Two of my favorite things... ;)

  You may or may not know that two of my favorite things are Creation science and creative writing.  When I can, I try to pass on the things I love and all the things I research and learn to students at homeschool co-ops and such, and when I get to do that, I usually create my own curriculum.  (...which is partly fun and partly so-many-necessary-things-that-take-longer-than-they-should-and-aren't-really-fun-at-all.  :P )  I also try to keep myself writing at least little things pretty regularly so I won't get lazy...  And sometimes these two things get to be combined and used together, and then I really start having fun.  ;)

  This piece below is part of something I put together for a class I taught about a year ago.  I wanted to help my students look at the creation account with new eyes, and I love the song I Am (Creation) Overture from the Music Inspired By The Story album — so I put that on repeat, and challenged myself to write the account of Creation directly from Scripture, but as if I was describing what was going on in the opening scene of an epic film.

  I'm pretty pleased with the result, and thought I'd share it with you — though it's not really polished, so I appreciate grace in its imperfections.  ;)  I hope this stirs something inside you as you read it, maybe it gives you a new sense of wonder at the significance of the Creation story, and at the very least, you can feel a little of my passion for this beautiful moment in history.  :) 

                                   

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Looking Again at the Creation Account

by Bree M. Mielke

Have we forgotten to wonder at the sheer awesome

beauty of what took place at the Creation?

  Wonder  —   Something or someone that is very surprising, beautiful, amazing, etc.;   a feeling caused by seeing something very surprising, beautiful, amazing, etc.;   a cause of astonishment or admiration;   the quality of exciting amazed admiration;   rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience.

    The Creation account according to Genesis:

                                                        from Genesis 1 and 2

  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

  ...Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

  ...And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good…

 

  We’ve all read and heard these words so many times that we’ve become numb to what they are trying to show us.  We’ve really missed something beyond amazing. 

  But what if we put this familiar description in a new light?  Would we find the awe we seem to have lost that well belongs to such an incredible event?  What if we read it as poetry, or as the description accompanying the opening scenes of a movie — how would that change the way we viewed the words we’ve heard so many times?   How would it grow our view of God?

  Picture this description below as if it were the opening scene for a movie you've never seen before:

       (Listen to the instrumental piece 'I Am (Creation) Overture' from the album Music Inspired By The Story while reading this; they go really well together. ;) )

'I Am (Creation) Overture' — Album: Music Inspired By The Story

Darkness.  Silence.  Emptiness.

  But  the ultimate Creator is beginning a stunning masterpiece.  Out of the empty nothing He spreads a space - a somewhere to place His handiwork.  He forms a perfect sphere, covered in water, setting it spinning in the waiting space He has created at a single, specific moment; and time, space and matter leap into being.

  Then, in a Voice like rolling thunder, vibrating and shaking the foundations of everything there is —and everything there is not yet— He utters a command;  and suddenly a burst of radiating brightness erupts and fountains out to fill all the space.  Light.  Pure, unblemished, unfiltered light.  And the hand of God separates the new light from the lack of it, which He names darkness, and He nods in satisfaction.  It is good.  And He watches the first evening and morning move across His new creation.

  Something else is happening already.  He stretches out the water covering the sphere and separates two layers, one high above as a surrounding shield, and the other as a blanket of smooth, cool, moving liquid.  And He passes over it Himself and sees that it is good.  A second evening and morning rise and set over His creation.

  Then He calls the moving waters on the face of the sphere to gather together into one place, one body.  As the liquids tumble themselves into a single Sea, new, rich brown earth is left behind everywhere else.  But the fresh land is not quiet.  Sprouts burst up from every inch of its surface;  thick grasses, twigs growing and stretching into powerful trees, grains bursting out of the ground in full seed.  And the third evening and morning set over a now softer, brighter spinning globe— and it is good.

  With the first light of the next day, the great Designer draws up from behind the sea a massive burning, blazing, golden Light to rule over the daylight hours.  The excitement in His new Heaven is tangible as the young sun pours over the Creator’s handiwork, washing everything in warmth.  From behind the sun as it sails across the sky, He shapes another sphere; much smaller than the first, and hangs it in the air to reflect the radiance of the sun, and to govern the night hours.  And as it drifts into its place at the setting of the fourth day, He flings a multitude of brilliant stars across the whole of the heavens.  Pinpricks of dazzling brightness glitter in every square inch of space, and all of Heaven erupts in awed celebration.

  The next light of day dawns, drawing up again the blazing sun to look on as something begins to happen on the sphere of earth.  The waters of the sea churn and swirl wildly— then out of the foam leap fish and sea creatures in every color and shape, followed by enormous whales and mammoth sea monsters, tiny krill, green sea turtles and gliding stingrays.  Not a second later, the skies of that new world explode with a million, million flying creatures— hummingbirds, eagles, pterodactyls, goldfinches, dragonflies.  A living, moving rainbow of colors coursing through the air and the waters, singing in voices all their own as the sun sets on the fifth day.

  Before the sun can rise on the next morning, the hand of God is already at work;  the new green earth is all at once bursting  with herds of buffalo, giant sauropods, wild cats, tiny field mice, bright-eyed deer.  Every inch of creation is thundering with life— but the Creator isn’t finished.

  A hush falls over Heaven as He takes up a handful of earth.  He shapes it into a creature unlike anything He has yet made.  A creature crafted in His own image, in His very likeness.  And He breathes into it the Spirit of Life— the essence of Himself, with a Soul like nothing else in creation, and calls this being Man.  Adam.  He sets the man in a lush garden on the earth, and Heaven holds its breath.

  The voice of God reverberates through the heavens, “It is not good that Man should be alone.”  So He puts the man to sleep, taking one of his ribs and closing the place with flesh, and from the rib he fashions a second creature.  Like the man, but gentler and full of grace, and calls her Woman.  He brings her to the man, and gives them the garden and the whole of the new creation to tend and to rule as the stars glitter over the falling light of the sixth day.  And all of it is very, very good.

  And as the sun again leaps into the sky over an earth filled to brimming with life, the God of heaven and earth brings the creation to a close, on the seventh day.  But the story of this new world has just begun, and the Creator Himself steps down to walk with the Man and Woman in their garden.

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