Roadside Flowers- Billy Collins

These are the kind you are supposed
to stop to look at, as I do this morning,
but just long enough
so as not to carry my non-stopping
around with me all day,
a big medicine ball of neglect and disregard.

But now I seem to be carrying
my not-stopping-long-enough ball
as I walk around
the circumference of myself
and up and down the angles of the day.

Roadside flowers,
when I get back to my room
I will make it all up to you.
I will lie on my stomach and write
in a notebook how lighthearted you were,
pink and white among the weeds,

wild phlox perhaps,
or at least a cousin of that family,
a pretty one who comes to visit
every summer for two weeks without her parents,
she who unpacks her things upstairs
while I am out on the lawn

throwing the ball as high as I can,
catching it almost
every time in my two outstretched hands.

Synthetic Genomics

So we learned in microbio about this group working on synthetic genomics: trying to 'create' a synthetic microbe based on a minimal set of genes. Here's a news item from just a few months ago:

ROCKVILLE, MD—January 24, 2008—A team of 17 researchers at the J. CraigVenter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure bysynthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium,Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journalScience by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key steps toward the team’sgoal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next step, which is ongoing at theJCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on thesynthetically made genome.

http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/

Is this ethical??

There's something a little unnerving about us trying to 'create' a living cell. But at the same time, there could be a lot of benefits to people come from this (see Venter quotation below). We shouldn't play God, but as a Christian I don't need to worry about the human race getting totally out of hand because God just won't allow it. I mean, sin can and does abound but God's not going to be caught off guard by us and accidentally let us figure out his inscrutable mysteries...

So in learning about bio and organic chemistry and cases like this, I'm thinking about the dividing line between chemicals and life... it gets kind of blurry! Obviously, human life is different, because we have minds and souls, but we are also instilled with a certain respect for life in general, which is pretty cool. (Even these scientists value the living over the non-living, to they think this is only because of the potential benefit to themselves and/or the human race?) So if we do eventually manage to create a synthetic living cell, will we lose some of that respect? Will it be a loss only of respect to microbes, or will it start creeping up the chain to plants, animals, people...? One thing is for sure, it would definitely boost our already disgusting confidence that the 'unknown' is really just the 'not-yet-known' (to use Wendell Berry's idea).

But we could turn the idea back around and say that if we even were able to 'create' life, it ought not to decrease our respect for life but increase our respect for the inanimate world. Increase our love for the minerals, as it were (of which, we must remember, we are stewards). If we don't praise God, the rocks will cry out... maybe God is laughing at us for making such a thick line between the 'living' and the 'inanimate'. Maybe the final lines are between things such as existence and non-existence, or good and evil (We could think about the connections here between good-existence and evil-non-existence... see George MacDonald and St. Augustine).

Anyway, if our final achievement in science is to realize that the natural world can all be put into one category, well, we've circle back to Genesis: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." (Gen. 1:31).

Here is a statement from the founder of the synthetic genomics company, Craig Venter (who has done lots genomics):

"Work in creating a synthetic chromosome/genome will give us a better understanding of basic cellular processes. Genome composition, regulatory circuits, signaling pathways and numerous other aspects of organism gene and protein function will be better understood through construction of a synthetic genome. Not only will this basic research lead to better understanding of these pathways and components in the particular organisms, but also better understanding of human biology. The ability to construct synthetic genomes may lead to extraordinary advances in our ability to engineer microorganisms for many vital energy and environmental purposes."

- J. Craig Venter, 2003

and some history from the website:

The Genesis of the Company

In the mid 1990’s Drs. Venter and Smith in collaboration with Dr. Hutchison, began work at The Institute for Genomic Research, (now the J. Craig Venter Institute), on what was termed the “minimal genome project.” The research centered on the very small genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, a bacterium that primarily causes urinary tract infections in humans. With only 517 genes, the research team led by Dr. Hutchison surmised that perhaps they could ascertain which of these were essential to sustain the life of the organism. After using a technique pioneered by Dr. Hutchison called global transposon mutagenesis, the team was able to knock out non-essential genes and get to a core set of 265 to 350 genes that were needed to sustain life. However, most of those genes were of unknown function. The results were tantalizing both for what was learned and for how much still remained to be learned. In 2002, Dr. Venter established a new organization with a synthetic genomics and biological energy group, led by Dr. Smith at the J. Craig Venter Institute, to continue this and other follow-on research...

...

more Annie Dillard

"Scholarship has long distinguished between two strains of thought which proceed in the West from human knowledge of God. In one, the ascetic's metaphysic, the world is far from God. Emanating from God, and linked to him by Christ, the world is yet infinitely other than God, furled away from him like the end of a long banner falling. This notion makes, to my mind, a vertical line of the world, a great chain of burning. The more accessible and universal view, held by Eckhart and by many peoples in various forms, is scarcely different from pantheism: that the world is immanation, that God is in the thing, and eternally present here, if nowhere else. By these lights the world is flattened on a horizontal plane, singular, all here, crammed with heaven, and alone. But I know that it is not alone, nor singular, nor all. The notion of immanence needs a handle, and the two ideas themselves need a link, so that life can mean aught to the one, and Christ to the other.

For to immanence, to the heart, Christ is redundant and all things are one. To emanance, to the mind, Christ touches only the top, skims off only the top, as it were, the souls of men, the wheat grains whole, and lets the chaff fall where? To the world flat and patently unredeemed; to the entire rest of the universe, which is irrelevant and nonparticipant; to time and matter unreal, and so unknowable, and illusory, absurd, accidental, and overelaborate stage.

... (here she talks about a substance talked about in esoteric Christianity called "Holy the Firm" which is at the deepest parts of planets and in touch with the Absolute, at base... you need to read this part yourself!)...

Time and space are in touch with the Absolute at base. Eternity sockets twice into time and space curves, bound and bound by idea. Matter and spirit are of a piece but distinguishable; God has a stake guaranteed in all the world. And the universe is real and not a dream, not a manufacture of the senses; subject may know object, knowledge may proceed, and Holy the Firm is in short the philosopher's stone." (p. 69-70)







and a little later....


"How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination.

What can any artist set on fire but his world? What can any people bring to the altar but all it has ever owned in the thin towns or over the desolate plains? What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that's burnt out, any muck ready to hand? His face is flame like the seraph's, lighting the kingdom of God for the poeple to see; his life goes up in the works; his feet are waxen and salt. He is holy and he is firm, spanning all the long gap with the length of his love, in flawer imitation of Christ on the cross stretched both ways unbroken and thorned. So must the work be also, in touch with, in touch with, in touch with; spanning the gap, from here to eternity, home." (70-71)


what an exciting read!!

I'm reading a book by Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm. I could quote and go on quoting till I got to the end of the book, but I'll try to restrain myself...

"A blur of romance clings to our notions of "publicans," "sinners," "the poor," "the people in the marketplace," "our neighbors," as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday school watercolor figures, who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single in themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart. We are busy. So, I see now, were they. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead-- as if innocence had ever been-- and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yeielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generations which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well even for one day. Yet some have imagined well, with honesty and art, the detail of such a life, and have described it with such grace, that we mistake vision for history, dream for description, and facy that life has devolved. So. You learn this studying any history at all, especially the lives of artists and visionaries; you learn it from Emerson, who noticed that the meannes of our days is itself worth our thought; and you learn it, fitful in your pew, at church." (pp.56,57)

is art only for the initiated?

Hearing someone talk about Olivier Messiaen on the radio the other day, I started thinking about this again. I'm ready to admit that Messiaen is a good composer, but I can't say I really want to listen to it much. I have a feeling, however, that it's one of those things that will grow on you the more you're exposed to it. That definitely happens with opera and other classical music. Exposure to classical music gives one a greater appreciation for it, and some great works get better and better the more you hear them (as opposed to the top forty, which tend to get worse and worse). Training in music technique and theory make it even more enjoyable. I can't really speak about the visual arts because I've had so little experience with them, but what little I have learned has made a world of difference in how I think during my visits to the art gallery. (Mind you, even when all I can do is stare at the visual stimuli, being completely ignorant of everything else going on, I always like the art gallery) All I'm trying to say is that it really does appear to be the case that some kind of 'initiation' creates a different taste for art.

Questions: Does all good art 'improve' for us the more we're exposed to it. Do we all have this inner knowledge of what is good? Where does taste fit in? Is something definitely good if ppl who've been around a lot of art say it's good?

I think that the idea of the 'initiated' that I don't like involves some sort of secret inaccessible gnosticism. This is totally different from just having been around art a lot. It's even different than talking and thinking a lot about that art. That's not some cliquey club it's just something that gets more enjoyable and plays a bigger part in forming you if you've put a little work into it.

But we always have to be willing to think and make a judgment call. You have to be willing to say that some art is bad. If there is such a thing as truth and right and wrong then it has to apply not only to whether or not you have to pay your taxes and tell the truth but also to whether something is good to look at or listen to.

prayers I like.

Thanks be to Thee, our Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which Thou hast given us,
for all the pains and insults which Thou has borne for us.
Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
May we know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
And follow Thee more nearly,
Day by day. Amen
(Richard of Chichester 1197 - 1253)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

(Francis of Assisi)

Make us worthy, Lord,
To serve our fellow men
Throughout the world who live and die
In poverty or hunger.
Give them through our hands
this day, their daily bread;
And by our understanding love
give peace and joy. Amen
(Mother Teresa, Calcutta (1910 - 1997)

Grant to me, O Lord,
to know what I ought to know,
to love what I ought to love,
to praise what delights thee most,
to value what is precious in thy sight,
to hate what is offensive to Thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men;
but to discern with true judgment between things visible and spiritual,
and above all things to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.
(Thomas A Kempis)

Be present, O Merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting world may repose upon thy eternal changelessness; though Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour and my hope is in you all day long.

Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me for you are good, O Lord... For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

(King David ~1000BC (Ps 25)