Fearfully and Wonderfully made

Here is my second home - this is the study space at which I spend almost all of my time. I should have taken the picture from the path to the school, because it would have cut out the telephone pole, but I didn't think about it - perhaps I'll replace it later. On another note, I perhaps should apologize to some of the Ph.Ds who may have been offended by my post-exam rant - I know they work hard and are respected members of our academic community. However, during a TA session in the anatomy lab today, Nicole started to not feel so well. She went outside, got some water, and sat on the steps. Apparently, a professor walked by, glanced sideways at her, and just kept on going. While I find it a little strange that they didn't stop to ask if she was alright, I'm not really surprised; they're not real doctors anyway.

There is a street, here in Dominica, called Moo Cow Trail. As you can probably tell by now, in addition to being populated by med school students, Moo Cow Trail is also home to many of the island's bovine residents (whose amorous lowing often keeps my classmates awake). It would appear that late February - early March is vacation time in cow-country. The cows have relocated from their trail to the grassy hills below my balcony, where they have a lovely view of the Caribbean Sea, and can rub elbows (hoofs?) with students returning from class. This one had horns, though, so I didnt' want to get close enough for a really crisp picture.



It's Sunday - I'm going to preach a bit.

My favorite Psalm (maybe my favorite chapter) in the entire Bible is the 139th Psalm. It's a somewhat atypical praise of God's goodness from David - instead of exalting the Lord for His faithfulness and mercy, David basically praise Him for two things - God knows us intimately, and planned out the human body with complexity and love. I've always liked it - the last two verses are my favorites, but the longer I'm here at medical school, two particular parts seem to become more true every day - the "fearfully and wonderfully made" portion, and the part in which David says "You are everywhere" Here it is:

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me

and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;

your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,

and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting."

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presense? I don't know, but Dominica isn't one of those places. God's with me here too - in the study spaces when I'm trying to cram everything into my head, in the lecture hall when I'm taking notes, and in the anatomy lab, when I'm dissecting and studying. It's in there, more than anywhere else, that I see how fearfully and wonderfully made we are. Did we really need the flexor retinaculum to keep our wrist tendons from bowstringing? Was it absolutely necessary for our major arteries to be deep in our limbs, protected by muscles? Does the hand have to so intricate and complex? I don't think any of those are necessary, but I think that God loved us so much, that even before He created us, He planned to make us incredibly intricate, fully able to enjoy His creation. It's almost laughable to me that some people believe that millions of years of beneficial mutations got us where we are. The complexity of the clotting cascade alone is amazing - it's a system of checks and balances that makes the American government look like children playing in the sand. I can't believe how people can look at a handful of 15 (at least) different factors and proteins for blood clotting alone and ascribe it to chance. I prefer to believe that God planned it that way - it just makes more sense.