Eighth Day Creation

On the eighth day God created Vacation Bible School

Things are quiet at the church at the moment, but that was not the case a couple of hours ago. First Presbyterian was embodying the noisy rush of Pentecost earlier this evening, but not in a service of worship. No, we were in the throes of Family Vacation Bible School!

I must confess that I truly love this activity in the life of the church. There is so much excitement and energy.

Children are all over the place, and adults allow themselves to rediscover the joys of playing with paints, fabrics, crayons, paper, and scissors.

In some ways, VBS allows all of us to embody the teachings of the wonderful book All I Need to Know in Life I learned in Kindergarten.

Vacation Bible School may be exactly what God envisioned for the work of the church; any church.

As I watched our week long program get off the ground, I could not help but notice the hand of the almighty.

Let me explain and then you can decide for yourself.

First, people of all ages were involved in the planning and implementation of the program. Adults of all ages joined together to teach, feed, and care for children of all ages. No age group was left out. There was something offered for everyone.

Second, while there was definitely a structure in place, the tone was not established by a list of rules.

There was an obvious expectation of respect and consideration for all parties involved, but the main goal was for all to enjoy each aspect of our time together.

We were silly and serious, quiet and boisterous, contemplative and whimsical.

Third, there was no mention of any religious doctrine or denominational policy. The only guide was the word of God, shared and interpreted by theologians of every age.

Each class follows the same story line from the Bible, for the sake of continuity, but also in the hopes of providing multiple layers of interpretation and meaning.

The most beautiful part to me was that there were folks from a variety of church homes present; eating, praying, and loving God together.

There was no time when an appeal was made to “Come and join the Presbyterian Church!” There was actually no formal recognition of who belonged there or not. All were welcomed to be together in the joy of the moment.

There is a part of me that wishes I could claim all this wonderfulness in the name of First Presbyterian Church, but I cannot.

My kids went to Vacation Bible School at First Baptist a couple of days last week, and I know they had the same experience.

Remembering Horace Judson, author of The Eighth Day of Creation

(1979) , Because it was so extremely well written and because he had made extensive interviews with most of the major players. His cosy relationship with  Francis Crick loomed large in the book.

I immediately accepted Horace’s offer to spend a postdoc year at Stanford and so did Nic Rasmussen  (now at University of New South Wales) and Craig Stillwell (now at Southern Oregon University). But with some trepidation. Most young and ambitious historians of science at the time were put-off by the fact that Horace wasn’t a professional historian of science (he never earned a Phd), but a ‘simple’ journalist with a bachelor’s degree. His had no interest in historical theory and method, he didn’t like philosophy of science and despised all kinds of science studies. We considered him a skilled but atavistic amateur.

When we arrived, we were told that the reason the project was placed at Stanford was that historians of science and medicine at Johns Hopkins hadn’t wished to host Horace, and that Stanford had welcomed him only because of the substantial overhead. I don’t know if this was true, but the Stanford Program in History Science faculty indeed kept him at arm’s length. Partly this was a matter of academic snobbery from the side of Peter Galison and Tim Lenoir and their students, but Horace’s vanity, mannerisms, and habit of addressing people in a magisterial, and sometimes even condescending, voice most probably added to the mutual dislike.

Yet Horace was a MacArthur ‘genius award’ recipient who had rubbed shoulders with almost everyone of importance in early molecular biology. And he wrote damn readable texts, much better than most historians of science could ever dream of. Horace was a very intelligent man, who thought highly of science and quickly absorbed the essentials of molecular biology. He had been a fellow bachelor student with Matthew Meselsohn (of Meselsohn and Stahl experiment fame) in Chicago and had met Max Perutz in England when working for Time Magazine started — indeed literally started: the opening lines about how he’s walking down the street with Crick is one of the most famous show-off anecdotes in the history of science.