Woah, the sun's hot.

I was walking from class today back to my apartment in mid-afternoon. I just got off campus when the heat of the day really hit me. I felt like I had to peel my tennis shoes off the hot concrete in my trudge through the sweltering heat to find a patch of shade. The rays of sunlight pierced through my suddenly ineffective sunglasses, stinging my eyes. Heat wave after heat wave evaporated the thin cotton of my shirt and burned my skin. My throat felt suddenly dry and my hair was one fire. Now, this might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, after all it was a rather lovely day outside. But when I started to really think about it, the heat I mean, I felt like all of my senses were heightened, and I realized how truly hot the sun is. I crouched over in an almost comical half sprint/half walk as I hurried over to the shade of a tree, and the relief I felt was instantaneous. The sun, which is I don't even know how many millions of miles away, managed to heat the sidewalk enough to fry some poor little worm I passed on my way home. It is moments like this when I get that sudden feeling that I am insignificantly tiny, that the world is 100 times bigger than I am. It made me feel like a little kid, staring up at the starry night sky and imagining each twinkling speck to be another universe entirely.

And now, as I re-read the first chapter in Genesis, I get this sense that the world doesn't revolve around me (shocking, I know). And then it gets me thinking about ALL the people in the history of the world that God created, and he loves each one of them just the same. So, of thousands upon thousands of people, how can I matter that much at all? Well, I came to the conclusion long ago, that there is no way to understand God completely; he is physically impossible for the human mind to comprehend. God's just too complex. And so, Plotz questions something like God's order of creation, why create the plants and insects before the sun and moon, does he really love them more? I find that rather hard to believe. But I cannot possibly imagine why he would create them first, so I just kind of think to myself, "it must be a God thing" and move on with my reading. I mean, if God is so strong and powerful that he created the sun which heats up the entire Earth, then what does it really matter the order with which he chose to construct the world?

When I was reading Plotz's introduction, I will admit that the thought, "Uh-oh, what am I getting into?" did enter my mind. I grew up in the Church and am therefore just as familiar with the same basic stories as Plotz was (Cain&Able, Jonah and whale, Noah and ark, etc.) but really, what more do I know? I've learned to look up inspirational verses whenever I've needed the pick me up. I've studied the ten commandments in depth, I suppose so that I may better remember and follow them, at least that's what I've been taught. But really, all I've ever heard growing up is, "God loves you." Which, might I just say, I am eternally grateful for, though I may never fully understand it. But what about the fear we should have for God? What about his wrath and frightening power? What about Dinah's story? Why don't they teach that in Sunday school? For some time now I've been wanting to know more about the "hidden" elements of the Bible better. After all, if this is the book I am going to stand up for, shouldn't I know all of it? I am slightly embarrassed to say that, even now, I don't know it better.

But I have a theory - mind you it's really not that mind-boggling or profound. You know when a friend tells you a story about an argument they got into with someone else? And in it your friend sounds like some sort of saint where as the person they are talking about sounds like some evil-doer out to set the world on fire. Then you hear the same story but from the other person's perspective and it's suddenly the exact same situation but flipped around to suit them better. It's this sort of circumstance that leads me to wonder how something like,say, America's history is taught in Germany or France or any number of countries, versus how it is taught here. It's not like we really want to flaunt our darker days to our younger generations, that doesn't exactly inspire national pride. But is that right? Is it fair to shed light upon the "popular" people of the Bible and leave out victims such as Dinah, who have just as important a story to tell? So the Earth was flooded, big whoop, this poor girl here was taken advantage of! Okay, so maybe I'm not being quite realistic, it is after all 1 something in the morning, but it does make you wonder. For all that we do know, how much don't we know? Just something to ponder.