The Creation Museum is pretty much in my backyard. Aussie transplant Ken Ham enjoys plenty of supporters around here. I think everyone in my church has been to the museum at least once.

The genesis of writing this “Stuff I Don’t Get” series came after contemplating the barn swallow and creation. I’m a lifelong birder, so I’ve always found pleasure in identifying and watching birds.

A pair of barn swallows, they of the forked tails and elegant aerial acrobatics, nested on a floodlight on my garage. I’m partial to swallows. Watching them skim the earth as they gorge on bugs I stir up while mowing is one of my favorite tractor-top activities.

But here’s the stuff I don’t get:

Many Christians believe that death only came into existence after Adam sinned.

They would say that sin damages and ruins things, never making them better than they were.

They would likely insist that the first animals ate only plants (and I would guess not enough of one plant to kill it entirely) so as to avoid the death issue before Adam sinned.

But what then explains the barn swallow?

It’s a perfect bug-eating machine, consuming—and thus killing—hundreds of insects a day. The swallow has an oversized mouth that stretches into a gaping maw. Its dexterity in flight is unequaled, perfectly paired to catching flying bugs. Almost entirely a bird of the air, its tiny feet are wholly inappropriate to clinging to reeds and plant stems, making the consumption of seeds, nuts, and berries difficult, more of a desperation food than its normal diet.

Here is an animal unfit for primarily eating plants, and totally suited in every way for consuming one kind of food: small, flying creatures.

So how can it be that the swallow EVER ate plants alone? Nothing of its physiology is geared for that sole task.

And if the swallow’s current form is the result of the degrading transformational effects of sin, how did sin ever create such a beautiful and elegant result?

If you—or Ken Ham—have a good explanation, I’m all ears.