(Below is a pro-life poem I've had in my head for a little while. I wrote it out today. The plan is for it to accompany a drawing, but I'm not sure what I think about the poem. I've never been one for writing poetry, because I have a hard time keeping it from sounding contrived and melodramatic. In an attempt to cut out wordiness, I didn't write out complete thoughts, but I don't know if this makes it poetic or just...weird and incomprehensible. I'd appreciate all suggestions as well as answers to any of these questions: 1) Do you understand the point I'm making? 2) Do I need to be more clear about the parenthetical statements? 3) It is melodramatic? 4) Does the "argument" make sense? 5) Is it artistically appealing--or just artistically annoying? 6) Are there too many "big" words in line 8? 7) What would you do differently?




What Is Being Human?


Is it…
Seeing?
Hearing?
Tasting?
Smelling?
Feeling?
Talking?
(Blindness, Deafness, Ageusia, Anosmia,
Paraylysis, Muteness)


Is it independence in…
Choosing?
Breathing?
Eating?
(Infants, Life Support, Feeding Tubes)

Is it a measure of…
Intelligence?
Control?
Rationality?
(Down’s Syndrome, OCD, Schizophrenia)

Is it being…
The right size?
The right color?
The right shape?
(Holocaust)

Or is it…
Growing?
Living?
A heartbeat?
A soul?




No.


Being human…
Is being wanted.


Being unwanted is being non-human.





(Thanks, y'all!)

So who knows who John Dickinson was? Until two months ago, I only knew him as "the guy who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence." Sadly, most of what I knew about him was from [cringe] the musical "1776," which portrays him as a greedy plantation owner.

After researching and writing a 25-page paper on him, I learned he played a key role in the development of prewar revolutionary thought. Because of his writings and political service, he became hugely popular, known as "The Foremost Patriot," the Penman of the Revolution, and Samuel Adams even called him a "True Bostonian" (if you know anything about Adams, you know that's a huge compliment).

When Thomas Jefferson put forward the Declaration of Independence, Dickinson objected to it, not because he disagreed with the concept of revolution, but because he thought it was too soon. Declaring independence in 1776 would destroy the colonies, he said. Unfortunately for Dickinson, he was in the minority--and he knew it. Despite this, he felt compelled to voice his opinion, as "silence would be guilt." When he rose from his seat in Congress on 1 July 1776 to object to the Declaration, he said, "My conduct this day, I expect, will give the finishing blow to my once great...and now too diminished popularity."

He was right. Even though he was a Founding Father, few Americans today know who he was. Those who do know, know of him only as "the man who didn't sign the Declaration." We admire the signers of the Declaration because they were sacrificing their lives. Dickinson--who joined the Continental Army a week after refusing to sign--sacrificed not only his life, but his reputation.

I enjoyed my Theory & Methods class. In it, we discussed the reason why we study history. The professor said studying history must be more than just hobby. It's not about enjoying stories. It's not about memorizing all the facts. It's about studying what was, so we can learn what ought to be. He is thinking in the broad scale of nations and continents. It's a noble aspiration, one I'm trying to adopt, but...I'm afraid I've always studied history for a more selfish reason. I study it so I can learn who those people were, so I can better understand what sort of person I ought to be.

I learned a lot from studying Dickinson.

There is something about this itty-bitty corner of the world that is my office that isn't particularly conducive to paper-writing, thus the huge, honkin' paper due Tuesday isn't any closer to being done than it was yesterday. I have a few guesses as to why this little space is so brain-numbing. The GTAs in the two offices next to mine periodically hold jam sessions, debates, and a capella concerts that consist of gross kindergarten songs I've tried to forget (You know--the ones involving bodily functions and cleaning supplies, etc.). I don't know how the professors aren't bothered by this, but they aren't. My little space doesn't really have room for me to spread my elbows beside me, much less my books, and the walls are the color of a stale coffee cake.

All that aside, this little office provides me plenty of story fodder, particularly from my two officemates, who shall remain nameless, though I'll call them Bill and Bob. They both look like absent-minded geniuses--or homeless hobos, depending on the day, their amount of sleep, and my mood.

Bill refuses to wear anything but sweatclothes, has hair to his shoulders, belches aloud, and consumes entire bags of potato chips in one fail swoop, which might lead one to think he's less than intellectually gifted, but then he nearly collapses in grief when he gets a "B" on a book review (first B he's gotten since high school). Bob is calmer, more well-kempt, but with a beard that steadily grows bushier and bushier, until one day he walked in with a face smooth as a babe's behind. Bill jumped back in his seat and cried, "Whoa! Your beard's gone." Bob replied he got tired of seeing all the gray whiskers in it. Bob recently went through a rough patch; he had too many contradictory sources for a research paper. It got him down and depressed for a while, until he finally figured out he would just make something up like all the other historians had (Can't blame him, history is more fiction than fact, it seems).

They treat me with respect, commiserate with me, and share their dried blueberries and coffee with me. Their desks are across from each other, while mine's tucked away in a corner. I sit behind my partition, listen to them debate about whether it would be cheaper to pay back the interest on their loans or remain professional students all their lives, and I smile.

It just now hit me how great, important, and challenging a responsibility it is to be in God's image, to be his representative. For instance, I've been fudging on my school recently. No big deal, right? I mean, I worked hard the past four years in college--I deserve a break. But, it *is* a big deal. The cat's out of the bag that I believe in Intelligent Design (not that I was trying to keep it in the bag). So now, my efforts in school reflect not just on me as a student, but as a Christian. They're watching me, to see if I'm actually intelligent, or if I'm just a whacked-out spiritualist (...Well, slight exaggeration, maybe). I don't want to be that religious person who comes across as religious just because her parents were religious, and now she's in grad school, and the only reasons she's still religious is because she hasn't been able to shake off her childhood superstitions. No, I want to be a Dr. Dickey, an intelligent, disciplined individual, who is so strong in his and yet so well-versed in all things academic that people stop and think, "Well, he's smart, and he believes in God...Maybe there's more to it than I thought."

Instead, apparently, I am the person who makes contradicting remarks in class that confuse the teacher and the other students, as they don't understand how I reconcile my own plainly stated personal beliefs with my own plainly stated scholastic beliefs.

Truthfully, I see their point--I see the contradiction in what I said. Honestly, I wasn't thinking. On top of not thoroughly understanding our assignment because I hadn't finished it (the fudging part), I had put God in a little box and history in a little box, and didn't combine the two, or see how the two related to each other, so I blurt out this half-formed idea in class, and now, whatever I say in response to their queries, I think they're going to think I'm backpeddling.

Am I?

...I don't think so. I think...there was truth in my supposedly contradictory ideas...but...I should have been better prepared. I should have been more careful of what I said, I should have been able to give a defense in class, instead of sitting there, dumbstruck, wondering how to dig myself out of this hole, and waiting nearly a whole week to respond to my professor's e-mail. I'm a little scared--scared at how large this once-underestimated responsibility is. What are they going to think of God when this dialogue is over? What they think will largely be a result of what I say to them.

Ok. I need to go to bed. I'll think better in the morning.

In my Theory & Methods of History class, we recently "Guns, Germs, and Steel," by Jared Diamond, a New York Times bestseller that argues the view of environmental determinism. This view holds that the fates of the different races were set when they first parted ways after they evolved on the continent of Africa and went to different continents. Diamond argues that because of its climate, fertility of the soil, and lack of large prey, the Eurasian continent was responsible for the European and Asian races' evolution into farmer societies. Conversely, the American, African, and Australian continents were not as suitable for farming and did not have many domesticatable (word?) animals, thus the peoples of those continents became hunter-gatherers. Because of farmers more stable lifestyle, eventually the farmer societies dominated the world, thus leading to the U.S., the U.K., and Japan's dominance in our world today.

My professor asked what I thought of the book. I explained I believe in Intelligent Design, and thus had getting over my bias against Diamond after reading his faulty arguments for Evolution in his introductory paragraph. His fairy-tale explanations for Evolution carried into the rest of the book. I explained that I disagreed with his environmental deterministic viewpoint, and that I thought he discounted the role of culture, society, and the individual in shaping human history. I explained I didn't think the current dominant nations today are dominant because their environment thusly planned thier destiny.

The professor was confused. How could I believe in Intelligent Design and yet not believe in determinism? Doesn't the theory of Intelligent Design demand a deterministic viewpoint? He thought perhaps he misunderstood some of the basic concepts of Intelligent Design.

When I e-mailed him, asking how he defined determinism as it pertains to Intelligent Design, he repled:



"That word [intelligent design] suggests to me a structure, a structure that may be intelligently designed, but a structure nonetheless. I assumed, therefore, that the shape of the continents, the location of domesticates such as wheat, and animals such as cattle and pigs, and even the ways diseases evolved were all part of that design. I would have expected, therefore, that Diamond's deterministic approach to history would have fit within the paradigm of intelligent design.

"My skepticism of intelligent design, as I understand it (which may be quite wrong)...is that I find it leaves little room for historical contingency, for things that are unplanned and unpredictable...So while I do accept that people and other living things live within certain material constraints that to some extent determine what they can and cannot do, I also believe that accidents happen...I study people who make choices that often lead to unexpected, accidental outcomes. The determinism of Diamond doesn't leave room for choice or contingency. I assume the intelligent design doesn't either, but perhaps I am wrong and you can enlighten me on that."


I do not feel very well-equipped to enlighten him on the matter, which is disappointing to me for two reasons. First, I ought to be able to offer a good explanation (because I think there is one). Second, my professor is an intelligent and honest man and he deserves a better explanation than one I am able to give.

His questions are good. I imagine to some extent we have all shared the same questions. We've all wondered to what extent God is involved in history, what is providence and what is coincidence. This is something I had been considering recently even before my professor brought it up. It seems that we include God in history when it is convenient, and exclude him when it isn't.


I aplogize, I am need to cut this short. Well, nevermind. This post is incredibly long--it can in no ways be described as short. I will need to cut short my own explanations and disconnected thoughts on the matter because I need to get ready for church.

Jonathan, I know you've already shared your thoughts on this matter (which are good and I'm still mulling over them when I'm not working on my paper). Everyone else, I would love to know what you think. Thank you for your help.