A Baby Biologist Walks by the Sea

I have been taking Biology for almost a year now.  After a lifetime of Liberal Arts pursuits- History, Art History, English, Theology- my mind is being challenged to wrap itself around the very fundamentals of basic Biology.  Beginning with one of the most basic units of the study of life, the cell, I began my studies last summer with Cell Biology (a prerequisite for the three term sequence of Anatomy & Physiology).  It has been challenging and humbling for this History major to focus my mind less on the big/'macro' ideas and more on the particulars/'micro' of the created world.

Years ago Jason and I watched a documentary about an artist named Andy Goldsworthy.  Called "Rivers and Tides" (click on the link above for more information), the film is a beautiful documentary about images created in and in response to nature's own dramatic show.  Goldsworthy's work bubbled to the surface of my mind as I walked the coastline of a small part of Oregon's magnificent coast last weekend.  I stand in awe of the Creator as I begin to notice, with my small kindergarten Biology background, repeating images in nature.  Perhaps our bodies are more connected to the grand design than we think.  Our very breath, named "Tidal Volume" by anatomists, ebbs and flows in and out in rhythmic patterns as the tide pulls in and out against the coast.  Our inner ear, also called the concha, is named after the conch shell which bears almost the exact same shape.  The vibrations moving through a conch shell and creating a sound that reminds us of the roaring sea is not unlike the air moving through our inner ears only to be interpreted as music, laughter, speech, whispers by our Vestibulocochlear nerve.  Attached to this conch shell are three semicircular canals which are responsible for our dynamic equilibrium- i.e. knowing where we are in space.  These perfectly designed "shells" of our body allow us to control our body while flipping in a cartwheel or standing on our heads.

An electron microscope reveals the pseudostratified ciliated cells lining our trachea.  Their wavelike motions carry debris and bacteria away from our lungs, cleansing and warming the air that enters our lungs- our very life breath.  Their image is not unlike the seaweed clinging to the Oregon rocks which flow in wavelike motions with the tide.  The images just begin to multiply, the treelike webs on the back of a sand dollar or a leaf which bears striking similarity to the branches of blood vessels, nerves, or bronchioles that fill our bodies and become the means of transport for oxygen, nutrients, and feeling.

Who are we?  Who are we, these salty creatures whose bodies are so adept at hormonally balancing our saltiness?  We are Creatures made in the image of the Creator.  How is our Creator reflected in His creation?  I am not a philosopher, nor a scientist, nor a theologian, but I do have eyes.  I see our world and I wonder how I can have better eyes, better understanding of the rhythm and pattern of creation, and perhaps greater wisdom in knowing the one who created and one day will redeem all things.