Noah's Ark

Recently at a community online gathering we were fascinated at the sheer size of the original Ark that Noah was required to make to prepare for the great flood over the land. The dimensions were given and the type of wood and number of decks. This family made a scale size model to match the plastic animals that their child played with and shared their experience with everybody else (below). The result is breathtaking reflecting a construction that seems similar in size to the Empire State Building on its side! We were made to appreciate why it took Noah 100 years to make it. He must have had an engineering mind or it could have developed "Titanic" cracks. Peter made the drawing (above) and added numerous exotic animals on the three decks. He added a totally inadequate food and water storage deck under these decks for the ten months they stayed cooped up. As he drew it he wondered how all these "calm" animals and humans managed to hold it together. This is a few notches above our present isolation experiences in terms of resilience. There were only a few windows at the very top of the ark and according to the biblical story one of them was only opened at the end of ten months to let out the raven and the dove. It would have taken some time to adjust to the outside glare! There are now many more questions that arise from this pondering but that must be for another time.