by J. R. Practix

Acellular: (adj.) not consisting of, divided into or containing cells.

Sometimes it’s just difficult to think about how we’re made.

I mean, I look at my hand and I see a completed, fleshy mechanism. I watch how it works as I wiggle my fingers or grasp onto a bottle of Coke. The gadget just makes sense.

And then you think a little further–down to the individual parts. The fingers, the bones, the connective tissue, the arteries, the skin… and honestly, it gets a little spooky.

Truthfully, even though I know I’m a human being, I don’t like to think of myself as flesh and blood. In a way it grosses me out–that right underneath that magnificent hand that God has given me is all this intricate circuitry and organization which could falter at the least little breakdown.

And that’s just when I think about the fingers and bones. If you allow your brain to start considering that there are cells inside those fingers and bones that are constantly dividing, growing and changing, as other cells die off and flake into oblivion–don’t you think that’s freakazoid?? Especially when they show you the picture of a cell.

Honestly, I rarely make the trip to the cell idea. And on top of that, I am completely incapable of considering molecules and atoms.

But what is really weird is to imagine something that would be constructed that is acellular (even though I would insist that sometimes my phone service seems to abundantly qualify …)

As weird as it is to consider cells constructing something, what is the glue for the clump of life that would be acellular?

I probably would not have made a very good doctor. Looking under the microscope would have given me the creeps. So consider my dilemma today–when I, who is squeamish about cells, is asked to consider acellular.