While homeschooling our son with a couple of other families, many years ago, we took the opportunity to take advantage of the incredible resources available for those with a passion to study biology.
Some quick research, a couple of calls, and a credit card later, our excited classroom full of students were eagerly looking forward to the courier’s knock at the door. After all, dissecting a varied array of animal body-parts with your parent’s permission, would be deemed the opportunity of a lifetime, wouldn’t it?
How our crew of mad-scientist wannabes revelled in the thought!
At least until we opened the first few containers.
We opted as “teachers” to build the intensity and excitement as we went along… you know… save the best for last. So we started with a kidney – boring, beige, and bland. From there we would move onto a liver, brain, heart, and then finally… the most interesting part of all.
While most of the formaldehyde-soaked and well-preserved items could have survived until eternity in their tightly sealed containers, we knew they really wouldn’t hang around the classroom too long. The smell alone was enough to sicken me, let alone the appearance of the colourless, lifeless organs.
On the third and final day, we teachers waited with baited breath, (well okay, we actually held our breath), and grinned as we plopped the sealed, white shipping container into the middle of the table. We knew they would be delighted, as we went to all the extra expense of ordering one eyeball for each.
A chorus of “cooooool” echoed from the lips of all those masculine voices, and we carefully set them down on the table in front of each one.
“Ewww… gross… I can’t dissect something that’s looking back at me… Do we have to do this one?”
Sigh…. so much for our classroom full of future scientists and physicians.
We proceeded as instructed through our sets of directions and outlines. It meant cutting slits, leaking juices, and scooping that old eyeball out! If that wasn’t enough, we were now going to have to apply pressure and pop the socket inside out to look at the back of it. And that was when it happened…
Suddenly, it all got exciting…
What truly lay hidden deep beneath the surface was now exposed in all its beauty, and in chorus, we all took in a gasp of air.
Who would have thought it? How could it be, that such an incredible, intensity of beautiful colours be buried so far within and out of sight? Royal purples, lavenders, teals, sea-foam greens, brilliant turquoises and blues, black and whites, all stared back at us.
Looking beyond the scientific aspects of the moment, they immediately questioned why such beauty would remain hidden from sight.
Truthfully… we didn’t have an answer. It was one of those moments when you just know that God is Creator.
In His mercy and grace, however, He had prepared me for an insight moment just days before.
It is impossible to recall exactly where I had read it, but just days prior to the event, I had been doing some reading on “creation versus evolutionary” arguments to prepare for a class, yet to come. At that particular time of reading, they had just developed a new form of technology that was now enabling them to lower the newer video camera capabilities into depths, once never before accessible.
Divers were unable to safely go beyond the old maximum depth-line, and technology was previously incapable of making a journey any lower. Now, through the darkest, murkiest waters of the deep, they utilized their tools of scientific study and discovered the most intense colours of fish ever seen.
Shades of brilliant scarletts, powerful crimsons, royal purples, royal blues, flaming oranges, magentas, golden and sunshine-yellows, all mixed in combinations along with blacks, and whites, all danced, spun, dipped, and dived their way through the deepest, cloudiest waters.
Again, they questioned why God would have His own breathtaking palette of creative colours buried so deep that nobody would ever find them, and that was when the answer came to me…
“They are there, so that only He can enjoy them. We can’t taint, mar, or destroy what He has created for His own pleasure when it is hidden beneath the surface. He “looks upon a man’s heart”, while man can only see what is on the outside – He sees the true purity of the heart and soul of a man – the place wherein lies their true beauty.”
Eventually, we disposed of all of our bits and pieces of scientific memorabilia, but I have to admit there was a part of me that wanted to keep just one “eyeball in a jar”. It seemed like it would have made for one incredible conversation-starter, in spite of how it would have looked in my refrigerator… and therein lies… the beauty of the deep…