On our vacation last week and through one of my daughter’s favorite past-times, I learned about a most fascinating little creature. My oldest niece is a full-time critical care/ICU nurse and graduate student. Well, my niece lives at the N.C. coast now and we stayed with her during our time away. At the beach, she has many things we do not have here, one of which is more than basic T.V. channels (and thus the Disney channel). So, I lifted my house rules regarding how much T.V. my little girl was allowed to watch, letting her indulge in more cartoons than usual; after all, she is, as she says, “a cartoon girl.” Occasionally, I found myself getting pulled into the cartoon stories with her, especially when it was late and I was getting tired. And one night in particular, I was very, very grateful that I had allowed myself to get carried away with her in a tiny submarine with lots of little underwater creatures.
That night, watching a rather adorable show called the Octonauts, we learned all about the immortal jellyfish. For anyone not familiar with this cartoon, at the end of each episode a “creature report” is asked for and presented; and during this report, facts about the creatures highlighted in each episode are reported. It was during this “reporting” that my little girl and I learned about the existence of a creature that can actually physically “rebirth” itself over and over again during its lifetime. I have no idea how I could have lived as long I have down here (43.5 years) and never known that such a creature exists. I couldn’t wait to google this jellyfish in order to fact check what I had heard, just in case the Octonaut characters had exaggerated. And what did I see? This creature, the only known one of its kind, is indeed (theoretically speaking) biologically immortal.
According to scientists, whenever this jellyfish begins to experience environmental stress or some other sort of physical stress such as being sick or cold, it completely reverts to polyp stage; in other words, it goes from a sexually mature adult stage to a sexually immature child stage in a mere instant in order to protect itself. Can you imagine?! And it can do this at any point in its development and as many times as it needs to. As a different type of creature who has been both spiritually re-birthed in order to become a “free” follower of Christ and physically re-birthed through a bone marrow transplant in order to become free from disease, learning of this immortal jellyfish profoundly touched my heart and soul.
I believe that I exist only because God exists, and I believe the same is true of this amazing creature. And I believe too that, through God’s creation, through “nature,” God is continually teaching us about himself–about the ultimate Creator and his nature; and his nature is a forever one. As I end my memoir saying, our God is a forever God and those of us who have received his son are his forever people. And none of the predators down here that pursue us can ever change that. It is finished.
This sea creature also made of think much of the medical world, of which I have become a most unwilling participant (at times). The immortal jellyfish is capable of altering the differentiated state of its cells and transforming them into new types of cells. Well, let’s just say that this soft science former education professor, when she “accidentally” finds out such mind-blowing facts of biology, really does wish that she was actually capable of cancer research. At this point in my life though, I know how I’m wired well enough to say that, if I was ever able to do such research, that ability would trump any miracle I’ve seen God do thus far–and I’ve seen many.
Yes, through this most unlikely creature (as prior to this Octonaut episode I was truly a jellyfish hater), God has given me yet one more glimpse of eternity, one more glimpse of the beauty and protection of re-birthing. And God has reminded me of all that we miss out on down here when we refuse to put on the childlikeness he asks us to put on ourselves as we come to him. This immortal jellyfish, even when it’s ancient in years by our definition, becomes an infant of sorts each and every time it senses itself threatened. What if we did that? What if we curled up into a fetal-like ball at the feet of the great I AM each and every time we felt ourselves under attack?; and what if we did so with absolute, childlike certainty that it was all going to end well? I’ve done this at times, mostly when I was deathly ill. But, now that I’m back on my feet and all reborn/”grown-up” again, I don’t find myself doing it much anymore. I forget at times, too many times, what an amazing Father I have; and I forget too how much I need him, even and maybe even especially when things are going well.
Christ truly does wipe away all that we did and all that we were before him–on his end; he’s not the kind of God who ever throws things back in our face. I’ve found though that on our end we are the ones who have a really, really hard time letting go of who and what we were before. It’s like we don’t trust that his vision/version of us is indeed a better one. I believe it takes a child to trust like that, a real child. Well, that’s exactly what we are on our end–most of us just seem to refuse to see ourselves that way.
Another interesting fact about this immortal jellyfish is that, though it is immortal in theory, scientists seem to believe that it is inevitably taken out by predators and/or disease. Just as is true of all of us, this little creature, even with its uncanny ability to constantly recreate itself, cannot find a way to outrun all of the bad down here; it’s just not that good. But, I thank God that he is that good; he always has been and he always will be.
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