And God said, “Let the Earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kinds - livestock, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according their kinds. And it was so. God created the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the earth according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. — Day Six, part one from memory

I would love to say that Day Six came as easily as Day Five. Something about Day Six I struggled with. Maybe not so much this part one section, but definitely part two and when you are struggling with one part you are struggling with the whole thing. I did finally get it down by just repeating it everywhere - the shower, to my son while rocking him to sleep, on the way to work, etc - and by trying to visualize all of the different aspects of Day Six. For the most part it’s memorized although, even now I stumble over my words occasionally.

This part of Day Six was kind of fun to work on. It makes me wonder how God classified the creatures. Like livestock. What are livestock referring to here? I’d like to think “beasts of the earth” refers to things like sauropods and other massive dinosaurs and maybe some wooly mammoth and elephants and stuff, although NIV translates it as wild animals (not nearly as awesome as beasts of the earth, in my eyes), so it could just as easily included lions and tigers and bears. But livestock seems like it could include just about anything. And don’t even get me started on “everything that creeps on the earth” - squirrels, bugs, salamanders?

I suppose the field of Baraminology has some equally intriguing answers for these ponderings, but for now I just continue my memorization. In a couple days I will post on Part 2 - the creation of us.

z.

And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters teem, according to their own kinds. And every winged bird according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. He blessed them saying, “Be fruitful, multiply. Fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day — day five from memory.

Well, right off the bat (no, birds, my friend, birds!) I was tacking this verse to my memory. I think the reason it didn’t take long was partly due to the subject matter - who doesn’t love birds and fish? - and partly due to the fact that I am getting good at this memorization thing; there is momentum in my favor now. I did stumble a bit when I came to “every living creature that moves, with which the waters teem” just because my brain kept interchanging living, moves and teem for some reason. But once I recited them a few dozen times (good thing these verses are short) I had it down without much difficulty.

I for one am glad we are on to living creatures now. Nothing wrong with waters and plants and stars, but to me they just don’t compare to little birds that hop, hop, hop or little fish that flit and flutter through crystal waters. Now, this day of course also includes the big guys as well. We see God creating “great sea creatures” as well as “every winged bird”, which undoubtedly includes things like pterodactyls, so don’t get caught envisioning cutesy creatures only.

Another feature of this day is it is the first time in the creation account that we see God blessing his creation. “Be fruitful, multiply…” I don’t have to tell you there are birds everywhere. I have a momma robin and three babies in a nest outside our front door. Look up in the sky. You can’t go for more than a couple seconds without seeing a bird. And fish? Have you been to an aquarium? Or a pet store for that matter? 15, 20 different fish breeds and that is only a drop in the bucket of what must be billions of fish. I would say God’s blessing worked. They multiplied.

Now, on to what may be the most important day - day six.

z.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of heavens to separate day from night. And let them be for signs and seasons and days and years. Let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. God created the two great lights - the greater light to rule the day; the lesser light to rule the night - and all the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and night, and to separate the light from the dark. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. ~ Day Four from memory.

My “visual brain” was in high gear on these verses. Memorizing this day didn’t even seem to be so much about remembering the words, but was almost more about thinking through the pictures that they conjure up. Sun, moon, stars all carefully hung in the Day Two heavens like tinsel and led lights on a Christmas tree. In reciting this verse, I only have to imagine the velvety darkness of deep space being suddenly scattered with pinpoints of light, and then a giant ball of fire, and then a smaller shiny pebble of a moon. See, all those visual cues make this day a breeze to memorize.

It makes me think of one of those critic’s snares that asks, “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?”. It’s an attempt to pit God’s creative power against His strength. Considering Day Four though, I now just want to say, “Dude, He hung the planets in the heavens. How big of a rock do you want?”

Anyway, there are a few interesting things about this day: One of course is that it is Day Four and we finally have the sun. Three days have passed and even though there has been light, we see God making a few sources now. Secondly, isn’t it interesting that God doesn’t specify differences between sources? The sun isn’t specified as an energy-based source and the moon isn’t a reflective source. They are simply “great lights”. Also, other planets aren’t labeled anything but stars. I mean, scientifically we think we know better - “Those aren’t stars, God. Some of them are planets.” But to God they are just stars. It’s almost like, just as God made different kinds of fish in the sea, He also created different kinds of stars in the heavens. Some of them just so happen to be Jupiter and Venus and Mars.

Day Five - fish and fowl - is up next.

z.

And God said, “Let the waters below the expanse be gathered together into one place, and let dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth and the waters gathered together He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, let the Earth sprout vegetation - the plants yielding their seeds; the fruit trees bearing fruit, which held their seeds - each according to its own kind. And it was so. The Earth brought forth vegetation. Each plant yielding seeds according to its kind and the fruit trees bearing fruit according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. — Day Three from memory

Because this day is split into two different concepts — the creation and naming of seas and earth and the creation of vegetation and plant life — I memorized this verse in parts. The first part was easy. I had just come off Day Two, which mentioned a lot about water, so the first short section clicked right away. The second half though was tricky for me. I don’t know if it felt like nothing really repeated — spout/bring forth; yielding seeds/bearing fruit — or that I wasn’t using my “mental image” mnemonic device very well on these verses, but I struggled for a few days trying to get it down pat.

I will admit there wasn’t a lot that I found overly fascinating about this day. There were a couple vaguely intriguing points though. It did strike me that God was naming things like Earth and Seas. I just figured those got named by Adam or his descendents, but I never realized God was doing the naming on this stuff (I do realize that the English words, Earth and Seas, are translated from the original Hebrew, but you know what I mean). Another thing was that dry land appeared. This wasn’t wet land that happened to exist beneath the waters and rose up out of the water. That would have been overly saturated, soggy ground that plants would have a hard time taking root in. This was dry land. In fact, plants and trees were able to easily take root only a few hours later.

A side note that I neglected to mention on Day Two was mentioned in the first verse of this day as well. Let me point it out : “the waters below the expanse…” Did anyone else catch this? So, in other words, there are waters above the expanse? Now, from a reading of Day Two and Four and the first part of this day, I would say that “the expanse” was not only our atmosphere, but space in general. Does this mean that out beyond the expanse, space, all the stars, beyond where our telescopes have yet reached, are there still “waters”? Or did God make them into something? We may never know the answer short of meeting Jesus and asking Him, but it is quite fun to contemplate.

z.

Thankfully most days are calm. Most days safety doesn’t fail. Instead of terror and gloom and doom, most days are filled with hope and light and contentment. And so, because they don’t come along very often, it’s hard to forget those days that took a turn for the worse. We pay tribute to the heroes and survivors that were in the thick of things. We think fondly of those who didn’t make it out alive. We remember because, though most days are sunny, we don’t want to forget the days that turn dark.

And in remembering, we realize again that we are fragile. Human. No red cape and laser eyes here. Remembering the tough times reminds us that we all have limitations. We all fall down. We all get pushed and prodded and broken by hardship. But looking back, after having come through the valley of the shadow of death, we realize that people do survive. They do make it out alive. They do rise from the ashes. Remembering helps us understand the old adage: what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.

Remembering also helps us stay prepared and keeps us on our toes. It helps us avoid history repeating itself. If you are aware how the first house fire started, you won’t use those candles again. If you know the dark street that you were mugged on, you will steer clear of it next time. If you think back to the first terrorist attack, you will be on high alert every time that situation arises again. It is almost as if every time we say the words, “Never Forget” we are also saying, “Never Again”.

So, let’s take advantage of the opportunities to remember. We can’t change the past, and it isn’t wise to dwell on it, but let’s join in paying tribute to those who have fallen and those who have been through the fire.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the expanse and separated the waters above the expanse from the waters below the expanse. And it was so.
And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning the second day. — Day Two from memory.

In general, this day was easy to memorize. For one, it was short. Compared to the other days in Genesis 1, this day has the fewest verses - only 3. Also, there is quite a bit of repetition. “Waters” is in there a lot. This repetition did trip me up a bit at first. I kept getting the wording mixed up within each verse. But then, once I got the rhythm down for the separation of the waters, it came quite easily.

There are a few interesting things in this day. The first thing I noticed was that this day does not include “And God saw that it was good” which is in every other day’s passage. I wonder why this is. Did God think this was not His best work? Or was this expanse more or less a canvas for the stars and lights of Day Four? Do artists call their canvas good before painting on it? Hmm. Maybe I am reading into it more than I should be, but it does seem strange the phrase, which is in all the other days (sometimes more than once), is missing from the second day.

The second thing that caught my attention was this: He made space. Part of me wants to say, “Is that all?” God spent a 24 hour day — the same amount of time he would later spend to make all the plants and trees or all the birds and fish or all the land animals — to make… what exactly? Perhaps our perceptions of space are incorrect. We typically think of space as emptiness. Vast nothingness. But, if God spent all of Day Two making it, maybe there is more to it than we think. Now I realize He probably was creating atmosphere and greenhouse gases and maybe even gravity at the same time, but the main “body” of his work for this day was space. Oh well, who am I to question God’s use of His time? It just seems kind of lacking.

Ohhh, that’s why it doesn’t say, “And God saw it was good.” (Yes, that’s a joke.)

z.

Check it out here on his blog.

z.

Light is, for lack of a better term, a thing. It has specific characteristics - intensity, frequency, polarization, and even physical pressure - separate from its source. It is a measurable, predictable and testable entity unto its own. Maybe a way to think of it is like a soda and a vending machine. Imagine God made the soda on day one and the vending machine on day four. The light might be dispersed by the sun, but God didn’t have to make the sun first to have light.

Another way to imagine light being its own entity is by removing the source from your mental equation. For a minute imagine the sun blinking out. In an instant our sun goes completely dark. Here on earth we wouldn’t know it for over 8 minutes. The light would continue to shine on things, warm things and be refracted and reflected. For those 8 minutes we could still experiment with the light, test it, and measure it. In fact, even without the sun, we could reflect that light back over the 93 million miles and it wouldn’t cease to exist as light. So, God decided to create light first, knowing it didn’t need a source to exist.

Also, regarding the light/dark separation, allowing for the nature of light (especially without a source to cast it in a certain direction) and seeing how God creates, I suspect when He said, “Let there be light” there was light EVERYWHERE. The entire creation, every nook and cranny, in fact every molecule probably blazed with light. No wonder He separated light from dark. It was one display of His exacting control over creation. “Light, you can only go this far and no further, ” like He ordered the seas (Job 38).

Anyway, just some more thoughts on Day One. I will post Day Two in the next few days.

z.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. Yet the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light was good. And He separated the light from the dark. The light He called Day; the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” — Day One from memory

So, I printed out a copy of the entire first chapter of Genesis, taped it to my bathroom mirror and started reading the first lines to myself whenever I was in there. I figured Day One wouldn’t give me too much trouble. I mean, if there is a list of public-knowledge Bible verses, these would be a part of it. From In the beginning God created heaven and earth to God said, “Let there be light”, some of these verses are very recognizable. This made Day One quite easy to start memorizing.

There were some surprises though as well. The general idea is that God created light on the first day. This, of course, is true, but it was interesting to realize that He also created water that day. It doesn’t exactly say He created water, but it can be deduced from the references to “the deep” and “the face of the waters” (not to mention the fact that the earth was “without form” which could easily be referencing water). So, we have light and water - energy and matter. These are the raw essentials, the building blocks, of the rest of the Days of Creation.

Even with the familiarity of the verse, it did take me a few days to get it down pat. The first few verses were easy. For some reason I couldn’t remember the “light He called Day; the darkness He called Night” part. But, after a few times of shaving and reading and brushing and reading, I got it memorized.

On to Day Two.

I chose Genesis 1 because, although I have been researching and reading up on creation science for over 20 years (yes, I bought my first book on the subject in middle school summer camp), I have never committed any of the central scriptures to memory. Looking back a few months, it seems funny to be basing much of my studies on the first 31 verses of the Bible, but never recognizing the benefits of memorization. Oh well, better late than never.

I wasn’t sure of the best way to approach the process of committing so many verses to memory. I am sure I wouldn’t have much problem with a single verse or even a 2 to 3 verse passage, but sticking 31 verses to my brain poses an interesting challenge.

I figured the typical phone number or license plate mnemonic devices wouldn’t help me much. Turning each verse into a song wouldn’t work. Converting things into phrases (such as “Every Good Boy Does Fine” in music scales) was out of the question too. I wanted something that I could break into logical chunks and piece it all back together later. So, since the 31 verses describe 6 days in detail, I figured I would approach it one day at a time. I will read and learn one Day completely over the course of a week before moving on to the next Day. And, since this chapter is so visually descriptive I can also picture each day’s creations in my head and use the mental image as a cue. So, day one in my imagination is a giant ball of water and the creation of light. Those two pictures help me quickly pull up the words to the verses in that day. Day two is the same ball of water divided by sky and space. Etc etc.

Also, because I have been in speech classes in high school, I have learned that my brain responds well to dramatic storytelling. So, if I “act it out” and use not only those mental images, but also do a dramatic reading of the passage - using dynamic range and physical movements to represent the events - I might be able to accomplish memorizing a day at a time until all six days and 31 verses are secured.

I will start with the first two days and give you an update on my progress as well as thoughts and comments on each day’s events. Ok, here we go : “In the beginning…”

z.