After the beginning, man began. And man said, Let there be a wheel, and there was a wheel. And man saw that it was good and invented all sorts of vehicles, from wagons pulled by oxen to trains driven by the power of the piston; from carts pulled by ponies to planes pushed by jet engines. And the evening and the morning were the first era.
And man said, Let the laboratories bring forth the cleansers, the labor-saving devices, the maintenance-free equipment; let them multiply in infinite variety; and it was so. And man made self-cleaning ovens, frost-free refrigerators, remote-control lawn mowers, automatic washers and dryers, electronic, transistorized trouble-free equipment of every conceivable type. And man saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the second era.
And man said, Let there be a new dimension to our vision so that we can see what takes place on the other side of the earth as well as in every corner of our countryside and cities. Let this television divide the night from the day for its viewers so that the night people may rule. Let it be for a sign of the seasons and give information to all the earth. And it was so. And man made great towers to send the vision on waves of light and sound, and he made a lesser sound called radio to rule the day. And he set them in the pattern of life to divide the day into segments, the years into series, and the summers into reruns. And man saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third era.
And man said, Let there be power from the building blocks of the universe. And man made the power by dividing the atom, and called that power an atomic bomb. And man said, Let the power of the atom be channeled into one purpose. And man called that one purpose the guarantee of Peace upon the earth, and the working together of all peoples for the benefit of all. And man saw that it was good. And man said, Let the power bring forth new ways of manufacturing goods for all men; and the atom yielded its power to produce submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, each yielding after its own kind. And men thought it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth era.
And man said, Let the men of science bring forth a craft that will break the power of gravity and fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And man created great space capsules, orbiting platforms, communications satellites, flying spy machines in order to explore the universe and to keep track of his earth neighbors. Every invention brought forth abundantly after its kind and inspired new creations. And man saw that it was good and blessed it with huge budgets, saying, Be fruitful and multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth era.
And man said, Let us make a machine in our image, after our likeness, and let it do all our calculating for us, keep accurate record of our fiscal affairs, make out the payroll, keep up to date the data on all scientific progress, store in memory all the facts of all the earth and every moving thing in heaven and on earth.
So man created the computer in his own image, computer and collater created he them. And man blessed them and said, Do all the work required of man, multiply formulas and equations to the end of the universe, take charge of the power of the atom, and compute the path of the orbiting spacecraft. And man saw everything that he had made, and behold, he thought it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth era.
Thus was all the modern world completed with its host of ingenious devices created by man. In the seventh era man said, Now I will rest and enjoy the fruits of all my labors. But the screaming jets would not let him sleep; the gadgets and expanded vision gave him stomach ulcers; his unlimited power kept him nervously suspicious of his neighbors; and the creation in his own image gave him answers to his questions he did not like.
Having made all things for his comfort and enjoyment, man found himself still in trouble. Great and marvelous were his achievements; but they brought no peace to him or to the world. For in the beginning was God, who made man, and made his heart to be restless until it finds its rest, not in man’s inventions, but in the Creator and Ruler who created peace and bestows it upon those who believe in the One he sent. May 1969 have this kind of Genesis.
