the poetrysheet
whimsy, subversion, bocce
Number 508, October 4,
2004
Back. Again.
“A hiatus. That's what I'm taking. Hiatus! If I was to take many
hiatuses at once, would it be hiati? Like octopus? Octopi? Hiati? No? I dunno.
Stop!”
—UCFKevin at http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t47103/15-3
There is a bug around here that looks like a wisp of cotton or a white lint ball from a pocket. I don’t know what kind of bug it is—what it is called or related to or the prey of or the predator of—but I love this bug.
In Nature we see camouflage and mimicry and dimorphism and all sorts of tricks. Tasty moths look like Monarch butterflies because they’ve evolved to look like the foul-tasting Monarch to survive. Turns out, bug-eating things don’t like Monarchs much. Some orchids have changed over generations to look like female bees so male bees “mate” with the flower to spread its pollen. You know the stories.
What I love about the white-lint-ball bug around my house is how it mimicked a non-majestic thing to survive—a tiny ball of white fluff. Even caterpillars that have evolved to look like bird poop have a more noble costume in that the disguise is so good it demands respect. But the lint-ball bug just looks like the crud in the very point of my pocket. This bug fooled me for years until I finally noticed the lint ball was walking. I investigated and discover it lived. Perhaps it is only indigenous to Cabbagetown here in Atlanta, and it allegorically evolved to look like the closing of the cotton mill—gossamer pieces dissipating into time.
The Christian symbol of the fish was the first metal stick-on emblem I ever saw on cars. You know the one. Then, a smart aleck evolutionist created the fish with the legs to represent the theory that the first animal out of the primordial ooze was a mud-skipping catfish beast. Shortly afterward, the metal stick-on craze went silly. There was the one with the bigger fish eating the walking fish like a shark, and then the emblems went back and forth trying to out “symbolize” each other. The irony, of course, is that even the glyph that represented Christianity transformed, or evolved, into a “fitter” embodiment.
Another irony is that Christianity and evolution are not opposites—creationism and evolution are opposites—and it really isn’t fair to the Christians, providing they are enlightened and educated and accept the science of genetic changes over time.
The same evolution of car art happened to Calvin pissing on Chevy stickers. Occasionally, Calvin pissed on Ford. Pretty soon, Calvin pissed on Saddam. Before it was over (it is over, isn’t it?), Calvin blessed many things with the golden shower. After Dale Sr. died, Calvin knelt aprayin’ at a grave. Every now and again I see a Calvin sticker doing something I don’t recognize, and I think this particular Calvin activity has become so esoteric, I have no idea what he is suppose to symbolize. I only recognize the NASCAR Calvin because I finally asked some guy at a gas station to translate his sticker, please. Until the day that guy told me about Dale #3, I thought Calvin was making bread for Jesus. He is kneeling and there is a cross; I didn’t know. But again, Calvin evolved before our eyes in a very short time. We all saw it.
Want a third example? “My kid beat up your honor roll student.” Need I say more?
The thing is, evolution should be taught in school because it is a science in the old sense of the word. Evolution is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing an operation of general laws (sci•ence¹); and Evolution is a systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. (sci·ence²).
Creationism, on the other hand, is doctrine, a faith belief, a human internal knowledge of great power that defies even the observable world. Faith is a force beyond teaching. The existence of Faith lives in the brain, not the eyes. The brain can function without eyes but not vice versa. Faith is greater than science and, therefore, has no place in school. We should not teach Faith because it can not be taught. We possess Faith or we don’t.
Faith, like perfect pitch, is a gift, is a blessing. More power to you if you got it, but keep it the hell out of schools.
Why would a parent want a government employee like a teacher influencing the spirituality of their child? I really only ask of my schools to teach children adding and telling time and dodgeball and Home Economics and the laws of physics, etc. Prayer in school? God no. I don’t want your God in my child, and you shouldn’t want mine in yours. Evolution is opinionless. It is a study one can observe with evidence before them. It is not a belief or a viewpoint or a value.
Where was I? Oh, these bugs floating by that look like dandelion fuzz or lint or some small white fabric patch, right. I know that God gave me that little bug to appreciate His works and to love my Creator. I know it in my heart and my soul. But, long before this bug’s ancestors looked like a ball of fuzz, they looked like something not-quite-ball-of-fuzzlike.
These two statements are not opposites. I keep things straight internally. Believing science does not nullify your Faith. The egg came way before the chicken. The chickens’ ancestors that weren’t quite chickens laid eggs containing more chickenoid beasts. Get it?
This conundrum can stifle a person who has only Faith but no science. I hope in a few generations there will be bugs on Gaskill that look like used condoms and birds under the Krog tunnel with coloration that reads “Goatravisher.”
At least that will mean we were cool enough, long enough, and we’ll praise the Creator.
If
you want to know why the tree in the forest does make sound, call Rev.
Dave DeChant at 404-822-4290.
The fly
By Thomas Zvi Wilson
Right here on
my computer's keyboard
he was dancing,
running round the alphabet
as if he could type
like you and me.
I whacked the booger on Delete
then squashed him good
beneath my sweaty feet.
Laid out without
a word to mumble,
his funeral was cheap.
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