The ocean-bed scan of the Gulf of Mexico, revealed a crater with high walls.  Walls that had been thrown up by the asteroid impact—walls containing animal remains that lived back at that time.  But the most interesting part for me was the report of a sulfur compound that occurred as a result of the impact, creating a fire that burned all through the skies for a lengthy amount of time, and covered the atmosphere of the entire earth--obliterating the sun.   Killing life on earth.  All at once.  The asteroid hit, plant life and the dinosaurs died at the same time.  The earth was darkened.

Subsequent discoveries have authenticated that event. The entire earth was shaken, the burning sulfuric atmosphere blotted out the sun, and sixty six million years ago almost everything that was on land died.

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep…” Finally, we know scientifically how it got that way. The Biblical account is validated.  

Eventually, the fire and residue in the atmosphere burned out, the debris settled, and the sun shone through again--that sun that was already there in the heavens. God didn’t have to “recreate” it.  The sun had been created in the first verse in Genesis. “…God created the heavens…” That light, the sun, had allowed plant life to grow in the dinosauric ages. And that same sun allowed the food chain to flourish--from those animals that ate plants all the way up to the largest animals who were carnivores. 

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  You can’t move on the face of something that isn’t there.

Furthermore, the word void suggests that the earth had at one time contained something.  Something that is no longer here—thus, we have a void.  The entire second verse in the Bible is about disruption.  How could the earth of an all-powerful God who created it become a place that was empty, formless, dark and void?  A dichotomy.  What happened between verse one, and verse two?

That’s the part God doesn’t tell us about in the Biblical account.  That’s where strata comes in. 

I recently watched a documentary on television that used a process of underwater scanning to discover events that had taken place in the past.  The program was called “Draining the Oceans.”

One of the episodes concerned the discovery of an impact crater under the water. A crater left by an asteroid which hit the earth sixty-six million years ago--at exactly the same time all of the dinosaurs vanished.  I’m not going to go into how they date such events—this book isn’t about Organic Chemistry. Suffice to say that with carbon dating—the half-life of carbon decay—it can be done with an acceptable degree of accuracy.  Also, strata, and ice core examinations support the time line. 

2. The second source of information concerning that sudden disappearance of what was living on earth is the Biblical source, and it is more subtle.  In the very first verse of the Bible, it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  But in the second verse of Genesis, God describes that this perfect earth he had created had been destroyed.  He says it this way, “And the earth was void, without form, and darkness was on the face of the deep.”   He is not describing something he "created." 

Obviously, something must have happened between verse one and verse two. Creative works are perfect.  God created the heavens and the earth.  All of it.  He didn’t create an void, dark, formless mass as is described in Genesis 1:2.  

When those long-ago animals existed, there had to be a food chain.  Starting with plants.  Plants have to have sunlight.  The sun was there at that time .  Also, there was water.  The Bible implies that there was water on earth before the destruction between verse one and two, because verse two says that there was darkness on the face of the “deep.”  

Water, “the deep,” already existed on the earth when verse two was written.  God had created “the deep” in verse one along with everything else because in verse two it says, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  You can’t move on the face of something that isn’t there.

And then, suddenly, the dinosaurs all disappeared.  Abruptly.  All at once. Not over time; no, they disappeared in an instant.  How could that happen?  What occurred to wipe out almost all life on the surface of the earth, but allow almost all creatures that were in the waters to survive?

Dinosaurs gone.  Land life extinguished.  In an instant.  We are able to glean knowledge about that disappearance from two, and only two sources.

1.  The first source is strata deposits--in which there are fossils of  creatures that were once alive laid down in layer upon layer of sediment.  And in those layers, there are thousands and thousands of deposits of multitudes of different kinds of animals that no longer exist. You can’t deny strata; strange animals once existed.  And they disappeared all at once.  Instantly. 

Additionally, in ice cores, scientists can date, and trace through the layers in the ice cores from present day, back through millennia.  They can identify catastrophes, volcanic deposits of ash that traveled through the atmosphere, tsunamis, temperature changes and other phenomenon which occurred on earth through millions and millions of years.  Layer by layer, preserved deep in the ice.  Ice core Strata.

2. The second--and only other--source of information concerning that sudden disappearance of what was living on earth is the Biblical source...

I pray that all of you will have a blessed day.  I know that for some of you, there will be sadness for those who have gone on, but have joy in the moment knowing they are  with the one who's birth we celebrate today.

Merry Christmas.

When the first words of the Bible were written, this word create (bara in the Hebrew) was used to describe something unique.  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  We are given nothing more than that.

 God didn’t share what, or who, he put on that earth way back then.  Or how He did it. The Bible simply says that He created two things.  The heavens.  And the earth.  Out of nothing.  And both the heavens and the earth were created complete and perfect in every way.  Nothing was missing.  

I personally wish God would have told us more about that world, but He didn’t.  Scientifically, we know that millions of years ago, in that long-ago past world that He created, there were animals that are totally different than those we know today.  Their bones, as fossils, are preserved in the strata deposits of the earth. Animals died, were covered up with dirt, and preserved.  Layered from top to the bottom of the strata.  Sixty-six million years ago.

There they are.  Those animals existed.  They are preserved for us.  Real animals.   You can touch them, pick up their bones and know that at one time there were many different kinds of creatures on earth that no longer exist, and they were rampantly abundant.  And then, suddenly, they all disappeared.  Abruptly.  All at once. Not over time; no, they disappeared in an instant.  How could that happen?  What occurred to wipe out almost all life on the earth, except for life that existed in the waters--oceans and seas?

I started with a couple of classes in Chemistry, and Comparative anatomy—I cut, dissected, pinned and identified arteries, veins, muscles, breathing systems and organs.  My poor family, husband and four children, endured me repeating every lecture to them each evening at the supper table.  They weren’t nearly as excited about what I had learned as I was.

Organic Chemistry, Entomology—where I spent a semester identifying all the different structures of bugs.  Incidentally, if you sprinkle Borax powder along the baseboards of your kitchen, you don’t need toxic bug spray.  Roaches and other critters you bring in from the grocery store—sometimes in sacks of potatoes--will lick their feet when they step on the Borax powder and die.  Borax is a simple cleaning agent.  Sweep it up, or mop the floor with it.

I finally ended up with some basic knowledge about Zoology, which didn't mean I knew nearly enough--I had only scraped the surface.  I read every book I could get my hands on.  I attended every lecture within driving distance on the subject of evolution, kept taking classes, taught mathematics on a college campus for twenty years,  and did a bit of advanced statistics.  Statistics don’t lie.  It was helpful to know what was actually statistically possible in our universe, and what wasn’t.  The more I learned, the more convinced I was of the truth of the book of Genesis.  And I set out to put that book in context with true scientific knowledge--beginning with three words.  Create.  Make, and Let.  (Continued.)

I can’t fathom a universe filled with everything that exists in the thing we call space—stars, moon, sun, galaxies, black holes--as being an accident.  What is space anyway?   There must be a higher power.  To believe otherwise means that something had to come from nothing. Which is contrary to intelligent thoughts about science, not to mention the laws of Physics. 

I believe there is a Creator.  It affects everything I think and do.  It is the reason I wanted to know exactly what the Bible said, and what the words meant. It is why I wanted to know that all of the Bible is true, and why the Genesis account is not a contradiction of science. I wanted to know the truth.  And it starts with the basic belief that something can’t come from nothing.

I’m going to tell you how I arrived at my conclusions concerning the Genesis story of creation.  If you don’t agree, then you have to start your own scientific journey.  But I believe there is one thing is absolutely, unquestionably true: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  And it’s true, whether you believe it, or not.  And out of nothing, “space” came into being.  And into this nothingness we call space, God placed the heavens and the earth.  And us.  There had to be a "beginning."  (Continued...)

 I had read it (Genesis) without asking any questions.  Obviously, I needed to learn how to read! 
It was at that point that I read Genesis again.  With attention to words.  What did the words actually say?  And what did the words actually mean?

If you can’t trust Genesis, what else in the Bible might not be true?  How do you decide what is true and what isn’t?  Faith must be based on truth or it is dangerous.   And Biblical truth has to be true from cover to cover.   Genesis to Revelation.  Otherwise it is blind faith.  

You can have blind faith in anything you want to--and end up going down a dead-end road to nowhere, or off a cliff.  You can end up somewhere you never intended to be. You can have sincere faith that you can fly like birds do, then go jump off a building and end up dead.  

I was about to begin a journey that I’ve been on for over fifty years. It has been a search for truth. And how do we find it.  What is truth?

The first question a person has to clear up in their own mind is this: Is there a higher source; is there a God?  It affects everything else.  If you don’t believe that there is “something,” or “someone” out there in control of the universe, then you can’t really have a discussion about where we came from. Believing, or not believing in a higher power, determines the mental pathway of a person’s life. Rather than God, some people choose to believe in Aliens. 

From yesterday, a teen asked how a person knew what was true in the Bible:  "Questioning God’s Word was considered blasphemy.  Nobody did that."   

I didn’t have an answer for her.  I was twenty-seven years old, had not been to college, and my entire knowledge of science was from high-school biology.  I had never heard of Darwin.  Much less his Theory.  I had been too busy raising children to pay much attention to the news in the field of science.

My assurances to the class that the Bible was true didn’t bear any weight with them at all.  “How do you know that it’s true,” one of them asked me?  “How do you explain the dinosaurs that lived over sixty-six million years ago?”

I learned something new that day.  Simply telling young people to have faith that the Genesis story was true wasn’t going to cut it any more.  I needed facts.  I needed to know what was going on out there in the world of science, and I needed to have the ability to defend what the Bible said.  With truth, not with words.

And then, I discovered something else.  I didn’t have any idea what the first chapter of Genesis actually said.  I had read it a number of times.  But I had read it without discernment; I had read it without asking any questions.  Obviously, I needed to learn how to read!  (Continued tomorrow.)

Everybody keeps asking me to write a book about Genesis, so I am in the process of doing that.  I'm going to share chapter one with you.  It may take a couple of days to blog the first chapter, because I have stayed with my commitment to write only six inches.   

GENESIS AND STRATA 

I was living in a world where I never asked questions.  The Bible was true and it had always been true.  What was there to question?  And then, in the late sixties, I was teaching a class of seventeen-year-old high school girls, when one of them asked me a question.  “How do you decide which parts of the Bible to believe.”

“What do you mean!”  I was confused, and shocked by her question.

“Like the creation story, she said.  "It’s a fable. Right?”

To say I was shocked is an understatement.  I had never heard anyone question the facts in the Bible.  “Why would you say such a thing? I asked her.

“Well, we know the real truth.  Darwin has explained how life began.  You know, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.”  Her statement was made as a given conclusion.

No. I didn’t know.  I had gone to school in an era when the Bible was in the classroom and no one questioned its validity.  Questioning God’s Word was considered blasphemy.  Nobody did that.  (Continued tomorrow.)

I have moles in my front yard.  They have invaded.  I thought my lawn care company would treat the yard for grubs--which is what attracts the moles--but it looks like they didn't do that.

Since Squig is a terrier, you would think he would get out there and dig them up, but no!  He isn't in the least bit interested in them.  He gets fed every day without having to work for it.  I guess I am the problem??

I was going to go buy a mattress today, but when I left the pot luck dinner at the church yesterday, my brakes started squeaking really bad.  My grandson Sam told me that they put "squeakers" in your brakes to warn you.  He also said you can remove them, but that if you do, then you don't get a warning that your brakes are in need of repair.

So I am not going to go shopping for a mattress, I'm taking my car in for repairs.  I bet it ends up costing more than a mattress.

Everyone thinks I should buy a new car.  I'm not going to do that either.  I have two Town Cars that run.  Why would I want a car payment?  One is a '99 with one hundred and thirteen thousand miles on it--in excellent condition.

The other one is an '08 with eighty-five thousand on it.  It's badly in need of washing.  The Lincoln dealer will do that today.  It has a scrape on the back bumper where I let the garage door down on it.

That kind of damage says "Stupid" to everyone.  It's kinda embarrassing--but not enough to tempt me to pay to paint it.

I'll get a new car when both of these cars give up the ghost.  In the meantime, I'll find another way to spend the money I don't spend on a car payment.

I signed a contract a year ago January.  Was promised an edited edition in May. Promised twenty finished copies to take to my high-school reunion the weekend of July the fourth.  And publication in September.  

None of that happened.  Here I am on December eleventh still editing the mess the publishing editor made of it all.  And this is the third go around.

They assured me yesterday that we would finish it today.  The most we have ever been able to do is twenty pages a day--and there are one hundred and eighty four pages to go--second time around.  The entire process is insane.  Nobody has done anything they said they would do since last January.

The problem isn't me.  I'm available twenty-four seven days a week except for Sunday morning.  The meeting cancellations have been four out of five on their part.  

Okay--that's all I'm going to say.  I have a headache from the stress of people who tell you what they are going to do and then don't do it.  I've never in my life been in a situation like this.

Give me people who are on time and do what they tell you they are going to do.  All my friends are coming up with the next excuse I am going to get from the publisher.  Carolyn says it will be because someone's "eyelash fell out."  Then Carolyn said--after weeks of them giving me excuses: "How many eyelashes does the publisher have left?"

Jeanette--on the other hand--keeps trying to calm me down.

It's a good thing I have friends.

I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond yesterday and bought an electric lap blanket.  To keep my toes warm.  Of course I got a color that didn't work when I got it home--and had to take it back and exchange it.  I hate to shop.

I was able to get my new washer and dryer last week without too much trauma.  The washer doesn't have an agitator in the center.  I didn't notice that when I bought it.  I just walked in the store, looked at two different models, and said, I'll take that one.

When I did my first load of wash, I figured I'd made a big mistake.  Turns out, I like it.  It rotates the clothes in a different way so that the sheets don't get all tangled up and twisted.  Ann said hers is like that and she likes it really well.

And now, I have to get a new mattress.  Mine dips in a couple of places because I sleep in the exact same position every night and never move.  On my right side--so I'm sure my face is flat on that side???

I dread looking for a mattress like the plague.  Squig has a little place on the other side of the bed, on the mattress i have now, that he has hollowed out as well.  I lift the covers up and he finds his spot and immediately goes to sleep.

It takes me longer to go to sleep than him.  I usually read my Bible for a half an hour or so, and by the time I get through praying for the people in my family, I'm nodding off.  

I never get through the list, I just start where I left off the night before.  Four kids, their spouses, ten grandchildren and their spouses, and six great grandchildren.  My brother,  sister, their spouses, children and people in my connection group.  Some of them need more prayer than others.  You know how families are?  I guess I have become the matriarch.  

Squig is still sleepy from his visit to the Vet.  He lost another tooth in the process.  He now has less than half of his teeth.  That's the problem with being born a schnauzer.  Bad teeth.  Choose your parents carefully???

He'll be twelve in March.  That's eighty-four in dog years.  I don't want to think about that.

Thinking about age, Jon, (my youngest son) brought his two boys over to see me on Saturday.  Tate is four, Brady is eight.  The reason God gave children to younger people becomes apparent when you are around a couple of them for an hour. They are very well mannered, but busy, busy, busy.

By the time you have the good sense to raise children, you don't have the energy you need to raise them.  So you just have to do the best you can when you have kids.  Jon has a lot of patience with those two energetic boys.  I can't believe I raised four children and had the energy to do it.

I gave Tate and Brady a shovel and sent them outside to tear the dried okra pods open and plant the seeds.  I didn't tell them that the seeds had to be planted in the spring to have a chance to grow.  No need to spoil their fun.

We played Uno.  They both beat me over and over.  I think I'm over the hill.

When It was time for them to go home, both of them began to cry and beg to stay with me.  That was flattering.  It's nice to know you are loved.  But Jon had the good sense to take them with him.  I could have kept one of them, but both at the same time would have been the end of me.

My oldest grandchild is thirty-seven; the youngest is four.  They were both born on Feb. 20.  They are the bookends of my grandchildren.

Becky and Craig took me to the Messiah last night.  The conductor turned to the audience at the end and directed all of us to sing the Hallelujah Chorus.  It was a wonderful evening.  They took Kathy and husband Steve as well.  Kathy and Becky do estate sales together all the time.

Steve is the guitarist for Darci Lynne, the American Idol winner--with her puppets.  So he travels a lot.  It was nice to have everyone in one place for the evening.  Josh went as well.  Steve and Josh were the guys on tap when I bought sofas at an estate sale Becky had.  They lugged them into my house and set them up for me.  Family and Friends are a blessing in my life.   

I stayed up last night at the Messiah way past my bedtime and am groggy this morning.  I'm going to have to take a nap before the day is over.

I'm on my way to the Vet.  Squig has to get his teeth cleaned.  And they have to put him to sleep to do it.  Which bothers me.  But schnauzers, as a breed, have horrible teeth so it has to be done.  Squig loses teeth every time we do this.  The best thing about schnauzers is that they don't shed.  I guess you can't have it all.

When I took him to the vet for a teeth-cleaning in Pryor, it was usually under a hundred dollars.  I've taken him to Guthrie for the last times and it was $185.  But it gets harder and harder to get him there, so I thought, "It can't be that much more to take him to a vet in Edmond.  Edmond--the home of the rich and famous.  $405.  We will be going back to Guthrie.

There is a steep price for a dog that doesn't shed???  But what is a girl to do.  I'm in love with this little dog.  I'll eat beans and cornbread for a month.  God created schnauzers for people like me.  They aren't good for much of anything but to love.  And I do that quiet well.

I was reading in the book of first John last night.  John wants to reassure people that what he had encountered was first hand.  That he is a first hand witness to events concerning a man named Jesus from the town Nazereth.

So he begins in the first sentence by saying that he has heard it, seen it with his eyes, looked upon the events and has handled numerous parts of the events.  This is not hearsay.

Then he says," That which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you, so that you also may have fellowship with us..."  Then he continues by saying, "This then is the message which we have heard of him..."  John was making sure that those people out there, (who believed in Jesus being the Christ) had the assurance of hearing it from someone who had been there when it all happened.  He was an on the spot reporter.

If you read through this short letter you find that he used the word "Know" 36 times.  He wanted people to know.  To have assurance.  In 2:3 he says, "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments."  Know that you know.  I love to hear first hand accounts.  He emphasizes that he is writing this down so that they will "know."  And uses the word "write," or "written" or "declare" at least thirteen times.

"Give me the facts," someone might have asked.  And John said, "Here's what I know; here's what I saw, experienced and I know absolutely to be the truth.

When John, Peter, Jude, Matthew, or James write something, you have a first hand, three year observance of the life of Jesus.  Paul asserts that he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and is also a first hand believer.  Paul did a 180 degree turn around from murdering Christians to becoming one of them.  I'm a believer in part because of what they wrote. 

Last week, our Sunday quarterlies started covering a study of the book of Numbers.  The first eight chapters cover a census of the people.  Twelve tribes are numbered.  Poor Moses.  He was out in the desert trying to get every one going in the same direction.

They started us in chapter nine--thank goodness.  The first eight chapters are like reading a phone book.  Most of you probably don't know what a phone book is?  (I still have one from 1956.  No, I don't know why I kept it.)

The people were complaining, "Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for supper."  After forty years of wandering around, I doubt we would do much better.  

They were led by a cloud by day, and a fire by night.  They got so used to those two things, and probably thought those two things were normal.

Like us...the sun comes up every morning and the moon every night.  That's the way it is.  Normal.  I can't help but wonder if they were just like we are.  We are so used to the sun and moon, we have lost our wonder of the universe.

Trees die in the winter.  And come spring, they burst into green.  Such a magical event.  It happens every year.  Maybe we are so used to it that we have lost our wonder of the miracle of things that are alive.

I've gotten hooked on Dr. Pol on TV.  He's a Vet.  After watching multiple episodes, I now think I could pull a cow, and dehorn a steer.  I think I could sew up a dog after a dog fight.  (I'm pretty good with a needle.)  New little critters being born is such a miracle.  Puppies, kittens, little goats and sheep.  Maybe we need to regain wonder.  Maybe we need to recognize the hand of God in our world.

There is too much stuff to read anymore.  Information is drowning me.  I made the mistake of ordering a "three for $5.00 set" of magazines for a year.  I won't do that again.  I don't have time to read them so I walk them over to a neighbor who does.  They are Mostly recipes anyway.  And I am not going to cook them.  It would take one person forever to eat one of those recipes.  

And my neighbor brings me "Time" mag. when he is through with it.  I try, but the articles are too long.  And boring. My attention span is short.

When I started writing this blog, I determined to write six inches--or however short the small page I write on is.  No longer.  If I go a line over that, I go back and edit it until it is shorter.  That's enough.  Nobody wants to read more than that unless it is a good book.

I found that when I was teaching math at NEO, the attention span of a student who was listening to instruction was fifteen minutes--then you had to give them something to do.  So I would explain something for fifteen minutes, then give them a problem I could assist them with--and when everyone got the concept, move on to explain the next concept for a minute or two.  "Doing" is more instructive if you have someone to help you than "Hearing."

The TV is just noise anymore.  If you want something near the truth, you have to listen to three or four different stations.  Nobody simply reports the news anymore.  They spout opinions.  It makes me weary.

And since some people only listen to only one station, they are brainwashed into that station's opinion.  Discussion of ideas is out, out, out.  Like I said at the beginning, Information is drowning me.  Let me rephrase that:  Opinions are drowning me.  Figuring out what is true is a huge effort.  

They installed my new washer and dryer this morning.  I am on my fourth load of laundry.  An interesting note about that:  When I took Squig to the Vet last week, the Vet spent at least twenty minutes with me, explaining everything.  Then took Squig to the back to run some tests.  My entire bill was fifty-five dollars.  For a medical veterinarian doctor.

When I called a service man last week to see if he could fix my dryer, he walked in and said, "It's seventy-five dollars for the call to be paid now for me to look at it.  And another eighty-five dollars to fix it if I can.  Parts will be extra."

That's one-hundred and sixty dollars plus parts.  With no guarantee that he would be able to fix it.  Somebody needs to advise high-school students to go into the repair business.

That kind of work has exploded in demand.  Probably because college doesn't teach very many hands on trades.  So nobody knows how to do common stuff.  Since the fifties we have geared high school courses to a pre-college direction.

Back when I was in the eighth grade, nobody had to go to school after that.  High school was for those going into professional careers.  Which obviously isn't needed any more to make a decent living. Now, we have a standard curriculum that everybody has to meet to graduate, and twelve years of education required to graduate instead of stopping at eight. 

There were also apprentice programs back then as well.  Where you could learn to do things.  One of the best kept secrets in Oklahoma is our Vo-tec schools.  Years ago we voted a sales tax exclusively for Vo-tec schools and now we have a bunch of them with permanent funding.  State of the art.  Low size classes.  Well paid teachers.  It's a real success story.  My son Jon taught physics at a high school, but now teaches robotics, drones, and such at a Vo-tec school.

I have never done Black Friday.  There is a reason for that.  I learned my lesson in Savanna, Georgia 1962.  Way back before the Black Friday concept had been invented.

 I had gone to a highly advertised sale at a furniture store at eight in the morning.  It was just a sale, nothing spectacular.  They were clearing out the store at reduced prices, and we needed a sofa.  

I was there early to get in and get a good selection, as soon as the doors opened--which opened out, not in.  When the doors opened, the crowd behind me surged forward and pinned me against the edge of the opening door and I couldn't breath.  

Eventually the pressure behind me finally rolled me off the edge of the door and into the store. But there were a couple of minutes I thought I was done for.  I was trapped.  I thought they were going to break my ribs.

Needless to say, I was done shopping.  I would look for a sofa some other day when there was no hysteria.  Saving a little money isn't worth risking your life.
I had never been in a crowd like that.  Being from the nineteen-fifties in Oklahoma, I didn't expect rude people behind me to surge.  I thought everyone would wait their turn.  I learned something about human behavior that day.  You can't predict what people are going to do.  Especially when money is involved.

I don't shop much any more.  For one thing, I can't walk any distance for very long, and for another, I have found that when I need something, I save money in the long run if I just go buy it.  I never make an impulse purchase because I'm not out looking for stuff.  It took me ten minutes to buy a washer and dryer last week.  On Monday--not Friday.  They gave me their Black Friday price--because I asked for it.  No crowd.