Mind map of Genesis 1:1 - 2:3

I've been working on this for awhile, and I'm still not finished, but this really makes it much easier to see the chiastic structure of the Gen 1:1 - 2:3. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, a chiasm as a parallel structure in which ideas are presented in sandwiched form; ie: ABCDDCBA). You can see this structure in the overall creation account and also within many of the individual creative days.

http://www.xmind.net/share/spookysquirrel/creation/

Synapse overproduction and selection

Initial brain development in animals occurs by overproducing synapses and then pruning away those that aren't used. This allows for maximal flexibility and adaptation to the environment. For example, if one eye is damaged at birth, the other eye will get more synaptic connections, and the damaged eye will receive fewer synaptic connections. In adults, however, new synaptic connections are built as learning occurs, rather than pruning away existing connections. 

The first kind of learning--by pruning away existing connections--enables more complete responses than the second kind. As an analogy, imagine that you are given 1,000 different shades of paint and then start a course in landscape painting. You learn to rely on certain oft-repeated colors. Those less used colors work their way to the bottom of the paint box and may eventually be thrown away altogether. Now, if you suddenly switch to still-lifes or portraiture you may find that you no longer have some colors you need, so you have to make due with less accurate colors. You have exactly what you need for the job you do most often, in this case, painting landscapes. The problem is, once the unused paints are thrown away, you no longer have them if the job changes.

That brings us to the second type of learning; that of building new synaptic connections that were lost long ago, or maybe never existed in the first place. The good news is, it can often be done. For example, an adult speaker of English can, with careful training, be taught to hear sounds in Russian that don't exist in English. Some times. 

Some things may be trained while others may not yield to training. And some things, while trainable, may not ever be mastered as well as if you had used the first way of learning. That's why most people must learn languages before puberty if they want to speak those languages without an accent. You can learn Russian or Chinese or English as an adult, but it's much more difficult to learn to speak it as fluently as you would have had you learned it as a child.

What Dog Training Can Teach Us About Following God

When training working dogs, it's important that they stay beside you when walking in public. You don't want them running and jumping on other people or charging out into oncoming traffic. Teaching them to walk beside you, with or without a leash, is necessary first and foremost for the dog's safety. But if that were the only reason, then you could just walk them on a leash all the time. That won't work for working dogs; hunting dogs, dogs to help the disabled, etc. Those dogs need to be able to go do their job and return. For that reason, they need a leash at first, but as their training progresses, the leash must disappear so they can do their job.

So it's not enough to just train them to walk with you on a leash; the dog must be trained to walk slightly behind you and to keep their eyes on you, so that when the leash is removed, they won't lose sight of you and get themselves in trouble if you make a sudden stop or turn. To train a dog to watch you continually, when you have them on a leash, you stop and switch directions at random until the dog figures out, they never know where you are going, so they have to watch you all the time.

Don't you know, when you first walk out the door and start heading towards the local park, the dog is thinking, "Oh boy! The park! The Park! THE PARK! I can't wait!!!" They begin to pull and tug at the leash to get their master to hurry up. Suddenly, the master changes directions. The dog is thinking, "Wait! That's the wrong way. You're going the wrong way, master!" He pulls and tugs, but when the master doesn't relent the dog finally gives in and goes back to walking by his master's side. Now he's thinking, "Maybe we aren't going to the park. I know! We're going to visit my friend who lives down here! My friend! My Friend! MY FRIEND!!!" He begins to pull and tug again. Until the master suddenly and inexplicably heads in another direction and the whole thing is repeated.

This process may be repeated over and over with lots of tugging and dashed hopes until the dog learns that paying attention to the master gets him places much faster than trying to tug the master to where the dog thinks they're going. The dog's goal is to get where he thinks the master is leading him as quickly as possible. The real goal is to get the dog focused on his master. Once the dog reliably focuses on him and only on him, they can finally start to lose the leash, and the dog is that much closer to doing what he was truly designed to do.

Isn't that how it is with us? We think God is leading us to have a nice family and a good job, so we pursue that wholeheartedly only to have heartbreak and confusion when a spouse leaves or a job vanishes. We finally start on a new track, "Oh! God wants me to be a missionary to Uzbekistan!" so we jump in with both feet and pursue that goal. But then we get kicked out of that country and can't go back. "Why is God letting me down? I thought this is where he wanted me?"

Our misunderstanding is in thinking that because God starts us out on a path, we no longer need to look to Him for guidance. We know His ultimate destination, so we charge forward. God's goal all along, however, was to teach us to keep our eyes on Him. Once we learn that lesson we are that much closer to doing what we are truly designed to do.