God’s Creation Video
Joseph Anderson Donetti lay stretched crossways across the bed on his stomach. He took a deep breath of the warm summer breeze from the open window. Oregon smelled really good. Of course, it didn’t smell as good as his own neighborhood at home. No pizza smells drifted up from G.M.’s garden. But it was a nice smell of a different sort. He liked it.
Joseph opened his red notebook to a clean piece of paper and began to write. “Dear Mom.” Joseph stopped writing. His stomach tightened. His eyeballs felt prickly. He was definitely missing home. I might as well tell her, he thought. “I miss you a lot!” he wrote.
Joseph wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I am having a lot of fun here in Oregon. I’m glad I came,” he continued. He didn’t want Mom to think he was miserable, even if he was homesick. “Remember my baptismal class? Pastor Chuck says there will be a baptism next month, and we can be baptized in the river if we want to. He said the air will be hot, but the water will be really cold. It comes down from the mountains.”
Joseph heard a familiar squeak. He scooted closer to the window and looked down. “Hi,” he said.
Mac looked up quickly. “You startled me!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you know better than to startle someone who is climbing a ladder? I could have fallen to my death!”
“I don’t think so,” Joseph said, sticking his head clear out the window. “Aren’t you only on the second rung?”
Mac grinned and climbed the rest of the way up. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill. “What are you doing?”
Joseph closed his notebook. “Writing to my mom,” he said, “but I can finish it later.”
“Good,” Mac said. “I wanted to talk to you. Have you been reading Genesis?” she asked.
Joseph moved over and Mac crawled through the window. “Yes,” he answered. “I read all about creation. I read the first three chapters.”
Mac went over to Joseph’s bookcase and picked up his Bible. “My mom says people can study the Bible all their lives and constantly learn new things about God. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. I figured if you read it once, that was that. I mean, the stories don’t change or anything. But last night when I was reading the beginning of Genesis, it happened to me! I learned something new!”
Mac sat down on the edge of the bed. “Listen to this.” She turned to Genesis 1:3. ” ‘Then God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. God said that the light was good. So he divided the light from the darkness. God named the light “day” and the darkness “night”. Evening passed, and morning came. This was the first day.’ ” Mac looked at Joseph. “Do you get it?” she asked.
“What?” Joseph asked. “Do I get what?”
“That was the first day of creation. God didn’t create the sun and the moon until the fourth day! This is talking about some other light,” Mac said, “not the sun.”
“Oh,” Joseph said slowly, “Oh!”
“I’ve heard the story of creation hundreds of times!” Mac said. “But I never thought about this before.”
“Well, I never thought about it before, because I never read Genesis before,” Joseph said. “But you’re right. I didn’t catch that when I read the story. Maybe I read it too fast.”
“My mom says that sometimes when people read things, they don’t really listen to what they’re reading.” Mac stopped. She laughed. “If that’s what you do—listen when you read! Anyway, she says lots of times people already have their own thoughts in their heads and when they read something, they don’t pay attention to what it really says. So they never learn anything. That’s scary!” Mac clutched her curly red hair in her hands. “I don’t want to be like that! I never thought I was like that! Do you think there’s hope for me? I sure hope there’s hope for me!”
Joseph stared at Mac for a moment. He had never had a friend with Mac’s particular brand of humor before. He shook his head and got back to the original question. “I wonder what kind of light it was?” he asked. “I wonder why God didn’t make the sun right away—first off? I want to see the video,” he said suddenly.
“What video?”
“The creation video! Don’t you think God made a video of it? I want to see how He created the world! I want to see Him making the birds and the animals. I want to see Him making Adam out of the mud and then breathing life into his nose!”
“That would be awesome!” Mac agreed. “Maybe He is videotaping everything so someday we can see it all. Everything that ever happened in the whole world. Hey, wait! That would mean that we would be on the video too!”
“Yeah! When I get to heaven, I’m going to check out your video,” Joseph said mischievously. “I’ll see everything you ever did before I got here!”
“Not the bad parts!” Mac retorted. “They are forgiven! Even God doesn’t remember them any more!”
Suddenly Joseph sniffed. His nose must be even more homesick than the rest of him. He walked over to the bedroom door. “I think I smell pizza,” he said.
“Is anybody up there hungry?” G.M. called from the bottom of the stairs.
“Did you make pizza?” Joseph asked, looking down.
“Of course!” G.M. said. Her eyes twinkled up at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of delivery?”
“Is there enough—could there be enough—might there be enough for me too?” Mac popped out the door.
“Hi there, Mac!” G.M. answered. “Do birds have wings?”
