millions of wing beats, the tiny wing bones hold the wing steady and true, though its bones are built like straws.

I caught an edging stone today and tripped and fell HARD onto my knee. I'm pretty sure I re-tore my PCL. Somehow I was able to rise and walk the further mile or so to school and back. The delicate workings of our bodies never cease to amaze me. Incredible detail and forethought went into building our brains so that they produce thought and the capability for music, art, and logic. And yet we can be felled by a microbe so small it can't be seen by the naked eye.

I never thought a great deal about proprioception before I read the book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. How amazing it is, that our bodies instinctively know where our limbs belong. We never have to tell our arms, "Go there. Open, fingers. Close them. Pick the fork up. Bring it back to my mouth." We simply eat. Or dance. Or play the base guitar while wailing out a rock song. It's often only when things go wrong that we realize how each little tendon and artery work together to accomplish the tasks we set them.

We can't even effectively copy the human body. Even our best man-made parts break down and wear out much more often and quicker than God's handiwork. We must sometimes stoop to using parts from other animals to bridge the gap.

I find it incredibly arrogant that some people refuse to think that this Grand Design could have an Author. We children who have made such strides in technology and medicine have yet to cause one spark of life to inhabit a body we have constructed out of atoms we made ourselves. And yet we cry in our arrogance, "There is no God! We came from soup at the hand of no being." How like the builders of the Tower of Babel we are in constructing our arguments.

I think God must sigh and roll his eyes a great deal. He must have an incredible sense of humor to be able to deal patiently with his recalcitrant, whiny children. I can hear Him saying, "Heidi, Heidi, Heidi. What have you done now? Look up and know Me."

Now I need to go clean out my cuts and ice my knee.