THINGS WE CAN'T SEE
Copyrighted by Bill Venrick, 2008

Something that has intrigued me for years is: Many things in life are the way they are as a result of things we cannot see with the naked eye. For a typical example, consider my thumbs, which cause my wife to smile when she sees them as "just another finger"-- they're not formed like her genetically inherited thumbs. Her thumbs turn "backward" in an obvious curve, like her father's, and mine stick proudly straight without a curve at all (like a finger). Her father's thumbs were even more pronounced in shape to almost a quarter of a circle but actually appearing to be a right-angle from the last joint. Why do I bring this up? We can't see what causes such things because it's in the genes!

A young ballplayer with a crippled arm and leg stands out in my memory as another example of something that was caused by things we can't see. This young man's hand was crippled, causing it to hang limply from his wrist and appeared useless. Boy was this a mistaken observation. I remember seeing him play ball in the outfield, crippled though he was, running awkwardly to where the ball was going to hit the ground, he caught it with the gloved hand (the one not crippled). He shifted his glove from his good hand, using his crippled hand to remove his glove without letting loose of the ball and used his good hand to grip the ball and accurately threw it to the baseman scoring against the runner. All this happened within seconds and with an adeptness so slick you wondered how he did it. Many kids would have given up even thinking about playing ball if they had such a crippled hand. What caused that boy to have a crippled leg and arm is something we can't see.

John K. Fink, M.D. Of University of Michigan has a laboratory committed to finding the causes and developing treatments for hereditary spastic paraplegia. A long time mystery of mine came to an end about a specific problem caused by things we can't see came to an end unexpectedly at a high school class reunion. My wife and I shared a table with a lady whose body suffered from HSP (hereditary spastic paraplegia). Her father had this disease, which is not really a disease but rather a group of clinically and genetically diverse disorders that share the primary feature of progressive, generally severe, lower extremity spasticity. She was the only one of four children who inherited HSP from her father. Our classmate transmitted this disorder on to five of her seven children, and the disorder can now be seen to be in two of her grandchildren. Our friend noticed in adulthood she was stumbling or tripping a lot and as this intensified she saw this trait occurring one of her children. It was at this time a physician zeroed in with a diagnosis of the problem that causes leg stiffness and gait disturbance due to difficulty dorsiflexing the foot and weakness of hip flexion - in other words, the problem was in her legs, knees and ankles. Our friend was glad to find she was not just a stumble bum but what she had was something caused by something no one could see. (That is, until Dr. John K. Fink came along, and obviously her physician had read reports of or by Dr. Fink)

Life is filled with such maladies, diseases or disorders - most of which the causes cannot be seen with the naked eye. We could go on with a suggested list: retardation, Down's syndrome, any brain connected disorders (strokes, tics, etc.), leprosy, the color of our hair, the shape of our fingers, the way we stand (our posture), the way we act or speak and so on to make a list without end. As I thought about this malady, learning it had a technical name, or HSP, I recalled the book by Philip Yancey & Dr. Paul Brand, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" (Their title was drawn from the Scripture in Psalms 139:14, the King James Version.)

Designers of the internal combustion engine and every other involved invention worked from sketches written on bits and pieces of paper to be finalized into involved drawings before the essential parts could be made to combine with yet more parts utilizing additional skills of pattern makers, mold makers and mechanical engineers. Great scientists like Leonardo da Vinci yearned to discover why or how the body worked and they intently sought cadavers to dissect. Some of their research exists yet today guiding men of medicine and anatomy to see the marvels of the human body that was truly "fearfully and wonderfully made."

To some, all of this has been simplified, at least in their own minds, to say all of this has "just happened" through hundreds of millions of years evolving from slime that had washed up on the beach. Perhaps such an unsophisticated generalization by this writer is not fair but a shortening of what would seem to be an involved creation process in an attempt to deny the existence of a creator God is just as unsophisticated and unfair in my mind. Just because doctors before Dr. John K. Fink could not "see" what caused our friend's serious malady, and some perhaps even concluding she, and others like her, were simply clumsy, did not make the malady or disease any less a reality to her and the thousands similarly affected. After stumbling, excuse the pun, on this subject, talking with a doctor friend about this malady, he asked me if this crippled friend of ours was from Logan, Ohio. I thought that was a strange question but he quickly allayed my concern by saying, "There is an near clan in Logan (Ohio) with such maladies." It should not come as a surprise to discover problems involving our body, and everything around us occur, and as the created being, could it be that "all of this" is one great program or scheme of learning for us?

Yes, it is strange that humans are plagued by maladies, weaknesses and even diseases that are caused by things we can't see. Perhaps some critics of "the church" might think "all of this" as a cruel joke by a creator God to hem us in with skin in a body that is not perfect and required -- sometimes, deigned to do near impossible deeds. Early on in God's dealing with man, Moses tried to convince God that he couldn't talk (properly, I am sure was his main concern) but Moses, like us, was overlooking the very fact that he was talking with the One who designed and made his body!

No, I do not feel I have answered any great anatomical questions or solved any genetically transmitted maladies in a few hundred words but I do hope it might be a bit easier to believe many of our problems are caused by things we can't see. If the reader is sincerely seeking enlightenment I would urge you to search for the book mentioned, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" or perhaps one yet easier to find, "In His Image" by Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand. The simple, though complex discoveries, uncover or perhaps unwrap this subject unfolding layer after layer enabling us to see things we cannot see. Is it faith? Is it acceptance or admission of some spiritual workings that cannot be seen with human eyes and minds clouded somehow with a spiritual blindness? Whatever - we do not have to stay ignorant or uninformed about things we can't see.

####

THE WORDWRIGHT

A resource of interest: http://www.med.umich.edu/hsp/analysis.htm