The Nautilus Glory

“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another in glory.” -1 Cor. 15:41

Far beneath the surface of the ocean where man is incapable of surviving a deeply mysterious creature hovers silently in the waters.  Horrifying to human eyes, its face appears to be little more than a tentacled mass resembling human entrails.  To the left and right of this mass a set of large circular eyes stare vacantly and expressionless into the darkness around it.  These are the only visible aspects of its form – as the rest of its fleshy body remains stuffed into a bulcky shell that somehow fills itself with gas to regulate its depth.  Although we may not be able to appreciate the nautilus on first glance, its shell itself represents an ancient Greek symbol for perfection.  The design of the nautilus is a perfect hybrid of aesthetic form and function.  The chambers of its shell are concentrically arranged in a logarithmic spiral with each chamber varying from the previous according to the parameters of an exact formula.  These chambers allow the nautilus to alter its buoyancy and survive at a range of depth unlike any other creature, as if it were a living submarine.  So prized is its shell for beauty that its very existence has been threatened by humans seeking after it.

Based on an initial comparison with other creatures the nautilus may be dismissed as a mistake – an error of God while experimenting with creation at the beginning.  After all the nautilus has no external beauty like the lions of land or whales of the deep.  The mistake that we make however is in the very act of comparing – as we were never meant to compare any of God’s creations.  Instead God has tasked us with discovering the incomparable glory that each of His creations uniquely have.  There is nothing in all of creation that can possibly compare to the nautilus – its beauty and mystery are unrivaled and untouched by any other creation.  If the nautilus could worship, it would raise its tentacles to God declaring, “I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works; and that my soul knows right well.” –Psalm 139:14

As humans our natural tendency is to compare ourselves with one another, and as the generations have passed our corporate identity always points to an ever changing generic ideal that we are all supposed to strive for.  This is sad and unfortunate, because like the nautilus true greatness often remains undiscovered and hidden from the public eye.  For those who believe in God as the creator, greatness and unfathomable beauty is all around us – in every soul, in every blade of grass, in every created thing just waiting to be discovered.  It is impossible to discover that beauty when we have a narrow ideal of what beauty and greatness is.  The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians concerning this mindset saying, “…but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” -2 Cor. 10:12

Like the nautilus, our self esteem should not be derived from comparisons among ourselves – but from the understanding that we are the matchless and unique creation of an amazing God.  However we are not called to discover our own glory, but rather to discover the glory of those around us.  King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 25:27, “It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search out their own glory is not glory.”  God has not created us with mirrors to observe ourselves, but rather with eyes pointing outward to observe others.  The moment we become consumed with ourselves is the moment we become dysfunctional and unable to serve others as God intended.  We are to accept on faith that we are glorious as individuals – and let others praise us.  Solomon wrote in Proverbs 27:2, “Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”

God has designed us to be one body with infinitely varying members within it.  There is no cause for envy or jealousy when we understand this truth – because we are all part of the same body!  Paul wrote to the Corinthians concerning disputes over ‘who was the best preacher’ saying, “Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” -1 Cor. 3:22-23 Because we are all part of the same body, we can look at the gifts around and claim them as our own – all are yours.  Instead of being threatened by those gifts, we ought to rejoice in them as if discovering a new feature of ourselves.  The world can tell that we are Christians by our love for one another, and there is no greater command than this, that “nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” –Philippians 2:3

Genesis Does

The magazine opened up with a black page containing well defined letters in a crisp white font saying, “Genesis Does”... followed by two white pages with bold black lettering, “…What Nintendon’t.”  The ad heralded the beginning of the 16-bit era of video games, and the screenshots of the new games made Nintendo’s 8-bit competitor look pathetic.  What previously could only be experienced with quarters at an arcade was now available in the living room, and it made Nintendo’s technology laughable.  I couldn’t have been happier at the ‘stick it to Nintendo’ attitude of the ads, because up until that point Nintendo had monopolized the industry with an exclusive licensing agreement with software developers.  Now Sega had a new system, AND the rights to other developers: thus beginning one of the fiercest company rivalries in history.

For a while the ‘Genesis’ dominated the market, until Nintendo unveiled its own 16-bit answer – the “Super Nintendo”.  Nintendo was extremely clever in designing and marketing the new system, which boasted capabilities that Sega’s system didn’t have – “Mode 7” graphics and superior audio.  The first commercials for the system showcased games like ‘Pilotwings’ that dazzled with scaling, zooming, and rotating sprites.  The colors the system was capable of displaying made the Genesis look like a box of crayons, and the music made the Genesis audio sound like a cheap 70’s synthesizer.  There was no need for Nintendo to mock the Genesis openly, as its ‘shock and awe’ marketing style silently implied that the competition wasn’t even worth noting.  The flash and dazzle of the new kid on the block was undoubtedly captivating – but tucked behind it all was a processor only half the speed of the Genesis.

Why Nintendo chose to include a slower processor in their system, who knows – but it made for a spectacular clash of personalities in an ‘equal, but different’ videogame war.  The Genesis was capable of producing faster games with more on-screen action like the arcades, and the Super Nintendo was capable of producing games with pretty visuals and sounds.  There was no more appropriate a mascot for Sega’s system than ‘Sonic’ the hedgehog – whose raw speed and multiple layers of parallax scrolling still impress to this day.  However, the Genesis entered into something of a ‘personality’ crisis in its later days, and attempted more to imitate the special effects of the Super Nintendo than focus on its own unique abilities.  The colors and audio of the games began to suffer, as the ‘imitation-style’ games began looking like washed-out Super Nintendo games with crackly audio.

It really is tragic, because nearly 20 years later all those special effects that dazzled so much back then don’t mean much anymore.  What really matters now is also what really mattered then – that the games are fun.  Ironically, the best games on both systems years later are those that were designed to make full use of each system’s unique capabilities.  The programmers for those games understood what each system could do best – and focused all of their energy on those aspects.  What resulted were truly amazing games that could not be imitated on other systems, and are still popular today on systems that don’t have the same hardware limitations.  If the Genesis was like a Boxer, the Super Nintendo was like a Ballerina…

Many of us are like the Genesis or Super Nintendo – both capable of producing amazing things but are caught up in an identity crisis.  I remember seeing a picture in the 90’s of a developer at Sega of America with a Super Nintendo in his cubicle!  Like that developer, sometimes we lose sight of our own abilities through competition with others.  Like the Genesis, many of us are no longer walking in our own gifts and instead walking in the cheap ‘imitation’ gifts of others.  As long as we do that, we just want to quit all together – because we feel like we have nothing worthwhile to offer.  It takes a lot more energy to emulate others than to be ourselves – with worse results!  The moral of the story is to simply invest all your energy into ‘being you’ – with all of its rawness, whether people like it or not.  The Apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthian church saying, “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?  If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?” -1 Cor. 12:17 When we are functioning as God intended, our natural glory shines brightest, and others are most blessed.