Finding God in Awe (October 14, 2020) Kalie Debelak ‘21

Finding God in Awe

by KALIE DEBELAK, ‘21

OCTOBER 14, 2020

Wherever you are, I want to say to you here at the beginning, “Look again.” Memory works by looking again, as do science and forgiveness. I have learned this by being wrong, being changed. I have learned to slow down to zero, and study what’s in front of my face. A tree spirals as it grows. I turn and look again. Kim Stafford, Entering the Grove

From a young age, I have been rigid?), the way the veins are laid out fascinated with the natural world. (do they branch out from one comI spent most of my childhood mon spot, or from various points up the outside weaving grass, biking, looking leaf?), and the texture of the leaf itself. at the trees (even using birch bark as For the bark, you have to look at the paper for my little drawings) and staring way it grows on the tree: does it look at ants in the wildflowers. In awe of the braided? Shaggy? Does it peel? What range of life I saw all around, my adora- color is it? Does the bark grow in small tion of nature informed my decision or large chunks? All of these things to study biology here at Luther, and make for a more complicated process, continues to be the foundation of my but what stood out to me most about faith journey. this walk were the small details. Each For me, science and faith go hand in hand. The wonderment I feel while hiking through the mountains or looking at the stars affirms my belief in a divine connection between myself, all other living beings, and God. Science is the tree has a special collection of traits, and we have to look at them all to determine which is which. The uniqueness of each tree reminded me of the complexity of life and sent my mind into questioning. How is it possible to have all of this? Kalie Debelak tool I employ to better understand, and delve into, this feeling of awe. Science has revealed to me the complexity, sameness, and difference between all of us. It shows me how things work, grow, and develop—and it is a miracle. While there are repeated processes and a structure, which some people may believe are aspects not pertinent to their understanding of God, I cannot conceive how all of this is possible without some divine something. In BIO 151, the first biology class I took at Luther, I fell further in love with my choice of study. First with the tree walk in the early fall, where we go into I think about this question with genetics, too. How is it possible to have all of these “differences” amidst deep sameness? And further, how is it possible that so much goes right when there is pretty much an infinite opportunity for things to go wrong? In BIO 151, we talked about different alleles, or forms of a gene, becoming more or less present in populations. The ones that tend to help a population will stay, and those that are harmful will be eliminated through natural selection and survival of the fittest. All of this being said, there are exceptions as always, and things do go wrong. Often. one seed out of a multitude produced over the parent plant’s lifetime. This one probably had many neighboring “sibling” seeds growing nearby after pollination, who never made it to adulthood. This is thanks to all of the little cellular workers that proofread DNA and alert cells when something is wrong. If it can’t be fixed, development stops. This is indeed a tragedy when it happens to human life, yet when we come into being we have TRILLIONS of cells working in our favor, dividing and growing, keeping our immune systems in check, always on surveillance, and repairing our DNA when it’s damaged. It’s chaos, the forest behind Anderson Prairie and This is a part of the duality I see in but chaos with a purpose, and somehow learn to identify different trees, then nature and better understand through with steps and processes to maintain second when studying population ge- science. Nature holds both truths: that this beautiful life. netics. During the tree walk, we learned about the differences in leaves and bark, mostly. Seems simple enough, right? Not exactly. When analyzing a leaf, you have to not only look at its shape, but also the edges (are they smooth or things go abundantly right and abundantly wrong. However, when I look outside, what I see is the stuff that looks like it went right. The trees in the forest behind Anderson Prairie are numerous, but those that are full grown were only If the world naturally gears toward chaos (as we humans have come to define it), then how do we have so many functioning living beings? Healthy humans? How do we have so much diversity in the small woodland behind our campus 38 Agora/Fall 2020

prairie? While science gives us answers, it doesn’t give us all the answers; in fact, it’s messy and is constantly under revision. Knowing all of these things doesn’t diminish the sense of mystery and awe in the apparent “rightness” in life. Understanding the processes of mutation and natural selection doesn’t diminish the wonder at the diversity all around me. Nothing is ever fully understood. This fact shows me that curiosity is essential to the human experience. It is a part of us, and the world seems set up in a way that allows us to constantly be discovering new things, pouring out more knowledge on top of knowledge, giving us the grace to revise our understandings and look back and see how far we have come. That, to me, is confirmation of the Divine, always providing us with the opportunity to discover and learn more about the mysteries of this wonderfully messy world. The Sending:

Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things. Mary Oliver