几周没去理发店了。我一进门坐下，店老板就热情地打招呼：“都好久不见了”。我说：“是啊，自从上次来这儿，就没理过发。”
老板正忙着给一个男士剪发。接着问我：“现在还去教会吗？神学读完了没？”
“能不去吗？不去教会怎么行？”我连忙回答他，象是怕他以为我信仰变节似的。“神学差不多读了一半，还在读。”我补充道，心里想，这一个道学硕士需要九十多个学分，带职念神学，没有八年抗战的持之以恒，不容易拿下啊。
他那句现在还去教会的问题，一下子打开了我的话匣。我清了清嗓门，感叹地说：“如今好多人过日子，不知道人从哪里来，要往哪里去，来去之间为什么。假如人能多问几个为什么，不去教会也得去寺庙什么的寻找人生的意义。”
“人不是猴子变的吗？”一位女顾客主动答腔。我寻声望去，老板最近请的一位柬埔寨华人女性理发师正在给这女顾客剪发。理发师挡住了我的视线。透过镜子，我看出是位中年妇女的脸。
“那不是生物学家的答案。”我纠正她。“进化生物学家最多只是说，人与猩猩猿猴在很久很久以前曾有过神秘的，已经灭绝的，还没有找到的共同祖先。”
“活着不就是吃吃喝喝吗？”她接着回答前面的问题之一。
“吃喝固然是为了活着，但活着就是为了吃喝？”我不能同意她的说法。有人可能会说，活着就是为了吃喝玩乐得更好，事业更成功，家庭更幸福。但那仍然只是活着的部分重要内容。人活着有那些内容又是为什么呢？
“家庭工作忙都忙不过来，哪有时间去想那么多？”她说的算是实话。
是啊，大家的确是忙得够盲的，忙得缺少那种神圣的宁静与安息，盲得看不清人活着的真正价值与意义。“你若相信或者盼望有更好的活法，自然会安排得过来自己的时间去寻找答案。”我向她挑战。
“去教会的人也不见得都明白活着的意义。”她反戈一击。
“这，我承认是。”我无法不同意她的观察。“但正因为有不明白，才去寻找。”
“科学可以帮助我们找到答案。”看来她即使不是学科学的，至少也是信科学的。
“但科学之所以为科学，就在于科学不断发现错误，更新过去与现在的看法，以图逼近真理。”我希望她不要因为迷信科学来错失信仰。
她从座位上站起来，走向柜台付款。她个头不高，朴素平实，略显富态。按照最近人类进化生物学家对康州某地妇女的趋势观察，她代表人类进化的一个大方向（矮胖一点的妇女似乎更适合人类的繁衍）。
“好了，下次再谈。”她说完话很客气地往外走。我想，下次不一定来临。就冲着她离去的背影喊了一句：“还是去教会吧。”
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
瞬间的景色
大千世界有些景色需要咱们细心去留意，不然不是稍纵即逝，就是视若无睹。近些日子里有几样挥之不去的瞬间景色，容我道来与你分享。
一个多月前，我趁天气还不算太凉，决定花钱散步(这是我给某种球类运动起的名副其实的绰号)。那天碰巧与一个黑人弟兄切磋球艺，彼此都乏善可陈，离老虎伍兹的世界顶尖水平还有相当距离。但草地边上的松树引起了我的极大好奇，因为同一颗树竟然结了两种果实。有些枝上结的是一串串颜色不一绿豆大小的果子，我捏了捏，发觉不同的颜色代表不同的硬软成熟度。另一些枝上结的是一颗颗胡桃大小的坚果，酱灰色，表面形似大脑的沟回。我不知道松树的名字，但面对一树两果的奇观，心里涌起对上帝的赞美。我猜想，嘴巴小的鸟儿可以吃小的软的果子，嘴巴大的动物象松鼠可以吃大的硬的果实。上帝对万物的照顾实在细腻入微啊。我的耳边于是想起耶稣说过的话，“不要为生命忧虑，吃什么，喝什么。为身体忧虑，穿什么。生命不胜于饮食么，身体不胜于衣裳么。你们看那天上的飞鸟，也不种，也不收，也不积蓄在仓里，你们的天父尚且养活它。你们不比飞鸟贵重得多么。你们哪一个能用思虑，使寿数多加一刻呢。”于是咱无忧无虑地继续挥杆，付钱走路。
每次打到第十五号洞，就想起平生第一个小鸟（比标准杆数少一杆）是在那里打出来的。两年多了，再也没有在那号洞重复过当年的创举。可以津津乐道的，还包括第七号洞，今年早些时候差点打出一个漂亮的大鹰（比标准杆数少两杆）。那天木杆击球正着，球落点在果岭前不到一百英尺。接下来一个抛物线轻挑，球直奔旗杆标示的洞口，贴着杆子坠落进洞后极其罕见地被反弹出来，大鹰变成小鸟。记忆最深的是一杆进洞。那次在一个九洞训练场，第二洞练球中，侥幸打出一杆洞。人生有点象业余初学选手打高尔夫球，念念不忘的美好回忆实在稀少而珍贵。
今天一早，一只壮实的雄鹿优哉游哉地在我们家后院散步，我赶紧用手机隔窗抢拍留影。上周末，自家院子里有个机灵的松鼠，嘴里衔一颗从树上掉下的超大号果实，扬起长尾巴，看着我。我看着它，心生羡慕。原来天上还真的可以掉下粮食来的。松鼠得食，只需满地满树去搜寻去收获，而万物之灵的人类，需要一分耕耘，一分栽种，一分浇灌，一分收获，而且常常需要汗流满面，才得糊口。与松鼠和其他动物相比，人类处境着实举步维艰啊。植物就更不用比了，它们自个生产粮食，不仅自给自足，还绰绰有余地分享给不会制造粮食的动物们。上周末去教会的路上，车顶还让路边大树上掉下的一个果子给砸得铿锵作响。听见声音，我开怀地笑了。心想：秋实果然丰富得可以砸车啊。
几天前，我第一次注意到自家的小狗，会“坐走”(sit-walk)，就是后腿坐地，前腿拖着已经坐地的身体往前爬行。我惊呼奇观，殊不知家人过去早已观察到小狗这一奇特的行走方法。从大学回家过周末的大女儿提醒说，小狗说不定用坐走在擦屁股。说得咱们一家人都笑了。前夜宴客，请在上海跨国公司研究所任职的海归朋友一家三口。小狗忙忙碌碌，从桌子这边跑到那边，奢望能分享桌上美食。狗的日子比松鼠还要容易。饿了，对着桌子或空盆喊一喊。渴了，掀一掀水盆。需要按摩了，躺到沙发上，肚皮朝天。而所有这一切高档消费，不需付一分钱。
上周五晚上，顶着毛毛细雨，爱之光团契开始了第一次的聚会，聚会地点位于与爱迪生以及南平田镇交接的劈势开太威镇的新德兰小教堂。可以容纳四百多人的教堂，迎来了首次聚会的三十几位成人与多位小孩。很明显，场地给了未来人数翻番成长的预备空间。马团长借用已故流行歌王杰克逊的话(This is it) 宣布新团契的开始。唱圣诗，听詹牧师的勉励，看着户外的秋雨，我想到圣经上所应许的秋雨之福。是的，上帝的恩典一如秋雨沛降，滋润人心。
一个多月前，我趁天气还不算太凉，决定花钱散步(这是我给某种球类运动起的名副其实的绰号)。那天碰巧与一个黑人弟兄切磋球艺，彼此都乏善可陈，离老虎伍兹的世界顶尖水平还有相当距离。但草地边上的松树引起了我的极大好奇，因为同一颗树竟然结了两种果实。有些枝上结的是一串串颜色不一绿豆大小的果子，我捏了捏，发觉不同的颜色代表不同的硬软成熟度。另一些枝上结的是一颗颗胡桃大小的坚果，酱灰色，表面形似大脑的沟回。我不知道松树的名字，但面对一树两果的奇观，心里涌起对上帝的赞美。我猜想，嘴巴小的鸟儿可以吃小的软的果子，嘴巴大的动物象松鼠可以吃大的硬的果实。上帝对万物的照顾实在细腻入微啊。我的耳边于是想起耶稣说过的话，“不要为生命忧虑，吃什么，喝什么。为身体忧虑，穿什么。生命不胜于饮食么，身体不胜于衣裳么。你们看那天上的飞鸟，也不种，也不收，也不积蓄在仓里，你们的天父尚且养活它。你们不比飞鸟贵重得多么。你们哪一个能用思虑，使寿数多加一刻呢。”于是咱无忧无虑地继续挥杆，付钱走路。
每次打到第十五号洞，就想起平生第一个小鸟（比标准杆数少一杆）是在那里打出来的。两年多了，再也没有在那号洞重复过当年的创举。可以津津乐道的，还包括第七号洞，今年早些时候差点打出一个漂亮的大鹰（比标准杆数少两杆）。那天木杆击球正着，球落点在果岭前不到一百英尺。接下来一个抛物线轻挑，球直奔旗杆标示的洞口，贴着杆子坠落进洞后极其罕见地被反弹出来，大鹰变成小鸟。记忆最深的是一杆进洞。那次在一个九洞训练场，第二洞练球中，侥幸打出一杆洞。人生有点象业余初学选手打高尔夫球，念念不忘的美好回忆实在稀少而珍贵。
今天一早，一只壮实的雄鹿优哉游哉地在我们家后院散步，我赶紧用手机隔窗抢拍留影。上周末，自家院子里有个机灵的松鼠，嘴里衔一颗从树上掉下的超大号果实，扬起长尾巴，看着我。我看着它，心生羡慕。原来天上还真的可以掉下粮食来的。松鼠得食，只需满地满树去搜寻去收获，而万物之灵的人类，需要一分耕耘，一分栽种，一分浇灌，一分收获，而且常常需要汗流满面，才得糊口。与松鼠和其他动物相比，人类处境着实举步维艰啊。植物就更不用比了，它们自个生产粮食，不仅自给自足，还绰绰有余地分享给不会制造粮食的动物们。上周末去教会的路上，车顶还让路边大树上掉下的一个果子给砸得铿锵作响。听见声音，我开怀地笑了。心想：秋实果然丰富得可以砸车啊。
几天前，我第一次注意到自家的小狗，会“坐走”(sit-walk)，就是后腿坐地，前腿拖着已经坐地的身体往前爬行。我惊呼奇观，殊不知家人过去早已观察到小狗这一奇特的行走方法。从大学回家过周末的大女儿提醒说，小狗说不定用坐走在擦屁股。说得咱们一家人都笑了。前夜宴客，请在上海跨国公司研究所任职的海归朋友一家三口。小狗忙忙碌碌，从桌子这边跑到那边，奢望能分享桌上美食。狗的日子比松鼠还要容易。饿了，对着桌子或空盆喊一喊。渴了，掀一掀水盆。需要按摩了，躺到沙发上，肚皮朝天。而所有这一切高档消费，不需付一分钱。
上周五晚上，顶着毛毛细雨，爱之光团契开始了第一次的聚会，聚会地点位于与爱迪生以及南平田镇交接的劈势开太威镇的新德兰小教堂。可以容纳四百多人的教堂，迎来了首次聚会的三十几位成人与多位小孩。很明显，场地给了未来人数翻番成长的预备空间。马团长借用已故流行歌王杰克逊的话(This is it) 宣布新团契的开始。唱圣诗，听詹牧师的勉励，看着户外的秋雨，我想到圣经上所应许的秋雨之福。是的，上帝的恩典一如秋雨沛降，滋润人心。
Worship His Majesty
The only psalm that has ever been recited aloud to the whole world from the outer space is Psalm 8. On July 20, 1969, a spellbound world held its breath and watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descending from Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle and landing on the Moon. The spot where they set their feet is called the Sea of Tranquility. Indeed, it was a tranquil moment in the history of mankind. Ancient moon gazers fancied themselves with dreams of visiting the Moon. Chinese had the fairytale of a certain fair lady named Chang’e flying to the Moon and taking abode there. Poets of all nationalities penned numerous poems about the Moon. One Hebrew shepherd boy who later became the greatest King of Israel had a moment of tranquility in the Judea desert while tending his father’s sheep. As he gazed upon the Moon in the starry night sky, he could not withhold his spirit of worship to the Creator. He poured out his worshipful spirit in Psalm 8. Three thousand years later, Psalm 8 became the choice poem worthy of being recited after the first successful Moon landing forty year ago. Tonight, let’s pause in our busyness of life and share that moment of tranquility, first experienced by David and then by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In so doing, let’s enter into the sanctuary of our hearts and bow down before our Maker.
In both the opening and the closing verse, David repeated this refrain: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Twice he used the Hebrew word ad-dir (ad-deer) to describe the name of God. The English equivalent of ad-dir are words such as excellent, famous, gallant, glorious, goodly, lordly, mighty, noble. It behooves us to conjure up images as recent as in the Election Night of 2008 when Barack Obama, the first elected African American President, took to the podium outside Chicago, to the thunderous applause of jubilant supporters and well wishers. A sense of unprecedented triumph and regality pervaded the whole park, whole nation, and whole world. If David did not continue to explain what exactly he meant by Addir in the following verses, we would be left guessing what exactly the majesty of God is. So let’s read on.
“You have set your glory above the heavens.” God’s glory, so foreign to us and so immense for us to grasp, is above the heavens. The same David, elsewhere in Psalm 19, says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” In essence, the heavens are but an extension, or seepage, of God’s uncontainable glory. God’s glory radiates through his handiworks in the heavens. The same Moon and stars that charmed David the shepherd boy transmit to us an even richer meaning in this age of scientific discovery. Our Moon and our star, the Sun, in the solar system, are only two of a hundred billion planets and stars in our Milky Way that measures 100,000 light years across. Furthermore, the Milky Way is but one of the hundred billion galaxies in the cosmos whose expanse can only be traversed for nearly 14 billion years even at the speed of light. Such enormity of the heavens is beyond our comprehension and reflecting the glory of God who takes the heavens as his throne and the earth as his footstool.
Curiously, in verse 2, David said to God: “Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” Perhaps David witnessed in his childhood that he and his play pals praised God. During David’s time, the Philistines were a constant threat to the people of Israel. We all know the famous story of a young David standing up to the Philistine giant by the name of Goliath and killing him with a sling and just one of five stones. God’s strength of victory was surely upon the young David. But David here was talking about suckling babes and infants whose mouths were usually after milk insatiably. The poet was using the literary device of exaggeration to portray the praiseworthiness of God for his superpower by even those adorable but powerless babes and infants. We get a better picture of this verse in Matthew 21:16. There on Palm Sunday, Jesus went into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, receiving praise and honor from people lining up the street (before many of them had a dramatic about face five days later). Jesus chased out money changers and vendors selling pigeons from inside the temple of God, and healed many sick people. Many young children shouted or cried out: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The religious of the day, the chief priests and the scribes, were indignant on hearing this. They chided Jesus by saying: “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus answered them, by quoting none other than Psalm 8:2 (possibly the Septuagint version), “Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of the infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” Perhaps unbeknown to David, almost a millennium later, his prophetic poetry would be heard of its fulfillment from the lips of those children witnessing the Passion Week ministry of Jesus the Son of David. I gained a deeper appreciation of verse 2 early this year when I read a report from China. A government scholar formulating new religious policy guideline reported his observations after spending a full year traveling through much of China and doing in-depth research on the status of house churches. Despite being an atheist, he had some very favorable things to say about the underground house churches, with an outspoken concern for the secrecy forced upon them. One recount in his report etched in my memory. Showing video clips of children singing praises to God in a house church, the scholar saw a new generation with gleaming hope in those young Christian children. He described them as “beaming with sunlight”. He said tears swelled up in his eyes. Brothers and sisters, God has indeed ordained strength or praise from the lips of babes and infants, even in China where his house churches are under constant harassment and sporadic persecution. God used those children beaming with heavenly sunlight to silence God’s enemy and avenger, and even drive one atheist scholar to tears.
In verses 3 and 4, David felt a strong sense of unworthiness when he discovered the worthiness of God as displayed in the heavens, the Moon and the stars. So unworthy, David had to resort to the rhetorical refrain of synonymous parallelism to adequately express his feeling of gross inadequacy: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Worship is the most natural response of man when man is confronted with God’s greatness evidenced by his mighty handiwork. Man can only prostrate before the Maker and feel unworthy of God’s providential care. George Smoot III, a UC Berkeley professor, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution in understanding the cosmic microwave background radiation. In describing his team’s discovery in the early 1990’s, he likened the map of the embryonic heavens by the cosmic background explorer satellite as looking at the “fingerprint of God”. The stars we see and not see in the sky came into existence because of the handiwork of God. Now scientists can trace back in time and find the earliest fingerprint of God. Science is discovering more and more how awesome our God is! Another scientist, by the name of Francis Collins, led a group of some 3000 scientists a few years ago in deciphering the human genome, the book of life that makes human biologically human. Lately, he published a book “the language of God”. It is this instruction book with over six billion letters, jointly given by our parents, that drives both our embryonic development and everyday living. It is this language of God that literally speaks us into an embodied existence containing no less than ten to the 27th power of atoms in over 10 trillion cells of various kinds, including about 100,000 hairs on our head (yes, God has numbered them), over 200 bones that frame us to stand upright before God, 40 billion capillaries that, altogether with arteries and veins, make up nearly 100,000 miles of rivers of blood within our body (that is four times the circumference of the earth’s equator, arguably the longest river on earth!). If all of the DNA molecules in our body were stretched and stacked end to end, it would have to travel back and forth 8000 times between Moon and earth! If we only care to gaze deep into the heavens, we would find the fingerprint of God. If we only care to gaze deep into our own cells, we would find the language of God. God’s glory is splendid and resplendent, everywhere we gaze into.
David’s feeling of unworthiness before the Creator God was intensified furthermore in verses 5 to 8: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. If the high heavens that bears the fingerprint of God proved unbearably humbling to the poet, then the fact that God created us in his own glorious image and likeness and ordained us to have dominion over his creation is simply mind-boggling, eye-opening, breath-taking, heart-throbbing, gut-wrenching, and knee-shuddering. The most unthinkable has happened: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” Wow! Wait a minute! The majestic God of immeasurable glory and honor has created man just a little lower than heavenly beings (me·'e·lo·him), variously translated as God (as so rendered in some translations’ footnote) or angels (per Septuagint), and crowned him with glory and honor. Not only is God’s fingerprint on display in the heavens, his very image of glory and honor is being borne by man, the imago dei. When we survey the history of mankind, we see an enduring struggle in our dominion over nature, often for our selfish ends. To say that we have lived up to this lofty aspiration as God’s glorious image bearer and stewarding caretaker is simply not true to our collective experience. So was David wrong then? Absolutely not! David’s prophetic words were first and foremost fulfilled with Jesus, according to the author of the Book of Hebrew 2:6-8. Apostle Paul further predicts in 1Corithians 15:27-28 and Ephesians 1:10 the ultimate dominion over everything under Christ.
But to conclude that Psalm 8 is prophetic about Jesus only would undermine the richer meaning of this poetry, since the bible also clearly teaches that we are co-heirs with Christ (e.g., Romans 8:17). It is in Christ that we find the ultimate meaning of God’s creation and redemption. It is by Christ and for Christ that the heavens and earth were created. As part of the creation order, indeed the crowning jewel of the creation, mankind is to exhibit God’s glory and honor in all we are and all we do. Unfortunately we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In God’s mercy and grace, he sent his one and only son Jesus Christ to come into the world and redeem mankind from sin and death. Not only will we be saved from the penalty, power and presence of sin, we will be saved unto eternal life as the divine image bearers and co-heirs with Christ. The new heavens and the new earth will be our new, eternal home, wherein we shall directly gaze upon the glory of God and fulfill our caretaking stewardship. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the greatest and best news there is under heavens and on earth. Brothers and sisters, let’s learn from David a lesson of worship. David gazed into the starry night in the moment of tranquility and found God’s glory beaming through not only the Moon and stars, but the image bearers of God as caretakers of his mighty creation. Let’s pause during each of the four seasons and marvel at the changing colors and thank God for adorning our planet earth with such rich diversity of liveliness. Let me give you a few tips in case you wonder how.
In this fall season, walk in Central Park or your neighborhood, hike in Bear Mountain, pick up a fallen leave and inspect its veins, the highway that once transported the carbohydrates made by the process of photosynthesis. Some of the leftover sugars helped staining the leave reddish. Ponder on the fact that all of the foods consumed by the millions different kinds of living species in our biosphere were ultimately made by the green plants, God’s Food Inc. And give thanks to God for his generous provision year after year to humans and sparrows and fish and sheep and oxen. Amazingly, God’s Food Inc. takes an extended Sabbath break in the fall and winter every year, without causing real food shortage overall. The fall foliage is like a holiday celebration in flying colors. Go stand by the bank of Hudson and delight in the tapestry on both sides of the mountain valley. Savor the moment of tranquility. God is in the fall season. Do not miss his show.
In the winter season, light the fireplace of your heart and let it snow, let it snow. Walk in the snow country and kiss the snowflakes that gently fall on your face and lips. Taste it, the ultra pure, chilled and shapely disguised water supplied free of charge. Click to fasten your snow board or skiing board but let loose your inhibition at the top of the trail. If you dare, pick the daredevil black diamond trail and have a free fall. If not, crisscross the cross country trails at a leisure pace. If too timid, take the snow tubing and ride along with it. Regardless, recite your favorite Psalms and praise God for making mountains and opening the storehouse of snow. God is real cool and chill. Worship him for being so cool. You be cool too.
In the spring season, pay attention to the budding trees and blooming flowers. Observe their growth in slow motion. Gently touch the green buds and wipe off the morning dew. Analyze the color patterns in the flower and understand that all types of colors in varying shades and intensities are finely painted by an invisible artisan programmed internally within the book of life. Even the crayons are self manufactured, distributed and deposited with the right amount and in the right time and location. Nose up to a flower and breathe in its aromatic fragrance. Watch how a butterfly flutters and dances her way to a flower or a bum bee skillfully lands on the narrow strip of the petal, before they collect the nectar and become the unwitting facilitators for flowers’ cross fertilization. God has to be an artist par excellence. God is in the spring. Let your singing of praise and adoration to God bloom like wild flowers in your heartland.
In the summer season, check out the beaches and enjoy the giant Jacuzzi by the name of Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Know that the whirlpool is being agitated by the joint gravitational pulls from the Moon and the Sun. If you have ever felt envious of the rich having indoor Jacuzzi within their oversized mansion, then think again while you are immersed in God’s super-sized, outdoor Jacuzzi stirred by the Moon and the Sun. And feel super special being so pampered by God. In the coolness of a summer night, count the stars in the heavens as if you numerate the blessings from God. Watch cereus blooming in the night and folding up its petals and withering in the morning, as I am fortunate to witness a few times at home in August since 2004. Our life on earth is as brief as the night-blooming cereus, yet it is deeply rooted in God’s mindfulness of us even before the foundation of the world, it is lived in the present age to know our Maker and Redeemer, and it is to be lived endlessly throughout eternity in the presence of our Maker and Redeemer. Let us echo David the psalmist’s refrain: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In both the opening and the closing verse, David repeated this refrain: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Twice he used the Hebrew word ad-dir (ad-deer) to describe the name of God. The English equivalent of ad-dir are words such as excellent, famous, gallant, glorious, goodly, lordly, mighty, noble. It behooves us to conjure up images as recent as in the Election Night of 2008 when Barack Obama, the first elected African American President, took to the podium outside Chicago, to the thunderous applause of jubilant supporters and well wishers. A sense of unprecedented triumph and regality pervaded the whole park, whole nation, and whole world. If David did not continue to explain what exactly he meant by Addir in the following verses, we would be left guessing what exactly the majesty of God is. So let’s read on.
“You have set your glory above the heavens.” God’s glory, so foreign to us and so immense for us to grasp, is above the heavens. The same David, elsewhere in Psalm 19, says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” In essence, the heavens are but an extension, or seepage, of God’s uncontainable glory. God’s glory radiates through his handiworks in the heavens. The same Moon and stars that charmed David the shepherd boy transmit to us an even richer meaning in this age of scientific discovery. Our Moon and our star, the Sun, in the solar system, are only two of a hundred billion planets and stars in our Milky Way that measures 100,000 light years across. Furthermore, the Milky Way is but one of the hundred billion galaxies in the cosmos whose expanse can only be traversed for nearly 14 billion years even at the speed of light. Such enormity of the heavens is beyond our comprehension and reflecting the glory of God who takes the heavens as his throne and the earth as his footstool.
Curiously, in verse 2, David said to God: “Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” Perhaps David witnessed in his childhood that he and his play pals praised God. During David’s time, the Philistines were a constant threat to the people of Israel. We all know the famous story of a young David standing up to the Philistine giant by the name of Goliath and killing him with a sling and just one of five stones. God’s strength of victory was surely upon the young David. But David here was talking about suckling babes and infants whose mouths were usually after milk insatiably. The poet was using the literary device of exaggeration to portray the praiseworthiness of God for his superpower by even those adorable but powerless babes and infants. We get a better picture of this verse in Matthew 21:16. There on Palm Sunday, Jesus went into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, receiving praise and honor from people lining up the street (before many of them had a dramatic about face five days later). Jesus chased out money changers and vendors selling pigeons from inside the temple of God, and healed many sick people. Many young children shouted or cried out: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The religious of the day, the chief priests and the scribes, were indignant on hearing this. They chided Jesus by saying: “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus answered them, by quoting none other than Psalm 8:2 (possibly the Septuagint version), “Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of the infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” Perhaps unbeknown to David, almost a millennium later, his prophetic poetry would be heard of its fulfillment from the lips of those children witnessing the Passion Week ministry of Jesus the Son of David. I gained a deeper appreciation of verse 2 early this year when I read a report from China. A government scholar formulating new religious policy guideline reported his observations after spending a full year traveling through much of China and doing in-depth research on the status of house churches. Despite being an atheist, he had some very favorable things to say about the underground house churches, with an outspoken concern for the secrecy forced upon them. One recount in his report etched in my memory. Showing video clips of children singing praises to God in a house church, the scholar saw a new generation with gleaming hope in those young Christian children. He described them as “beaming with sunlight”. He said tears swelled up in his eyes. Brothers and sisters, God has indeed ordained strength or praise from the lips of babes and infants, even in China where his house churches are under constant harassment and sporadic persecution. God used those children beaming with heavenly sunlight to silence God’s enemy and avenger, and even drive one atheist scholar to tears.
In verses 3 and 4, David felt a strong sense of unworthiness when he discovered the worthiness of God as displayed in the heavens, the Moon and the stars. So unworthy, David had to resort to the rhetorical refrain of synonymous parallelism to adequately express his feeling of gross inadequacy: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Worship is the most natural response of man when man is confronted with God’s greatness evidenced by his mighty handiwork. Man can only prostrate before the Maker and feel unworthy of God’s providential care. George Smoot III, a UC Berkeley professor, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution in understanding the cosmic microwave background radiation. In describing his team’s discovery in the early 1990’s, he likened the map of the embryonic heavens by the cosmic background explorer satellite as looking at the “fingerprint of God”. The stars we see and not see in the sky came into existence because of the handiwork of God. Now scientists can trace back in time and find the earliest fingerprint of God. Science is discovering more and more how awesome our God is! Another scientist, by the name of Francis Collins, led a group of some 3000 scientists a few years ago in deciphering the human genome, the book of life that makes human biologically human. Lately, he published a book “the language of God”. It is this instruction book with over six billion letters, jointly given by our parents, that drives both our embryonic development and everyday living. It is this language of God that literally speaks us into an embodied existence containing no less than ten to the 27th power of atoms in over 10 trillion cells of various kinds, including about 100,000 hairs on our head (yes, God has numbered them), over 200 bones that frame us to stand upright before God, 40 billion capillaries that, altogether with arteries and veins, make up nearly 100,000 miles of rivers of blood within our body (that is four times the circumference of the earth’s equator, arguably the longest river on earth!). If all of the DNA molecules in our body were stretched and stacked end to end, it would have to travel back and forth 8000 times between Moon and earth! If we only care to gaze deep into the heavens, we would find the fingerprint of God. If we only care to gaze deep into our own cells, we would find the language of God. God’s glory is splendid and resplendent, everywhere we gaze into.
David’s feeling of unworthiness before the Creator God was intensified furthermore in verses 5 to 8: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. If the high heavens that bears the fingerprint of God proved unbearably humbling to the poet, then the fact that God created us in his own glorious image and likeness and ordained us to have dominion over his creation is simply mind-boggling, eye-opening, breath-taking, heart-throbbing, gut-wrenching, and knee-shuddering. The most unthinkable has happened: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” Wow! Wait a minute! The majestic God of immeasurable glory and honor has created man just a little lower than heavenly beings (me·'e·lo·him), variously translated as God (as so rendered in some translations’ footnote) or angels (per Septuagint), and crowned him with glory and honor. Not only is God’s fingerprint on display in the heavens, his very image of glory and honor is being borne by man, the imago dei. When we survey the history of mankind, we see an enduring struggle in our dominion over nature, often for our selfish ends. To say that we have lived up to this lofty aspiration as God’s glorious image bearer and stewarding caretaker is simply not true to our collective experience. So was David wrong then? Absolutely not! David’s prophetic words were first and foremost fulfilled with Jesus, according to the author of the Book of Hebrew 2:6-8. Apostle Paul further predicts in 1Corithians 15:27-28 and Ephesians 1:10 the ultimate dominion over everything under Christ.
But to conclude that Psalm 8 is prophetic about Jesus only would undermine the richer meaning of this poetry, since the bible also clearly teaches that we are co-heirs with Christ (e.g., Romans 8:17). It is in Christ that we find the ultimate meaning of God’s creation and redemption. It is by Christ and for Christ that the heavens and earth were created. As part of the creation order, indeed the crowning jewel of the creation, mankind is to exhibit God’s glory and honor in all we are and all we do. Unfortunately we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In God’s mercy and grace, he sent his one and only son Jesus Christ to come into the world and redeem mankind from sin and death. Not only will we be saved from the penalty, power and presence of sin, we will be saved unto eternal life as the divine image bearers and co-heirs with Christ. The new heavens and the new earth will be our new, eternal home, wherein we shall directly gaze upon the glory of God and fulfill our caretaking stewardship. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the greatest and best news there is under heavens and on earth. Brothers and sisters, let’s learn from David a lesson of worship. David gazed into the starry night in the moment of tranquility and found God’s glory beaming through not only the Moon and stars, but the image bearers of God as caretakers of his mighty creation. Let’s pause during each of the four seasons and marvel at the changing colors and thank God for adorning our planet earth with such rich diversity of liveliness. Let me give you a few tips in case you wonder how.
In this fall season, walk in Central Park or your neighborhood, hike in Bear Mountain, pick up a fallen leave and inspect its veins, the highway that once transported the carbohydrates made by the process of photosynthesis. Some of the leftover sugars helped staining the leave reddish. Ponder on the fact that all of the foods consumed by the millions different kinds of living species in our biosphere were ultimately made by the green plants, God’s Food Inc. And give thanks to God for his generous provision year after year to humans and sparrows and fish and sheep and oxen. Amazingly, God’s Food Inc. takes an extended Sabbath break in the fall and winter every year, without causing real food shortage overall. The fall foliage is like a holiday celebration in flying colors. Go stand by the bank of Hudson and delight in the tapestry on both sides of the mountain valley. Savor the moment of tranquility. God is in the fall season. Do not miss his show.
In the winter season, light the fireplace of your heart and let it snow, let it snow. Walk in the snow country and kiss the snowflakes that gently fall on your face and lips. Taste it, the ultra pure, chilled and shapely disguised water supplied free of charge. Click to fasten your snow board or skiing board but let loose your inhibition at the top of the trail. If you dare, pick the daredevil black diamond trail and have a free fall. If not, crisscross the cross country trails at a leisure pace. If too timid, take the snow tubing and ride along with it. Regardless, recite your favorite Psalms and praise God for making mountains and opening the storehouse of snow. God is real cool and chill. Worship him for being so cool. You be cool too.
In the spring season, pay attention to the budding trees and blooming flowers. Observe their growth in slow motion. Gently touch the green buds and wipe off the morning dew. Analyze the color patterns in the flower and understand that all types of colors in varying shades and intensities are finely painted by an invisible artisan programmed internally within the book of life. Even the crayons are self manufactured, distributed and deposited with the right amount and in the right time and location. Nose up to a flower and breathe in its aromatic fragrance. Watch how a butterfly flutters and dances her way to a flower or a bum bee skillfully lands on the narrow strip of the petal, before they collect the nectar and become the unwitting facilitators for flowers’ cross fertilization. God has to be an artist par excellence. God is in the spring. Let your singing of praise and adoration to God bloom like wild flowers in your heartland.
In the summer season, check out the beaches and enjoy the giant Jacuzzi by the name of Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Know that the whirlpool is being agitated by the joint gravitational pulls from the Moon and the Sun. If you have ever felt envious of the rich having indoor Jacuzzi within their oversized mansion, then think again while you are immersed in God’s super-sized, outdoor Jacuzzi stirred by the Moon and the Sun. And feel super special being so pampered by God. In the coolness of a summer night, count the stars in the heavens as if you numerate the blessings from God. Watch cereus blooming in the night and folding up its petals and withering in the morning, as I am fortunate to witness a few times at home in August since 2004. Our life on earth is as brief as the night-blooming cereus, yet it is deeply rooted in God’s mindfulness of us even before the foundation of the world, it is lived in the present age to know our Maker and Redeemer, and it is to be lived endlessly throughout eternity in the presence of our Maker and Redeemer. Let us echo David the psalmist’s refrain: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Friday, October 23, 2009
秋天的孤鹭
你独自照镜子
镜中颠倒的世界在变换颜色与打扮
而你总是披一身素衣
喜欢用修长的腿
让镜里镜外不安
我早晚都奢望你出现
你很少爽约
你家园边上楼房的老总
正发愁往哪儿藏金子
先后某一天
我跟老总都不再路过
除非你也搬家
随他去
或是跟我走
我会继续等你
在镜子的这边
或者那边
镜中颠倒的世界在变换颜色与打扮
而你总是披一身素衣
喜欢用修长的腿
让镜里镜外不安
我早晚都奢望你出现
你很少爽约
你家园边上楼房的老总
正发愁往哪儿藏金子
先后某一天
我跟老总都不再路过
除非你也搬家
随他去
或是跟我走
我会继续等你
在镜子的这边
或者那边
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
是结束，更是开始
人生有一些里程碑，是一段旅程的结束，也是新的旅程的开始。十月的金秋，我有两样结束，两样开始。
第一样是工作。不多几日，贡献青春快二十年的公司终于要画上句点了，即将被新的默克给吞并了。记得刚进公司时还是满头黑发，一脸朝气的热血青年。拿到录用通知后曾与妻子一起到“热得啦不是特饿”(Red Lobster)开心吃龙虾庆祝，似在昨日。现在对镜自观，深深体会岁月如梭。头上黑白越来越分明。晶状体变形聚焦动作迟缓，太远看不明，太近看得晕。肺活量年年减产，而血压节节攀升。没有腰缠万贯，但内部组织重组起哄，显摆另类富有派头。唯一还保持得不错的是一副好牙齿，竟然一个也没有坏掉（大概部分归功于小时候吃糖的机会太少）。乖乖，现在总算弄明白了，为什么不明身份的亡魂可借保存基本完好的牙齿来鉴定。
第二样是团契与信仰生活。本周五，我要离开生活了十七年之久的若歌教会乡音团契，与一群居住爱迪生的同胞，共同开创若歌教会的又一个新团契———爱之光（EDISON LIGHT）。目的很简单，与凡愿意的华人同胞一起分享来自耶稣基督的恩典之爱与真理之光。离开乡音大家庭，还真有些舍不得。但更大更新的使命，催逼我们忍痛割爱。
第一样的结束不在我的计划与掌握之中，开始新的旅程更是充满了变数与挑战。第二样的结束是经过深思熟虑与精心策划的，开始新的旅程同样充满了未知与机遇。
人生之路，就是不断结束与不断开始的总和。儿时的玩伴，如今天各一方，友谊留在那片充满稻香的田野上，展灯共读的书桌旁，结伴垂钓的堰塘边，打仗砍柴抓蜈蚣摘蘑菇的山林里。高中大学研究院的同学，合在一起不久就离开了，各奔东西世界的五湖四海，为生计打拼，为梦想而活，筚路蓝缕，披荆斩棘。求学期间结识了不少良师益友。走得最近的自然属于曾经搅动少男心事的那位永远的少女。如今，她为人妻人母，我为人夫人父。流年往事，怎堪回首明月中？爱过，恨过；胜过，败过；是过，非过；赚过，赔过；乐过，悲过。五味人生，一应俱全。
如今，曾在一起工作服侍过的同事同工，也共同面临某种结束与开始。诚然，地上最大最后的结束要等到人生谢幕之时。德国的潘霍华牧师在临刑前的黑暗中，对纳粹监狱里的牢友说：这是结束，但对我而言，也是新生命的开始。
以这样的信念来面对旧的结束与新的开始，该是一种什么境界呢？何不来到本属于你的“乡音”与“爱之光”，让我们一起享受上主之爱，沐浴上主之光。
第一样是工作。不多几日，贡献青春快二十年的公司终于要画上句点了，即将被新的默克给吞并了。记得刚进公司时还是满头黑发，一脸朝气的热血青年。拿到录用通知后曾与妻子一起到“热得啦不是特饿”(Red Lobster)开心吃龙虾庆祝，似在昨日。现在对镜自观，深深体会岁月如梭。头上黑白越来越分明。晶状体变形聚焦动作迟缓，太远看不明，太近看得晕。肺活量年年减产，而血压节节攀升。没有腰缠万贯，但内部组织重组起哄，显摆另类富有派头。唯一还保持得不错的是一副好牙齿，竟然一个也没有坏掉（大概部分归功于小时候吃糖的机会太少）。乖乖，现在总算弄明白了，为什么不明身份的亡魂可借保存基本完好的牙齿来鉴定。
第二样是团契与信仰生活。本周五，我要离开生活了十七年之久的若歌教会乡音团契，与一群居住爱迪生的同胞，共同开创若歌教会的又一个新团契———爱之光（EDISON LIGHT）。目的很简单，与凡愿意的华人同胞一起分享来自耶稣基督的恩典之爱与真理之光。离开乡音大家庭，还真有些舍不得。但更大更新的使命，催逼我们忍痛割爱。
第一样的结束不在我的计划与掌握之中，开始新的旅程更是充满了变数与挑战。第二样的结束是经过深思熟虑与精心策划的，开始新的旅程同样充满了未知与机遇。
人生之路，就是不断结束与不断开始的总和。儿时的玩伴，如今天各一方，友谊留在那片充满稻香的田野上，展灯共读的书桌旁，结伴垂钓的堰塘边，打仗砍柴抓蜈蚣摘蘑菇的山林里。高中大学研究院的同学，合在一起不久就离开了，各奔东西世界的五湖四海，为生计打拼，为梦想而活，筚路蓝缕，披荆斩棘。求学期间结识了不少良师益友。走得最近的自然属于曾经搅动少男心事的那位永远的少女。如今，她为人妻人母，我为人夫人父。流年往事，怎堪回首明月中？爱过，恨过；胜过，败过；是过，非过；赚过，赔过；乐过，悲过。五味人生，一应俱全。
如今，曾在一起工作服侍过的同事同工，也共同面临某种结束与开始。诚然，地上最大最后的结束要等到人生谢幕之时。德国的潘霍华牧师在临刑前的黑暗中，对纳粹监狱里的牢友说：这是结束，但对我而言，也是新生命的开始。
以这样的信念来面对旧的结束与新的开始，该是一种什么境界呢？何不来到本属于你的“乡音”与“爱之光”，让我们一起享受上主之爱，沐浴上主之光。
Friday, October 9, 2009
核糖体之谜
今年诺贝尔化学奖授予了解开核糖体(Ribosome)三维原子结构的三位美国科学家，离开核糖体首次在电子显微镜下被一位罗马尼亚科学家（诺贝尔奖得主）粗线条地观察到，过去了短短半个世纪。人类认识自然规律的过程，正是从不知到粗线条地知道，再到精细而高分辨率地知道的不断发展过程。生命起源的一个关键，正是核糖体的起源。套用某哲学家的名言（没有蛋白质，就没有生命），我们可以理直气壮地说，没有核糖体，就没有生命。
先简单科普一下核糖体的基本功能与结构。核糖体作为一个纳米车床或平台，与其他的细胞活性分子（包括作为蛋白质合成信息模板的信使核糖核酸，运送氨基酸的转移核糖核酸，启动/延伸/释放蛋白合成的蛋白因子）精诚合作，负责细胞蛋白质的生物合成。原核与真核细胞的核糖体基本结构类似，都由两个纳米零件构成，一大一小。大的形似皇冠，是蛋白合成的催化中心，小的则象一只伸出来紧紧握住皇冠（以及信使核糖核酸链）的手。大的由两三根长短不一的核糖核酸扭麻花链与三十几或四十几种蛋白质钢条交织而成，小的由一根长的核糖核酸扭麻花链与二三十余蛋白钢条交织而成。真核的核糖体比原核的更为复杂，细微结构也相当有别，正因为如此，那些锁定核糖体为靶物的抗生素才有抑制细菌或真菌生命而对人类细胞网开一面的药用。
下面我们思考核糖体的起源假说。科学家发现，真核细胞中线粒体（动力发电厂与内源凋亡指挥部）与叶绿体（生物圈食品总公司）自己拥有的核糖体与原核细胞的核糖体更相似。这导致一个所谓内共生假说，在生命起源之初，原始的细胞们在相咬相吞的过程中，偶然地发现，合作是双赢的开始。于是它们化干戈为玉帛，决定形成互助组或合作社，而被吞的细胞决定安分守己，放弃绝大部分的基因，只留下极少量的基因，特化成一个骨干细胞器，专事能量（线粒体）或物质（叶绿体）的关键代谢。
姑且假定想象力丰富的内共生假说满足我们的某种好奇，也不无道理，我们还是面对一个棘手的问题，当初原核细胞的核糖体又是如何起源的呢？因为核糖体这个精密复杂的纳米细胞器同时拥有荣辱与共的几种核糖核酸与几十种蛋白质分子，而生产核糖体自身的那些蛋白质又需要核糖体来完成，这就产生了一个是先有蛋还是先有鸡的两难问题。于是有人提出了所谓核酸世界的假说（先有具有催化功能的核糖核酸，然后有蛋白质以及核糖体）。但麻烦的是，核糖体内的核糖核酸之催化功能有赖于其中蛋白质的结构性支持。那我们不得不假设，当初的核糖核酸特别有能力，无需蛋白质的支持就勇谋兼备地带来了从无生命到有生命的革命性转折。那些早期的核糖核酸先锋们，不仅摇身一变，成为储备遗传基因的脱氧核糖核酸（DNA），而且还可能无中生有地催生了早期某些关键蛋白质的出场，又与越来越多的蛋白质组装成一个纳米平台——核糖体，更有效的合成后来所有的蛋白质。生命之歌，就这么偶然地给吹响了。
我们今天回头看看咱们身体里的核糖体，对当初的那些分子进化先行者们，不得不致以某种说不出的感谢。只是很可惜，它们无法接受我们跨越时空的感谢，满有子欲养，父不在的惆怅感。
不多几位拥有十的二十七次方（一千亿亿亿）数量级的原子所组成的一百多斤的科学家，用与时俱进的头脑与科技手段，在短短半个世纪间解开了合成蛋白质的纳米机器的原子结构。另外有人还大胆地推测当初的起源出于某种巧合或偶然。你我就这么来了。请听诗歌：不要问我从哪里来，我的故乡在远方，为什么流浪，流浪远方，流浪。
无神梦呓下的流浪还在继续……
先简单科普一下核糖体的基本功能与结构。核糖体作为一个纳米车床或平台，与其他的细胞活性分子（包括作为蛋白质合成信息模板的信使核糖核酸，运送氨基酸的转移核糖核酸，启动/延伸/释放蛋白合成的蛋白因子）精诚合作，负责细胞蛋白质的生物合成。原核与真核细胞的核糖体基本结构类似，都由两个纳米零件构成，一大一小。大的形似皇冠，是蛋白合成的催化中心，小的则象一只伸出来紧紧握住皇冠（以及信使核糖核酸链）的手。大的由两三根长短不一的核糖核酸扭麻花链与三十几或四十几种蛋白质钢条交织而成，小的由一根长的核糖核酸扭麻花链与二三十余蛋白钢条交织而成。真核的核糖体比原核的更为复杂，细微结构也相当有别，正因为如此，那些锁定核糖体为靶物的抗生素才有抑制细菌或真菌生命而对人类细胞网开一面的药用。
下面我们思考核糖体的起源假说。科学家发现，真核细胞中线粒体（动力发电厂与内源凋亡指挥部）与叶绿体（生物圈食品总公司）自己拥有的核糖体与原核细胞的核糖体更相似。这导致一个所谓内共生假说，在生命起源之初，原始的细胞们在相咬相吞的过程中，偶然地发现，合作是双赢的开始。于是它们化干戈为玉帛，决定形成互助组或合作社，而被吞的细胞决定安分守己，放弃绝大部分的基因，只留下极少量的基因，特化成一个骨干细胞器，专事能量（线粒体）或物质（叶绿体）的关键代谢。
姑且假定想象力丰富的内共生假说满足我们的某种好奇，也不无道理，我们还是面对一个棘手的问题，当初原核细胞的核糖体又是如何起源的呢？因为核糖体这个精密复杂的纳米细胞器同时拥有荣辱与共的几种核糖核酸与几十种蛋白质分子，而生产核糖体自身的那些蛋白质又需要核糖体来完成，这就产生了一个是先有蛋还是先有鸡的两难问题。于是有人提出了所谓核酸世界的假说（先有具有催化功能的核糖核酸，然后有蛋白质以及核糖体）。但麻烦的是，核糖体内的核糖核酸之催化功能有赖于其中蛋白质的结构性支持。那我们不得不假设，当初的核糖核酸特别有能力，无需蛋白质的支持就勇谋兼备地带来了从无生命到有生命的革命性转折。那些早期的核糖核酸先锋们，不仅摇身一变，成为储备遗传基因的脱氧核糖核酸（DNA），而且还可能无中生有地催生了早期某些关键蛋白质的出场，又与越来越多的蛋白质组装成一个纳米平台——核糖体，更有效的合成后来所有的蛋白质。生命之歌，就这么偶然地给吹响了。
我们今天回头看看咱们身体里的核糖体，对当初的那些分子进化先行者们，不得不致以某种说不出的感谢。只是很可惜，它们无法接受我们跨越时空的感谢，满有子欲养，父不在的惆怅感。
不多几位拥有十的二十七次方（一千亿亿亿）数量级的原子所组成的一百多斤的科学家，用与时俱进的头脑与科技手段，在短短半个世纪间解开了合成蛋白质的纳米机器的原子结构。另外有人还大胆地推测当初的起源出于某种巧合或偶然。你我就这么来了。请听诗歌：不要问我从哪里来，我的故乡在远方，为什么流浪，流浪远方，流浪。
无神梦呓下的流浪还在继续……
Monday, October 5, 2009
永生之钥
这个周日美东时间午夜之后，三位美国科学家（其中两位女中豪杰）被告知，他们因发现染色体末端结构与修复末端的酶而荣获今年的诺贝尔生理与医学奖。
刚巧，这个周六我应邀去纽约州一个华人教会作中秋节布道。我根据新约福音书中两位犹太人（年轻财主官和律法师）先后请教耶稣如何得永生的故事，以“永生之钥”来展开。
如果永生之钥的关键在于解决自救与神救的千古冲突，从无人真正做到敬神爱人之至善的人类共同绝望中解放出来，以活脱脱的罪人身份凭信心接受上帝借着耶稣基督白白施舍的大救恩，那么，维持细胞持续分裂增殖生命力的染色体末端的修复酶似乎向苦于永生无着的人类抛了一个媚眼。毕竟，生生不息的癌细胞擅长细胞分裂过程中染色体末端的必要修复，而所谓正常细胞则在有限度的分裂传代过程中，逐步丧失了这种永葆青春的自我修复能力。
人类体细胞中的二十三对染色体，好比两套二十三册的生命全集，在细胞反复传代复制的生命过程中，这两套生命全集（被DNA复制酶系统）每读一遍，就似乎让卷首与卷尾（染色体末端）给消磨薄了一些。如果不加修复补偿，每本书就变得不复或不忍再读了。就好比咱们小时候，领了新书，需要小心包装，免得一学期还没过半，书本就已经消磨得无法继续顺畅地翻阅了。
这是否意味着，如果有朝一日人类有本事从胚胎发育期就开始按部就班地严密控制每个细胞的染色体末端的消磨并及时加以修复，同时限制所有其他导致细胞衰老死亡的种种原因，人类就可以延年益寿甚至越来越有可能逃避死亡了呢？
延年益寿还真不是白日梦，如果新一代的人类更进一步决定放弃互相残杀的举动，又悉心地保护好生活的环境免受各种对生命有害的污染。他们需要担心的倒是，如何安排千年游戏人生，重温受造之初的高寿境界（见圣经创世记第五章中关于从亚当夏娃开始的头十代寿高数百岁的人类远祖之记载）。人类败坏扭曲的理性总是与上帝作对的。可不是吗？当人们兴奋地把染色体末端的修复与延年益寿的新前景挂钩的时候，忘记了自己曾经对圣经关于早期年高数百的寿星们的记载如何嗤之以鼻，极尽挖苦与讽刺之能事。我想，当三千四百多年前只活了一百二十岁的摩西，面对同世代流浪倒毙旷野年岁不过七八十而已的犹太同胞，替上帝作笔代刀写到创世记第五章时，可能犹豫了片刻，做了一番思想斗争。我猜他在想，人类头十代真的有那么些数百岁的寿星吗？但他显然按照上帝的默示而如实写下了，休管后来的短命人类弟子们的说三道四，毕竟上帝所造的亚当夏娃基因蓝图理当完好无损，堕落后每况愈下的不良后果还需要一段时间才凸显出来。
至于脱离上帝的永生是否可能，就值得深思与质疑了。即使生命的小环境可以尽善尽美，生命的大环境（太阳系，银河系，整个宇宙）必须合作，支持生命在地上和宇宙中无限繁衍下去。科学家早已预期，这个宇宙如果不是走向大撕裂的结局，也至终会在热力学第二定律的紧箍咒中走向热死。更何况，万物生长所依靠的空中巨型核聚变反应堆——太阳，在宇宙热死以先，焚烧殆尽核燃料之后，也会日薄西山，红日不再，太阳系进入黑暗的世纪。人类千秋万代的永生梦想在哪里实现呢？
写时间简史的霍金教授就直言，人类的希望在外太空外星移民。我们要追问的是，哪个外太空与外星？如何移民？
拿撒人耶稣已经给予了最响亮可信的回答。有耳可听的，就应当听。
刚巧，这个周六我应邀去纽约州一个华人教会作中秋节布道。我根据新约福音书中两位犹太人（年轻财主官和律法师）先后请教耶稣如何得永生的故事，以“永生之钥”来展开。
如果永生之钥的关键在于解决自救与神救的千古冲突，从无人真正做到敬神爱人之至善的人类共同绝望中解放出来，以活脱脱的罪人身份凭信心接受上帝借着耶稣基督白白施舍的大救恩，那么，维持细胞持续分裂增殖生命力的染色体末端的修复酶似乎向苦于永生无着的人类抛了一个媚眼。毕竟，生生不息的癌细胞擅长细胞分裂过程中染色体末端的必要修复，而所谓正常细胞则在有限度的分裂传代过程中，逐步丧失了这种永葆青春的自我修复能力。
人类体细胞中的二十三对染色体，好比两套二十三册的生命全集，在细胞反复传代复制的生命过程中，这两套生命全集（被DNA复制酶系统）每读一遍，就似乎让卷首与卷尾（染色体末端）给消磨薄了一些。如果不加修复补偿，每本书就变得不复或不忍再读了。就好比咱们小时候，领了新书，需要小心包装，免得一学期还没过半，书本就已经消磨得无法继续顺畅地翻阅了。
这是否意味着，如果有朝一日人类有本事从胚胎发育期就开始按部就班地严密控制每个细胞的染色体末端的消磨并及时加以修复，同时限制所有其他导致细胞衰老死亡的种种原因，人类就可以延年益寿甚至越来越有可能逃避死亡了呢？
延年益寿还真不是白日梦，如果新一代的人类更进一步决定放弃互相残杀的举动，又悉心地保护好生活的环境免受各种对生命有害的污染。他们需要担心的倒是，如何安排千年游戏人生，重温受造之初的高寿境界（见圣经创世记第五章中关于从亚当夏娃开始的头十代寿高数百岁的人类远祖之记载）。人类败坏扭曲的理性总是与上帝作对的。可不是吗？当人们兴奋地把染色体末端的修复与延年益寿的新前景挂钩的时候，忘记了自己曾经对圣经关于早期年高数百的寿星们的记载如何嗤之以鼻，极尽挖苦与讽刺之能事。我想，当三千四百多年前只活了一百二十岁的摩西，面对同世代流浪倒毙旷野年岁不过七八十而已的犹太同胞，替上帝作笔代刀写到创世记第五章时，可能犹豫了片刻，做了一番思想斗争。我猜他在想，人类头十代真的有那么些数百岁的寿星吗？但他显然按照上帝的默示而如实写下了，休管后来的短命人类弟子们的说三道四，毕竟上帝所造的亚当夏娃基因蓝图理当完好无损，堕落后每况愈下的不良后果还需要一段时间才凸显出来。
至于脱离上帝的永生是否可能，就值得深思与质疑了。即使生命的小环境可以尽善尽美，生命的大环境（太阳系，银河系，整个宇宙）必须合作，支持生命在地上和宇宙中无限繁衍下去。科学家早已预期，这个宇宙如果不是走向大撕裂的结局，也至终会在热力学第二定律的紧箍咒中走向热死。更何况，万物生长所依靠的空中巨型核聚变反应堆——太阳，在宇宙热死以先，焚烧殆尽核燃料之后，也会日薄西山，红日不再，太阳系进入黑暗的世纪。人类千秋万代的永生梦想在哪里实现呢？
写时间简史的霍金教授就直言，人类的希望在外太空外星移民。我们要追问的是，哪个外太空与外星？如何移民？
拿撒人耶稣已经给予了最响亮可信的回答。有耳可听的，就应当听。
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