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| Beaver swimming at the Virginia Living Museum |
I took a little time off earlier this week so I could take
my daughter to visit my mother, who lives about 3 hours south of us in the
Tidewater region of Virginia. While we were there my husband and I took our
daughter to the Virginia Living Museum (
http://www.thevlm.org ). This is a much-loved
museum I remember from field trips during my own elementary school days,
although it was called The Nature Science Center back then. The name changed to
the Virginia Living Museum in the late 1980’s, before I started working as a
volunteer in the planetarium while I was in high school. The entire museum was
expanded and redesigned in the mid 2000’s and now it is an incredible facility
featuring not only the planetarium and solar observatory but indoor aquariums, exhibits on different regions in Virginia,
touch tanks, classroom space, green living displays, a children’s garden and a
¾ mile boardwalk around outdoor native Virginia animal exhibits. It is an awesome place for a
couple of science and nature geeks (the geeks being my husband and myself) to take an
almost 3 year old. We had a great time looking at red wolves, beavers and
otters. My daughter is able to run around the entire boardwalk (not without
pause, of course) and fortunately the space is large enough and un-crowded
enough that she can do so without bothering anyone.
The museum also brings in different exhibits on a visiting
basis, as most museums do. The rotating exhibit this summer is called Bodies
Revealed and features beautifully dissected and preserved human bodies
(from people who donated their bodies
to science after their deaths) in a very artistic display that teaches a great
deal about how our amazing selves work. That may sound distressing but I
promise, it is respectful and beautiful and wonderful. If this exhibit is ever
shown near you, please go. Our bodies are truly miraculous and gorgeous. As a
doctor myself, this exhibit was a very cool thing to share with my husband and
daughter. I had a good time narrating the exhibit for them, and particularly
for my daughter. (My husband, of course, can read all the signs for himself!) I
showed her different bones and organs and pointed to where they went in her
body and tried to explain what they did as simply as I could. I felt very proud
when later, in the context of talking about thinking, she pointed to her head
and told me that’s where her brains are.
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| Red Wolf at the Virginia Living Museum |
I’m delighted to share with my daughter a place that means
so much to me, a place that’s grown and developed throughout my life and I hope
will do so through hers as well. I’m delighted to encourage her in a love of
nature and science and beauty. It thrills me when she points to the sky and
says “look at those beautiful clouds!” I cheer when she begins to grasp
different processes, like a catepillar’s transformation into a butterfly. In
the end, observing and reveling in the beauty of our world, whether in an
animal’s graceful motion or in the artistry of our bodies or a sunlit bank of
clouds is a form of worship, of adoration for the Lord who created all of this intricate,
extravagant beauty and then invited us to share it. Learning how the world
works, how clouds form and how beavers build lodges and how our hearts pump
blood is another form of worship; it is a chance to delight in the elegance and
originality and cleverness of the structures underlying what we see. In my
life, in my heart, science and religion have never been in conflict. Science
has always shown me more and more reasons to love my Lord. This has been a
precious gift in my life, and now I am honored to pass it in turn to my
daughter.
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