Double Helix: Our Spiritual DNA – April 2, 2025
Introduction
I was thirteen when I discovered the miracle of breathing. I was sitting under a big oak tree. I had spent the entire day crying my eyes out at this therapeutic Christian retreat. My small group (we called them families) had me lie down on the grass and the six of them lifted me up and just rocked me. It was like my life began again. I felt part of everything and loved.
Later in the day, when I was sitting under that tree, I noticed that God’s breath was coming inside me with my breath, that I was connected to this magnificent tree and to everything around me. I felt the presence of life all around me. I breathed a prayer, Thank you God for life. This was a beginning in my spiritual life, the first time that I realized that God was present in my body and in the earth and in every living creature.
Scripture speaks of creation many times. The Wisdom literature of Proverbs and Job recounts the creation. The Psalmist sings of creation. The Prophets and even the Book of Revelation all speak of how God formed the heavens and the earth and will form a new earth at the end of days. However, when we open the Bible to read it from the beginning, there are just two stories that confront us immediately. Side by side, they sit together on the very first few pages and vie for our attention. Told in different styles, with different narratives and different Hebrew words for God, they proceed to describe how the earth and humanity began. These two stories write us into existence and reveal the beautiful and complex relationship that we have with our Maker.
Why does the Bible tell stories more than once? Why is the story of Noah and the ark told twice? Why is the story of the exodus from slavery told over and over again in the first five books of the Bible? Why are there four gospels? Why is Jesus’ ministry described four times and in four different ways? The Scripture show us that truth is not compromised in the multiplicity of tellings, even if there are contradictions between the stories. Truth is only magnified by repetition and by searching.
When there is a car accident, the police are instructed to speak to more than one witness. It is like examining the sides of a diamond. It is assumed that the event needs more than one perspective to be truly observed, to see more clearly. We don’t expect each person to tell the exact same story. One person might have been in one place and another person might have been somewhere else and seen something entirely different. The more witnesses the better, for they flesh out the complexity of the event from a variety of perspectives. Because there are four gospels, we know more about Jesus’ ministry, his death and resurrection. Because there are four gospels, we are all the richer[1].
Brother John, a monk of the Taize community in France, writes that when the Scripture tells a story more than once, it is better for us. He calls it the stereo effect. Like the stories of the Exodus and the gospels, there are some events in the history of our relationship with God that are so important that they simply cannot be told once. They must be told again and again. Their echo resounds through the pages of Scripture, sinking deeper into our souls.
Since I first encountered these two ancient creation stories in my broken Hebrew in Seminary, they have captured me. I have longed to write a book about them as a pair and how they weave together the complex relationship that we have with God and with the earth. I began working on this book many years ago but couldn’t seem to make it come together until I was given the gift of a sabbatical.
My husband has longed all his life to go to the Galapagos islands. As a Pediatric Intensive Care doctor, he had long seen suffering and death as well as many miracles and much love and healing. He had saved up enough money to take me with him. So we went, but it was not lost on me that I was going to the closest thing we have to Eden on this earth, for the Galapagos islands are almost entirely as God created them. Over 90% of the islands are protected lands. The animals are not hunted and a beautiful diversity of species thrive there. It is in the Galapagos Islands that Darwin first began to write about evolution. It is a place that makes one ponder beginnings and connections.
We decided to go on a one-week National Geographic boat ride. Every day was filled with wonder as we witnessed creatures who had never been hunted on lands that were cultivated to preserve species. Each evening, we sat down to dinner on the ship. Like musical chairs, we sought another couple to sit with for the duration of our trip and who should we sit across from but a Professor of Genetics and her husband! Abby eagerly spoke to me about what I had pondered for years, about the two threads that weave together to make us who we are, the language of our DNA.
Francis Collins, in his marvelous book The Language of God, claims that God wrote us into being using our DNA[2]. The DNA, or Deoxyribonucleic acid, is made up of two strands, one from each of our parents. These strands run side by side in a double helix structure. Together, they weave and dance mapping the intricate properties of the individual whose existence they are designing. Like a composer of music places notes on a page, God writes a unique song that forms each human being.
In the DNA molecule, the two strands are connected to one another, they are linked. They wind around each other, resembling a twisting ladder, in what is called a Double Helix structure. The discovery of DNA in the 1950’s may have been the most significant scientific accomplishment of the twentieth century. They present an information hub, details of all living entities. A system of codes, a language of structure, they establish the fabric of our material being. Embedded within every cell of our bodies is this twisting ladder, mapping out the building blocks of our biological selves. The double helix then wraps itself neatly into a ball of sorts (scientists, please forgive my simple and ignorant explanations!).
I believe that in addition to physical DNA, we also have spiritual DNA, two strands of messages that tell the story of the created world and our relationship to God. Like the double helix structure, I believe that God intended for these two creation stories to run parallel to one another at the opening of the Bible. These two stories dance together and, only in concert, do they express the fullness of the story of our beginning. These two stories are both necessary to describe the mystery of the human condition and our strange and wonderful relationship with the natural world and with the One who made us. They are placed at the opening of Scripture for a reason. In the ingenious manner that only sacred texts can manage, these stories provide us with the essence of who we are as humans, the very building blocks of our nature, the created order and our relationship to the God who made us.
Like the parables of Jesus, these two creation stories seem simple and are often read on a superficial level. But if we have the courage to go deeper, to look at the ancient language with fresh eyes, we will see that these two stories can help us navigate the technological adolescence that is threatening to distort the relationship between humanity, the earth and our Creator. These stories, like all of Scripture, are fathomless. The only way to begin to unpack the richness of these two texts is to digest them in small bites, to focus on each tiny detail. I want to open these ancient words, to ponder their depth of meaning by taking time to examine short passages, one at a time.These meditations run side by side.First a meditation on the first creation story, then the second, then the first, and so on.By unfolding these texts running parallel to each other, we can expose the complexity of who we are and whose we are. I believe that these texts are meant to be read side by side and to be meditated on together as two parts of one paradoxical beginning.
[1] Of course, there are many more than four gospels but the Church determined to include four in the Canon of Scripture for reasons that far exceed the scope of this book!
[2] For more on this rich theme, see Francis Collins’ book The Language of God.
