Arcing the Spark – Cells and Creation

Tags

Arcing the Spark

This picture is of a tile designed by Marian de Caleuve, and made by Della Robbia Pottery in Birkenhead between 1900 and 1905.  It is called ‘The First Day of Creation’.

The First Day of Creation

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.’  Genesis 1:1-5

Those that know me know I like angels and also know that if I could I would have my home filled with everything Arts and Crafts.  So it is maybe no surprise that for me this tile is a joy to behold.  However as just about everything nowadays is arcing the spark for me, it is that spark that is the reason for posting this picture today.  Now I don’t know if this was what Marian de Caleuve intended, but when I look upon that angel holding that sphere I see it dividing just like that now oh so familiar picture of cell division.

The term ‘cell’ was first coined by Robert Hooke in his 1665 book ‘Micrographia’ because the walls of a cell reminded him of Monks cells.  ‘Micrographia’ was the first scientific best seller and made people wonder at the detailed illustrations drawn from looking through a microscope, a new world was being seen for the first time and a doorway to new discoveries and wonders was flung open.  However with those discoveries barriers were built between those who believed that God made the world and those that believed that the world had evolved through the wonder and chance.

In this tile however I see the arcing spark, not between news and religion, but between the creationist and the evolutionist, surely they can together look at this tile and see creation.

Art, religion, science all coming together, it makes my heart sing.

Arcing the Spark – Yorkshire Sparrows

Tags

Arcing the Spark

The people of Yorkshire are again waking up to a media circus on their doorstep, and like the story of Peter Sutcliffe it isn’t a good news story, it is one that strikes terror into their hearts.  The events are still unfolding, but the lack of respect for people and life is again being plastered over the news.  No I am not talking about the suspected killer, but the victims.

These women led life’s most of us can not even begin to imagine, lives which daily made them victims and targets, but did they deserve what is now happening to their memories?  No.

These women have been murdered, society failed them in life and now, now when the perpetrator of these crimes might be in custody it splashes banner headlines about their lives, uses mournful pictures to underline the picture they wish to paint, and society fails them again.  Okay they might as one paper says have lived chaotic lives, but that is no justification for what has happened to them, and certainly is no reason to make them and their families suffer even more.  I have no doubt this will go on, every inch of their lives will be turned upside down, I am also sure that it will only be the supposedly bad stuff that will be plastered across newspapers and TV reports.  Okay their lives might not have been perfect but whose is?   Their lifestyle might be the reason that they were targeted, but to make the whole story about their lives, to dehumanize them in death as they were by their clients in life, is that acceptable?  Would you want as your eulogy a catalogue of your failings?

Susan, Shelley and Suzanne, where people, people whose lives were cut short, people who despite the mess their lives had become, lived and laughed and most possibly wished for better lives.  They have names, they were women, they were far more than that prostitute or that addict.  They were and are more precious than sparrows, precious enough that God knew the very number of hairs on their head, so precious that God walked beside them, even when everyone else had left them to travel alone.  God cried with them, as they suffered, knew their inner most pain, anxieties and concerns, God knew the desperation which drove them into the lives they led and loved them all the while.  God did not abandon them, daily God was there loving and upholding them.  Society, on the other hand turned its back to them in life and now in their death points the finger, this morning I can’t help feeling that Susan, Shelley and Suzanne are in a far better place, away from all this hypocrisy.

Arcing The Spark – Ascension and The Space Shuttle

Tags

Arcing the Spark

For centuries people dreamed, for decades people hoped, for what now seems like the briefest of times people rejoiced and marvelled, now an end is in sight an end which appears to be slipping by un-noticed.

On Friday (14th May) the space shuttle Atlantis blasted off for probably the final time and over the coming months the space shuttles Discovery and Endeavor will also make their final launches and come to the end of their explorations.  All three trips are to the International Space Station (Atlantis will be kept fully operational until the Endeavor touches down again just in case she is needed for a rescue mission).  However when Endeavor returns safely to the tarmac a line will be drawn under the chapter of space exploration called the Space Shuttle.

Reaching out beyond the gravitational pull of this spinning orb is something that long forgotten generations couldn’t even perceive of in their wildest dreams, the heavens were limited in space, the homes of the gods and somewhere were no mortal could go.  Great chariots pulled the sun and the moon and the stars across the sky, gods controlled the things that issued forth from the sky.  Within Greek mythology there is the story of Icarus giving warning to the heady feelings flight gives and that mere mortals can not deal with such bliss and will crash back to their mortal coil and death.  Ask just about any child where heaven is and they will point up into the sky, and of course on Thursday the church celebrated Jesus ascending back into the sky and heaven in the clouds.  For millenium the vastness above us was the preserve of the myth, of dreamers and a heavenly home.

Living in the time in which we live we know that there is more up there than our far-flung ancestors could ever have conceived or imagined, and that which they did imagine was but fantasy.  This blue planet rather than being the center of the universe, is just one of many billion upon billions of objects in the skies above, most probably near the edge of something beyond our wildest comprehension and among all those billions of objects the place we call home is pretty insignificant in the great cosmos, apart from one fact, it harbours life.

We are a species of never-ending questions, there are countless un-answered questions about the planet we inhabit before we even address the questions that have arisen from space exploration.  Every time a scientist discovers something new, they also discover another array of questions unseen before the screen of the latest discovery was lowered.  The Space Shuttles journeys have opened doors, given great drama and sorrow, fulfilled young children’s dreams as they became the men and women who flew in them, answered some questions, but discovered other questions that we didn’t even know were out there hanging in suspended anticipation on their discovery.  Questions that will not cease to be asked by the ending of the space shuttle programme, but which the ended of raises in itself a question.

Does the end of this era mean the end of space exploration?  Well no, of course not, there has been talk about what might replace the space shuttle, but any such dreams and aspirations are curtailed by costs even without the current economic climate.  One day our travelling will resume and our explorations continue, although I suspect it might be something I wont be around to see, one day the stuff of Star Trek might be a reality as the boundaries of where we can live and work are stretched into and beyond the stars that we can see twinkling in the night sky, when and if that day comes, I suspect there will still be plenty of questions awaiting answers, but one answer will remain true.

As Jesus ascended into heaven he said to his disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit that was going to be sent to dwell within them, that promise remains true for eternity, so regardless of how far future generations travel God will always be their constant guide, be it to the ends of the earth or even beyond them.

millennium