Thoughts

A question came up in my social studies class about prehistory. A student wanted to know how all the different species came into existence. We talked briefly about the Cambrian explosion, which prompted another student to ask about the origin of the universe. This led to a great discussion about cosmology that has since spawned other discussions about God, time, and origins. It just happened that I had been reading The Case for a Creator , by Lee Strobel, so answers to their questions were fresh in my mind. It also brought me back to a civil liberties class I took in college, in which we were required to simulate landmark Supreme Court cases. In one of these, we simulated Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), a case that struck down a Louisiana law—called the “Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and Evolution Science in Public School Instruction Act”—forbidding the teaching of evolution in the public school classroom unless it was accompanied by the teaching of creation. The central que

A heart that’s filled with bitter things Is pulled and tugged by puppet strings By subtle fingers‘ lift it sways By fancy of another’s ways Its legs dancing all the faster, Governed by some callous master Who slumps its head so eyes drop down Plunged deep into its rage to drown Now missing what its life could be: Forgiveness that could make it free But all at once it lifts its eyes To see outside the crippling lies To see the world in all its length And walk within its feeble strength It lifts its arm and spies the cord Remembering unforgiveness stored Quick down again it looks to find Its legs led by some other’s mind So legs that though before hung slack Now activate to take life back The other arm now moves to shear The strings that kept it in its fear Its bonds in one synchronic drop Unfetter what it once would stop The master, too, dispersed from view, To let it rule itself anew This frame that bore a gaping hole It finds is filled again with soul It