January 27, 2015
Evident to All
I visited a local church and
met a man who felt I looked familiar; so much so that he thought there was
other person in town who could be my twin. It was curious that he didn’t know the
other person’s name and he didn’t ask my name, but he was adamant that I had a
look-a-like running around. I laughingly told him maybe I and the other person are
one in the same. He rejected the suggestion and now I’m worried. Obviously he never
have expected my look-a-like to be in a worship service, so if by chance we are
one in the same, somewhere along the line I must have failed to leave a
Christian impression. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again:
Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is
near” (Phil 4:4-5 NIV).
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Gail;
-----I don’t know a whole lot about how the brain works. But I know its neurons are single cells having a main cell body with a dendrite system branching out like a tree receiving electrochemical impulses from other neurons, and having an axon system, also branching out like a tree, sending electrochemical impulses to other neurons. So, of course, the dendrite system of one cell receives a message from the axon system of another, processes it, and then sends a consequential impulse out its axon system to the dendrites of other specific neurons. Now, how does one neuron know to which specific other neurons to send a message?
-----Bucky balls and nano-tubes were interesting discoveries of the late twentieth century. These are carbon molecules having their carbon atoms arranged in such fashion that some form molecular cage-like spheres, while others form open ended, long tubes. They are useful. Sister Nature (because God created her too) uses carbon structures like these within the neuron’s cell body as computer chips. I know very little about how these “chips” are connected to the dendrites and axons, and exactly what kind of ionization must function within them to produce their chip-like qualities, but they are the obvious information processors and storage facilities of the neuron.
-----Everything of communication is pattern recognition. A certain patterned impulse received through the dendrite is recognized by this “chip”, which initiates a correspondingly patterned impulse out the axon. Axons can branch into thousands, even hundreds of thousands of tips called terminals for forming synaptic connections to particular spines at the dendrite tips of other neurons. Each terminal can emit one of two chemicals, one being a spine attractant, the other a repulser. From the “chip” to the tip, then, is patterned meaning by which recognition occurs.
-----There are billions of these “critters” inside our heads working as independent communities forming our thoughts and memories. They fascinate me because they are so like people. Each has its own brain in that greatly complex, carbon molecule. Each reach out and meet and greet others, or avert one another if unfamiliarity is signaled. They form networks of intercommunication that do indeed become our ideas. And those ideas network with multitudes of other ideas to form perceptions and thought and consciousness and even far more - sub-consciousness. And like the electrochemical signals through and around the axons and dendrites of many neurons, the thoughts and ideas and perceptions of people form connections or disconnections with other people in networks of communities spanning into cultures and countries. We belong to a God of whom the word “amazing” does not even begin to describe.
-----Meaning. What is meaning? Meaning comes from interrelationship. Some superlative ignoramuses have run around spouting caustic moronry about there not being any meaning. But your Bible tells you God knows every thought of every human that has ever lived or ever will live, knowing them right down beyond their individual synaptic connections and nano-chips. Talk about interrelationship! In God’s mind everything that exists is intimately interrelated at unimaginable levels of detail into purposes whose immensities would make our entire universe appear to be a mere quark.
-----In our own small place at our own short moment, even this man thinking you have a look-alike that he’s seen has meaning treasured, and probably only known, by God. We don’t know the meaning of any particular instant of a situation. Yet we can treasure it for knowing God saves each up to sort out as a keeper, or throw into the lake of fire as disconnected.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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