Many years ago I heard the term “mere creationism” and somehow found the ASA. I’m happy to have been a member and promoter for a long time. I was brought up believing in six 24-hour day, late date creationism and argued with my earth science teacher in eighth grade. By the time I took Intro to Biology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, my views had changed. Dr. Phil Sparks asked the class members who believed in creation to go to one side of the room, and those who believed in evolution to go to the other. He and I were the only two in the middle.

Someone has said, “truth can afford to be generous.” I would humbly suggest that it can afford to be humorous as well.

Three Poems

By Dan Eumurian
 

A Tree Fell in the Forest
 
A tree fell in the forest one bright and sunny day.
You’d never guess the wonders that occurred upon its way.
 
This maple had been seasoned; it splintered as it dropped,
For it hit an oak and pine and spruce before it finally stopped.
The other trees were split as well, in scores of keen-edged parts.
The way they chanced to land produced an awe-inspiring start.
 
The maple turned to dowels, whippens, flanges, cores and jacks.
The spruce produced a wide, thin sheet, with square posts at its back.
But some of that rock maple split in several sheets as well--
Fine, quarter-sawn, with curving bridges long and short, I tell.
 
The pine flew into eighty-eight precisely angled keys,
With holes in front and middle to admit the forest breeze.
It must have been a thin-sheet day, because that mighty oak
Was layered into fine veneer as quickly as it broke.
 
But tragedy occurred as that great tree fell from the sky.
A horse and elephant, you see, had happened to walk by.
The elephant lost both its tusks, and on it travelled, maimed.
The horse was killed; its hide flew off; the friction turned to flame.
 
The blaze turned iron ore to screws and springs and pins of steel.
Enough was left that from the flow a flat plate did congeal.
The glue formed from the hide worked, in an eon or a nano,
To form the mighty instrument we call today “piano.”
 
Some prattle of Cristofori and say I’ve something missin’.
Did that tree ever make a sound? Well, maybe—if you listen.
 
Evolve Me, Jesus
 
There’s a stone in my chest where a heart is supposed to be.
Can you pulverize, pressurize, expand it, set it free?
 
Evolve me, Jesus, let the Big Bang happen.
Let me hear the sound of your hands clappin’.
Evolve me, Jesus.
 
Hydrogen, helium, fusion, transformation,
The Trinity inviting us into fiery relation.[i]
 
Evolve me, Jesus, in your family forever.
With your pure passion, build us together.
Evolve me, Jesus.
 
We’ve got the nucleotides, C, G, T and A.
If they could get together, we could have DNA.
 
Evolve me, Jesus, let the pieces fit.
Teach me to pray, not stray or quit.
Evolve me, Jesus.
 
The pond is drying up, the mountain is getting warm.
Anyone with an idea, raise a wing or arm.
 
Evolve me, Jesus, leave my sin behind.
Burst the old wineskins, splash the new wine.
Evolve me, Jesus.
 
There's a fire in my chest full of potentiality.
Evolve me, Jesus
                                 
Lord Random
 
“Oh where have you been, Lord Random my son?
Where have you been, my handsome young man?”
 
“My dear Mother Nature, I’m poisoned and ill,
For humans have squandered their precious free will!”
 
“Oh where have you been, Lord Random my son?
Where have you been, my lucky young man?”
 
“I’m at the casino. Their chances are greater
Than of all this existing without a Creator.”