Dissecting Life

I've never been one of those who wanted to tear things apart just to see how they worked.
It's not because I'm not curious; it's more because I'd rather the thing work than to have pieces and parts laying all over the place trying to remember where they go.
My brother-in-law is just the opposite - but I digress.

Yet there are many who reduce things in life or even life itself down to the lowest possible denominator in an attempt to figure it all out.
These are called Reductionists - and it is because of their work that we have advanced in our learning and technology many times throughout the ages.

For example - want to build a helicopter? 
Just figure out how a wasp or a hummingbird do what they do naturally and maybe we can make it work with iron and steel synthetically. 

There are others who do just the opposite, people like me who try or can see how everything in life and in the world fits together and connects.
People like me drive those who find a crisis behind every corner absolutely nuts because we can easily see the big picture and how it works together.

For example - don't worry about the Polar Ice Caps melting, in the last 10 years they've actually grown. We've just been given bad data - it's warmer because the air is cleaner and the earth is going through another natural cycle. 
The fossils of palm trees in the arctic circle can teach us much about where we're heading because it shows us where we've been.

Now, which ever group you may fall into personally, our age certainly excels at the first but falters in the second.
Over and over it has proven true that it is much easier to tear things apart than to create what does not yet exist.
Take music for an example, do you really believe that we have improved on the greatest works of Beethoven or Tchaikovsky? 
The descent from Do-Wop to Rap Music in the 20th Century ought to be enough to prove my proposition.

Mona Lisa

But we could also look at modern art.
Does modern art even compare to the great works of the past, such as the Mona Lisa?
I don't think so.



Yet the one area where we have excelled, where we have produced better than ever before; it is in the profession of arms - what most people call warfare.
The past 100 years have proven to have been more violent and more deadly than any century prior to it. In the course, more humans have died due to ruthless, evil men, their followers and those who removed them, than any other period in history.
And the warfare and means of death has become more proficient than at any other time as well. 

Humanity developed poison to kill vermin; and we used it on one another in the trenches of Belgium and France.
Mankind dissected the flight of animals and placed it in a machine on the Outer Banks of North Carolina; but in our century we figured out not only how to fly these machines in space but also how they could carry weaponry to destroy humanity from thousands of feet above in the sky.
We mastered biological diseases and packed them into a canister; yet, the flu and pneumonia still kill the elderly.
And while I am thankful that I can put a scope on my rifle and shoot with precision up to 435 meters; I'm not sure it was worth all we had to kill and destroy to get it.

American Cemetery, Luxembourg 

The purpose of all things is to bring glory to God and for some, as they reduce life into operating procedures of biology or chemistry - it doesn't tell the whole story of God's value on the world.
To see how all things work together for those who love God and serve Him, one must look a little deeper than just what's on the surface, as described above.

It is true with every technological advancement in warfare, more died because humans have gotten better and killing one another. But greater things have come out of it as well.
From the advancement of flight has come the birth of the computer age - without which you would be reading these words in a  newspaper if you read them at all.

From scientists working with viruses, humanity has nearly eradicated polio, mumps, the measles and countless other diseases which use to threaten the lives of millions upon millions every year.
In truth, what has happen is that God has given us wonderful minds and the ability to deduce in logic, but our fallenness has turned the blessings of life into the curse of the world.
With each new discovery, it seems we fall as Adam fell in the Garden, all over again.

Yet, as we wallow in the world of our own creating - we still have a gracious God.
I would encourage not to refrain from new knowledge, but to seek it and accept it - but rather than tearing it down to reduce the world to a level where it can be controlled, I would advise that we would seek to see how it all fits together in God's plan for us.

In South America, in a region of Argentina,  there is a place called 'Tierra del Fuego,' which means, "Land of Fire."
Magellan's explorers first encountered it and it is named so because they could see the natives on the shoreline tending fires.
As the Galleons passed them and navigated the waters, the natives - who had never seen anything like these ships - paid absolutely no attention to them at all.
Eventually, the Europeans and the Natives made contact and were able to communicate; when asked why they didn't even respond to the ships the natives said that they thought they were all seeing what we would call apparitions.

The story may seem odd but the truth is that the Natives of Argentina were seeing something so different than anything they had known, they simply couldn't comprehend the ships as real.
Even as other humans passed before their eyes, they could not decode it in their minds. Personally, to me, that is simply amazing.

But I don't believe it is any more amazing than the refusal of some to believe in God or in their failure to see God's grace in our lives.
In our modern world, like with the Natives of Argentina, science and technology constantly casts more light on live and the universe; as we receive more light, the light obscures the mysterious invisible world that resides beyond the limits of our minds.
Unfortunately, like stars on a summer day, the light is hiding the magnificent wonders of God.

While I cannot tell you if you personally are a Reductionist or a person who can see how everything connects and moves together in this world; or even a person who can reduce most things and see the connection - there is one thing I do know.
We may be limited in our knowledge on how things work, but I know without a shadow of doubt, all things do indeed work together for the good of those who love God.

And if you haven't tried it - you should; because there is a greater, wondrous and mysterious world which can only be know through the revelation of the love of God.

Until next time, win one for the good guys.