I remember when I visited Science World in Vancouver with my grandpa about 20 years ago. There was a display about all the different chemicals that made up our bodies; I was surprised we were over half water. But what most struck me was a weigh scale that sat in the front of the exhibit which people kept getting on and looking down at a screen nervously. I stepped on it. It listed the valuable Chemicals in my body, gave a value for each, and then totaled to something like $3.74. Yikes! That doesn’t seem right. Grandpa stepped on and got a little more but still well under $10. I wondered why we seemed only worth the Skytrain fare to get to the museum.
As a teen, I struggled with materialism. I was so good at arguing that there is nothing more than matter (even denying free will) that I convinced some of my friends. I was a science nerd and science seemed to have the answers. Science has answered a lot but I couldn’t figure out I was only worth $4. Even though I worked to deny anything but matter, to make that claim, I seemingly had to deny it for my own body. Otherwise, I lost my value as a human being.
I was reminded of this childhood experience recently by an article that mentioned the value of the chemicals in our body. I was still under $10. After mentioning this, it had to hint at some kind of transcendence – it referred to the human spirit that can do great things – but since it was a secular magazine, it had to stop there before reaching the true transcendence we experience when after death Jesus wraps his arms around us.
If we are just matter, our value seems so low. Yet, the very lack of value that our body’s chemicals have should point us towards something more to explain who we are.
