The Nautilus Shell

The scientist willed himself to open his eyes one last time. Through the window in his rickety old room He could see the beauty of Gods creation, he could understand its intricacy as much as a human mind would allow. He gave thanks to the creator one last time, he understood it was through him all things were made. He remembered Jesus, the begotten son who payed for the sins of the world with his life so that mankind may stand once more victorious. As his breath left him, he felt the cold winter brewing outside his cabin enter his withered old body, darkness surrounded him. On December 13th of the year 2047 at 4.56 PM Melachai died.

As suddenly as a light bulb fills a darkened room with light at the flick of a switch, the darkness that surrounded Melachai left him, taking the pins of cold he felt with it. He was now basked in a warm light that hide every other detail that may or may not be about him. Malachai realized though he existed in this light, he had no body to sense, he had no eyes to see, no ears to hear nor did he have a nose to smell. Yet, surprisingly he felt whole.

His thoughts raced back to a memory of his youth. He was a 16 year old boy, he was on vacation in Sri Lanka, an island country he slowly fell in love with and had spent quite a number of his years calling it home. He had left the hotel his family was staying at on one early morning and found himself walking along a quiet stretch of beach. His feet landed on something hard, as he removed his feet to take a better look he saw it. A nautilus shell half jotting out of the sand. He picked up the shell to admire its beauty. It was pearl white in color and was perfectly created mimicking the golden ratio us humans intuitively find pleasing. A thought occurred in him, the eyes that were singing to him the beauty of the shell he held in his hand were not entirely truthful. There was no color or sight outside the mind that was perceiving it. Here was a electro-magnatic wave, a slice of the full spectrum emitted by the sun that had traveled 150 million KM to reach earth. It fell on the calcium rich exterior of the nautilus shell, the protons found in the wave interacted with the atoms of the shell, loosing energy at various intensities based on the composition of the shell. It is these fluctuations of energy that our eyes detected as color and shape. He understood that similarly There was no sound, there were air compression waves. He wondered if humans are even capable of recognizing reality as it truly is. He thought that even if what our ears, eyes, nose and touch were telling us was not completely true the streams of thought that arose in our mind as a result of the input from our senses was still meaningful because all that one felt and all that one thought was all that one was, it was one’s soul.

So was it his soul that was here basked in light? Malachai didn’t know but he thought it so. He had no body to sense, he had no eyes to see, no ears to hear nor did he have a nose to smell. Yet, he felt whole.

A figure materialized in front of him, he struggled to focus on the figure but there were no features for his mind to cling onto. He felt uneasy, then suddenly the features collapsed into the figure filling it to be his father.

His father who he had not seen in many years stood clothed in a 3 piece suit holding a brown brief case in his left hand. It was a suit his father wore often when Melachie was a child. He wore a face that was radiating in youthfulness.

“Father, where am I? Am I dead?” Malechie opened the dialog.

“Death is but a step in the Journey my son, an important step but a step nevertheless. You are safe here and you have done good.

Your father is proud of the life of faith you have lived. You were able to fulfill the life I had destined for you, in doing so you were able to grow wise and achieve all your hearts desires. You loved your kin and above all you loved me.

Your time on earth has come to past. Are you satisfied with the life you’ve lived?”

Moments of Melachies life ran through his consciousness, Memories of triumph and lose, joy and pain, love and anger. As these moments ran through him at blinding speed he could understand as clearly as the first rays of the sun christen a new day, that these moments both pleasing and displeasing shaped him to be the man he was meant to be. The man who could fulfill the promises he had made to his heart. He saw how these moments chipped away the unneeded parts, straightened the crooked places and added what was needed to the mix so that he was that exact man who would be able to win over the love of his life, so that he was that exact man who would have the internal fortitude and drive to succeed where others failed, so that he was that exact man who would go on to provide a safe and nourishing home for his children and see them grow up to be realized and without want. As this realization took root in him, the stream of memories subsided and Melachie became once more aware of his father standing in front of him.

“I was always fascinated with the connectedness of everything, naturally I wanted to pursue science. As scientists we were taught to explain the world we live in with causative and correlative relationships, cause and effect. Too often in my life I saw others get caught up in trying to explain every aspect of their life and existence using the crude tools of science.

Pure reductionist and determinists believe the parts make up the whole and that if one understands the parts one can predict and alter the whole. It is these people I have seen who find it hardest to grasp creation. I found it ironic that those who are waist deep in evidence of creation are the very ones who are unable to follow the bread crumbs all the way back home. Human knowledge continued to expand during my life time and every so often we were be able to peal away another layer of ambiguity. Newtonian physics at the time was thought absolute yet it was expanded by Einsteins theories, physics was incomplete. one day human mind may even fathom a grand unifying theory that will tie the severed parts of physics together. Even if humans do live to see this day there will always be questions science will struggle to answer about reality. Therefore, instead of coming to conclusions based on philosophies, ideologies theories and sciences that are incomplete, I often wished they would recognize the discoveries of science as proof of Gods grand design for that is what it was. But it was not for me to guide them.

I often wondered about the purpose of this this life that was given to me. As I grew old I thought it to be to have experience love, in all its forms. To be loved for what you mean to another. To love oneself for what one truly was, to find another to love and to be loved for who you are by that person. To love mankind and to love creation. By experiencing all these forms of love we learn to love God above all. 

Father, basked in this comfortable warm light, having seen you, heard you, felt you I now know we are, all that we are is you.

I am satisfied.”

I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me. Proverbs 8:17