Of Recording Life and Saving Life

September 14, 2014 2 Comments

Congratulations to Cornell University’s Macaulay Library, “the world’s largest and oldest scientific archive of biodiversity audio and video recordings.” It is an expansive effort to capture and preserve the sounds of life of the entire animal kingdom, an important part of preserving life itself.

It really is wondrous to find the recorded sounds, and in many cases recorded videos, of so many species of animal life. This ongoing effort has been decades in the making, to save—and to make available—the sounds and sights of what has been in the making since before time. The goal is to record it all, the entire encyclopedia of animal life. The task is daunting, and may never be finished, but these busy “recordists” are ever getting more and progressing closer to their unreachable completion. You can wander through what they have done so far here:

http://macaulaylibrary.org/

It reminds me of another effort that I learned about a few years ago to collect and save seeds from every species of plant life. Again, that is another effort that may never be finished but which is ever getting closer and more complete.

Each of these works is a powerful reminder of how much variety the Lord has created for us all, how complex and intricate and diverse life is. It is also one more source of awe for the work of the Lord of Life and the magnificence of God’s creation.

Considering this wondrous variety and the greatness of life in all of its many forms, I do not find it credible to assume that among the galaxies—or even within our own galaxy—this is the only world where life is to be found. Why would God create all the rest of the numberless worlds? The answer is, to do there much of what He is doing here, to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

In a modern-day revelation the Lord confirmed what the Apostle John taught, that Jesus Christ is not only the Creator of this world but of the many worlds (see John 1:1-3). The Lord added, that Christ is also God of people on those many worlds, “That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:24) Note from this revelation that God’s eternal work, too, is still going on and will never be finished.

Returning to the Macaulay Library project, there is pleasure and wonder in wandering through the recordings. Below is a link to just one inspiring example, recorded nearly 50 years ago. It saves for us the sound of an ostrich, still in the egg, shortly before it emerges—not into life since it is clearly already alive, an appropriate part of the recorded history of living things—but shortly before it emerges into the open:

http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/793/struthio-camelus-ostrich-united-states-new-york-william-dilger

You have to be patient and listen through the chatter of the recordists. The wait is worth it, and of course the people doing the work merit remembrance in sound, too, as no less active and valuable members of the society of the living.

Therefore, a concluding thought I would leave you with: it would be a tragedy to lose recordings like these, as much as it is a treasure to have and preserve them. Consider the greater tragedy if rather than recording these sounds the recordists crushed the egg and the life within it. What a loss, a waste, and a sin. What if the recordists recorded such wanton destruction and shared that with the world. We and many others would be disgusted, in fact we would be right to be outraged. Would those same people be outraged when a human life, still encased and protected in his or her mother’s womb, is wantonly destroyed, its life crushed and ended? I do not know if there are any sound or video recordings of such destruction. Would it continue at the rate of millions of destructive acts each year if there were? I wonder.

(First published January 27, 2013)

Filed under abortion, abundant life, academia, conservation, creation, environmentalism, eternal life, Jesus Christ, life, revelation Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Man and Talking with the Father

February 17, 2014 Leave a comment

David, as psalmist, asked God, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4) David was driven to the question by contemplating the infinite works of God displayed in the night sky. To him, all that man was, whatever man was and did, was insignificant when compared with God and His creations.

David went on to answer his own question, at least in part. He recognized the divine attributes with which God has endowed man, crowning him “with glory and honour”, granting to man “dominion over the works of” God’s hands, that God has “put all things under his [man’s] feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:5-8)

The marvels of nature and the creatures of the earth are breathtaking. The complexity of the simplest forms of life eludes adequate description and elicits wondrous appreciation when carefully considered. As marvelous as all these are, nothing on earth inanimate compares in wonder and complexity with living creatures, and there is no living creature to approach the wonder of man.

Of course some self-important yet self-despising scholars trouble to challenge the apodictically true pronouncement of God to the first man and woman that they were given dominion over all living things on earth (cf. Genesis 1:26-28). But the very erudition of their failed philosophy still serves to demonstrate the intellectual chasm between man and the most intelligent non-human life form, a distance that is unbridgeably vast.

Evidences are abundant, but I offer a handful in illustration: no creature but a human can write even the simplest book let alone a Shakespeare play. No creature but a human can build anything remotely as complex or useful as a typical suburban house let alone a modern skyscraper. No creature but a human can invent musical harmonies let alone compose a Beethoven symphony. No bird of any kind can fly as fast or as high or transport as much weight as one of the more simple jet planes let alone a modern airliner. Elsewhere I have pointed out the curious example of man’s dominion in that (as far as I have observed) humans are the only creatures on earth to have pets. Even man’s destructive abuse of his powers serves to emphasize his possession of abilities of a kind beyond the ken of any other creatures.

Man has not been given these gifts as the most favored of God’s animals. He receives them by inheritance, and the gifts that man exercises in mortality are but intimations of what God the Father has prepared for His children in the eternities. So Paul taught the Romans,

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:16-18)

With these gifts come responsibilities. In modern times the Lord reminded His children that the riches of the earth and of all creatures,

are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.
And it pleaseth God that he has given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion. (Doctrine and Covenants 59:18-20)

This confidence coupled with accountability assigned to man by the Creator may be significant reasons why prayer is so simple, why communication with God is so direct, as child to Father. We are like Him, and He is mindful of us. Communicating with God is not like a dog trying to communicate its wants to its master. When God created the earth, all creatures were to multiply, “after their kind”, but God created man and woman, “in his own image” (cf. Genesis 1:21-27). He wants us to talk with Him and places no barriers between us and Him, because we are of a kind.

It takes no more faith—and no service charges—to talk with God than it does to communicate with your aunt in Cleveland. But you do have to believe in Him as much as you do in her. And He is even more eager to take your call.

(First published February 24, 2013)

Filed under Adam, conservation, creation, divine nature, environmentalism, eternal life, faith, individual worth, life, prayer, revelation