Evolution Used To Be The Enemy

"My purpose in life, once clear and certain, was becoming muddied and mysterious. I kept my questions and doubts a secret for a long time."

Hey Friends,

Did you read my post yesterday about the list of beliefs I am still trying to let go of and, with them, the stories I tell myself?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the stories I’m sharing with my children, both the intentional and unintentional. The stories we read in actual books and also the ones I pass on through my actions, words, and lifestyle.

I want my kids to be familiar with and fascinated by the story of change and evolution.

The theory of evolution is a concept I was told to never believe. It was not The Truth; worse, it was a dangerous, heretical teaching. To believe we came from the great ape family was considered embarrassing, and antithetical to God as Creator.

In seven days, I was told, God spoke the world into existence. There was some wiggle room around whether or not this was to be taken literally. But the point was this: You and I and every living thing were definitely not some little accident.

When I gave myself permission to dive into the science and theory of evolution, I felt relieved.

At that point, my life was starting to fray and crack. My path was spinning off in directions I hadn’t planned for. My purpose in life, once clear and certain, was becoming muddied and mysterious. I kept my questions and doubts a secret for a long time.

Evolution stretched beyond the scientific connections among species and our origins, and into my daily lived experience. Perhaps it was okay and even necessary to outgrow parts of myself.

Up until this point, my only framework for change was that God was the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Solid and steady as a rock!

As a believer in this story, it was my job to stay on course.

Run the straight and narrow race set before me. On top of that, I had parents who worked the same job their entire working life and who stayed married no matter what.

The only kind of change I learned to praise was a turning toward Christ, growing in spiritual maturity, and recalibrating toward God if I perhaps lost my way for a time.

But a life without the ability to expand, experiment, and wander is that even living?

I want to give my kids the story of evolution in the fullest capacity. From their ape relatives to their own internal transformation. They do not have to be fearful of evolution.

They can change their minds whenever they want. They can turn around, go a different direction, try a completely new career path, divorce, remarry, divorce again, never marry. Life is there to explore.

There is no straight line they need to stay on. There’s no reward for remaining faithful to the bitter end.

They can quit things, relationships, hobbies, jobs, habits.

There’s no script or step-by-step manual for how to evolve; it’s something that happens to us as we learn to embrace adventure and curiosity and take ourselves less seriously.

What is something you hope to pass onto your kids?

Were you given a healthy view of change and evolution as a child?

Tell me about it.