Real Life

I come from a generation which sadly associates itself with creating and developing "reality television". I'll admit that I had a few favorites of my own, but I could never separate myself from thinking that all reality TV is most likely just like professional wrestling. It's not real - just actors performing their trade. I know this is not a grand surprise to most, but I do think about how producers of these shows pick out people either of phenomenal skill to act like someone you would want to punch for their rude behavior, or they really are just that idiotic. Yet the kicker comes when these shows become so popular. Viewers enjoy seeing people being obnoxiously rude to each other, maybe to make their life seem just as normal or better. In either case, this popular entertainment is now famous for being our reality, or at least dramatically faking it.

Here in lies my point. I come from a generation who would take the fake over what's real, and then call it real. I wish to focus on real life in this blog; relating biological organisms, the biotic and abiotic factors that make up their environment, and how they all together work to reflect their Creator.

As I worked toward my undergraduate degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management at Texas A&M University, the majority of my peers’ loathed classes such as Agrostology and Plant Taxonomy. Both of these classes dealt with identifying and classifying plants down to their species. We would scramble along Texas highways then bring our collections into lab to key them.  This process is meticulous and time-consuming where the most effort comes from trying to distinguish the minute differences like a shape of a lemma, length of an awn, or the specific type of hair present on the stem of the plant. Every step of the keying process offers two options, known as binomials, and both options lead to further binomials until the descriptions are differentiated into the identified species. Careful observation, therefore, is a critical component in the classification process. A wrong turn at any binomial in the key will produce a misidentification. In the midst of the long process, you might not be surprised that some less motivated students would accept their misidentification as their answer. Moreover, for the sake of time, some would even attempt to sight identify the species based solely on what their past experiences have taught them. Success in this method is not impossible, but not as frequent as those who took time to rigorously key out the species. I do paint my generation with a broad brush, but only to explain that even those who choose this laborious field of study today can fall to what’s easier and false instead of what is more difficult to seek out and is truth. In the end, they will pay for choosing the former instead seeking out the truth behind the life of the earth.

                           

Those features on each plant, as small as they are, were sketched by God. Some believers find God’s glory among the galaxies and constellations. I do find His glory among the stars, but ever more so, I see His amazing attention to detail in the tiniest veins on the glumes of a spikelet – meaning the bracts of the solitary spikelet which hold the minuscule florets, or flowers, of the grass (figure below). This is like our life. The details in blades and petals are similar to the details He’s written into our individual lives. He provides us life just as He provided for the individual grasses to take root, survive, and become reproductive. This is reality. He has written the DNA within each of us. Not only that, but He has written our life story, our family story, and our love story. He shares in our darkest seasons and our brightest mornings, and every moment of every day of our lives. To say that you are anything else besides what God has made you and who He's molding you to become is like looking at an apple tree sapling and saying it will become an orange tree. It would be a lie, a fake, and a false reality.

I look to God’s creation as a reminder of the life He has given me, both the physical and the gift of spiritual life I have accepted from Him, and His attention to detail to my time spent on His earth. Though we have already received our physical life, He calls us to accept or reject the gift of eternal life after putting undivided faith in Him. In the midst of the false realities among my society and culture, I hope for this outlet to help me connect biological lessons to the teachings of spiritual life God has taught me and continues to teach me. He wishes to give us the greatest reality we could ever imagine.

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” ~John 10:10