Creation Theories

Yesterday, I posted this picture, with this Facebook post:  "One of these things does more to affirm my belief in a benevolent God than the others (the cup contains coffee from a pod, and the graham crackers contain chocolate frosting). Discuss."

Yesterday was a day of modest revelations.  I read God in Creation while waiting for students to come for their individual conferences.  Moltmann is the Systematics theologian around whom we're structuring our two semesters of Systematic Theology.  So far, my reaction has been a shrug, but I really liked yesterday's reading.

As I was getting ready to go to school, I wished I had a pen with purple ink and a finer tip.  And I remembered the Copic multiliner pens I bought a few years ago.  They worked perfectly, for both writing on student papers in a conference and for underlining as I read.  I bought a variety of colors, and I should really use them before they dry up.  And now I have some ideas about how to do that--they aren't useful for sketching, the way I thought they would be.

But no, the real revelation was the graham cracker and chocolate frosting concoction.  When I got to campus, the glass walled conference room was being set up for the weekly Academic Affairs meeting.  As I walked back and forth to the only working printer, I kept my eyes on the graham cracker treats.  Were they sandwiching peanut butter or chocolate or Nutella?

I have noticed that the treats from the weekly meeting are often set out in the break room after the meeting, and sure enough, later in the morning, there they were.  The break room has a Keurig and pods, so I helped myself.  What a delicious treat.

I told the admin assistant how much I had enjoyed them, and lo and behold, the Vice President for Academic Affairs had made them; his mother used to make them when he was a kid.  I asked if she thought it was just frosting from a can, and she said that she thought it was from scratch:  "He cooks a lot--he even makes his own pasta!"  I thought it tasted better than canned frosting.

In fact, it tasted so good that I had three of them.  I was relieved to see that they were all gone when I came back from class.  Here's a close up of one of them:

I finished the day by going to class by way of Zoom, a good Systematic Theology class; I am intrigued by what some of my classmates assert about Adam and Eve and that garden.  Once again, I think about what a strange seminarian I am, with my poet's sensibility, my academic training/Ph.D. in literary criticism, my decades of rebellious rejection of much of traditional Christianity.  

As we talked about Adam and Eve and other creation myths (familiar to me, but not to everyone) from both that time period and much, much earlier, I started this sketch:

Why did I give Eve wings?  I didn't start with that intention.  But Eve's upper back and left shoulder had a feathery look, and I thought it worked in some ways--plus, I was covering a mistake (there's a life lesson in here somewhere).  In some ways, I think I've drawn Eve that looks more like a muppet than a human.  I'm OK with that too.

So, yes, a good day, a day that left me tired, but in a good way.