20/01/2024
Under the crown of your head, under the hair, under the skin, under the skull is your brain, a mass of gray tissue reminiscent of the fleshy part of a mushroom. I’ve seen a brain. That’s what it reminded me of.
Once, while Matt was in medical school, he took me on a date to look at brains. (I smile remembering he was like that.) He loved everything in the field of medicine. To him, every detail of the design and functionality of all that makes up the human body was fascinating. I could marvel, too, but very much preferred to look at living specimens with all the organs in their proper places and covered with skin. I stood outside the lab a long while before I got up the nerve to walk in with him and look around. In the end, I found little to look at. (My eye was wholly untrained.) How could that rubbery-looking mass (or rather, one like it, inside my own head) actually have the power to keep me breathing, store my memories, manage my life, house my mind?
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know, they say. Seeing those cross-sections of brain confirmed that to me: compared to what I might know, I certainly knew next to nothing.
The brain is awesome! How humbled and inspired we should be about the creations we are! As scientific knowledge unravels the mystery about how the brain works, find someone who really knows what they’re talking about and he or she will surely confirm that the human brain is a marvel.
Concentrated in the right side of your brain is the capacity to recognize beauty, to be creative, to imagine, to ponder, to appreciate music, to combine bits of knowledge into holistic thought, to experience joy. Do you see something significant in the function of that most elevated part of your brain? The human brain is designed for designing!
Human beings were created to be creative! While there is much in human history to tempt us to be discouraged about mankind in general, remember what is also true: people have never ceased working to build, rebuild, mend and beautify what a few too-powerful people find justification to destroy. Human beings were made with the power to make life better for other human beings!
Each of us is endowed with the legacy of generations of the human family before us. We are blessed with their designs. We are enabled to enjoy their triumphs, their dreams made into realities, their incalculable work: tools, water systems, sewer, electric power, roads, buildings, language, culture, knowledge of food and how to prepare it well, knowledge of architecture, knowledge of medicine, theories of government, businesses already built, communication, movies, music, art, literature! Each person’s contributions, small and great, are added on to those of our family before us.
Try pondering for a while the enormity of the presence of our human family on earth, even those who have died. In their legacy, their presence is real. Do you feel comforted by it? Do you feel cared for? Do you feel less alone? Can you feel you are part of something grand?
Take a few more moments to ponder and acknowledge you are a marvelous creation. You, like every member of the human family before you, are designed to design, created to create! You have a purpose whatever it might be; you were designed for it. You have a work. You will leave a legacy.
Today, I invite you to take a deep breath and ask yourself, what might my work be? If something comes to mind, write it down. Discouraging thoughts might come. If they do, cast those out, and say to yourself, “It’s okay. My mind will be ready for dreams later on,” because that is the truth. As you heal, you will become more and more capable of dreaming and believing those dreams can be a reality. Remember, though, that your designer designed you to create.
