Noah and some stinky animals!

I have two elementary school classes to teach today and then I will be home free for the week. I don’t have any classes tomorrow, and the five I have to teach on Friday should be fairly easy. I will be going to my favorite elementary school in the afternoon on Friday, so it should be a walk through for the kids and me. I think we will play some games for sure, that always makes the time pass!
This weekend is a three dayer thanks to the holiday on Monday and Nathan, Miyuki and Michi are coming to Toei for some outdoors fun. It is warm enough to swim today, but I don't think the weather will hold. We may do some camping in the mountains which should be a blast. If we do that it will probably snow or storm or be 1,000 degrees. Place your bets.
I got my scooter buzzing like a charm. I stopped at the local gas station yesterday and got the guy there to put some air in my tires, and top of my fluids. It is running like a scalded dog now! Of course when I stopped at the gas station the guy already knew who I was, and everything about me thanks to an article that was written about me in the paper. He asked me about Kentucky, and wanted to know if the horses that my family had were thorobreds. You think I am kidding! He also told me what all of my teachers, friends, and dad told me: “Go slow and be careful.” Classic.
I have been thinking a lot this week about Noah and his ark. I know that is a random thing to think about, but sure has been on my mind this week. I have been trying to meditate about it and see what I can find out. I try to think about it from different angles and views and try to ask some challenging questions.
The Bible gives some pretty specific details about Noah and his building of the ark. The type of wood is given, as well as the dimensions for the ship. Beyond that, we are left up to the world of guessing and faith to speculate about the ark.
Theories and questions abound about the ark. I have many myself. There are the obvious blatant questions: Did he actually have all of the animals in the world inside that ark? Any Sunday School student worth his salt will surely tell you yes without batting an eye. But, for the older and wiser (I hope!) among us, this answer doesn’t come so easy. How did the animals get into the ark? Why didn’t the foxes eat the chickens? How did all of the animals fit? Why did the animals come, if in fact they did? How did Noah recreate the specific environments needed to sustain animals from the jungle and from the tundra in the same boat? In other words, were the snow leopards and cheetahs hanging out together? How did animals from the far reaches of the world get to the ark, let alone find their way to the ark across seas, rivers and mountains? What did the animals eat? Did Noah have bamboo for the pandas and Eucalyptus for the koalas? How did two of each animal repopulate the entire earth? Do you know how long that would take? After the flood, what did Noah and his family eat? .................Why didn’t he just wait a little longer for the unicorns?????
These questions are just the beginning. I guess you can try to scientifically answer some of the questions. Depending on your view of the age of the earth and evolution, you could say that when Noah was alive, there were not as many species of animals living…but certainly that would not decrease the thousands of species that are alive today by a siginificant enough number to make a real difference. Even if you consider aircraft carriers, which are HUGE ships and surely bigger than the ark, how could you even fit all the animals from the Louisville zoo? We can try and find the remnants of the art on top of a mountain in that part of the world, but in fact all that it would prove (if found) would be that someone built a large boat a long time ago, and somehow it made it to the top of a mountain. (unless of course, Noah made all of the animals sign a guest book…and that book were to be uncovered along with the remnants of the ark!!!)
I also wonder how the ark did not move to a far off location. For example, I’m sure a huge wooden boat would catch a lot of wind, and in turn be blown far away from where it was built. If you think about a constant five mph wind blowing the ark, and it was floating for 40 days and nights, then it is possible that the ark would have drifted 4,800 miles from its starting point. I’m not that smart, so I am sure that sea currents and swells and other things factored in as well. Maybe the ark was just so damn big that it just sat there in one spot like a giant buoy that smells like animal poop. Who knows.
So I guess what I am saying is that I really have been struggling with if I really believe that the ark was real, and what the Bible says happened, happened. I don't think that believing in the ark will be something that saves or damns me, but it is something to think about. I am not a person that believes that every sentence in the Bible has to be true in order for Jesus to have been real and to have died for me. Surely we believe Jesus is bigger than the book itself! It is just paper and ink you know. I don’t know of anyone who has used the book to cure people or ward off demons or for anything supernatural. It is the words and ideas in the book where the power lies.
Maybe you believe that the ark WAS real and that the answer of, “God made a way!” is enough to extinguish your questions about the ark. I however, like many of you know, am still looking for the nail holes….

Well I have been thinking about the ark alright. And then…something pops into my head. If I REALLY believe that God had a son that he sent to earth…He was born from Mary who had never had sex…He never did ANYTHING wrong…He died and was put in a tomb for three days only to come back to life….
If I really and truly believe that, then I guess believing that there was a man who built a big boat big enough to house all of the animals on the earth and his family ain’t that big of a deal.

Just call me Thomas.