"My Zoo Prof taught me how to do that," I said to Ric as we watched the Masterchefs prepare a squid for Calamari Salad on telly last night. And he did. Stuck into my folder of ancient recipes is a piece of foolscap, with handdrawn pictures, from my third-year Zoology notes of 1971. The main page is a selection of recipes from what must 
have been a hefty cookbook; the cuttlefish recipes are numbered 785 - 788. On the back is my rendering of the Prof's blackboard drawings which illustrated his live demonstration of how to get the ink sac out of this tasty invertebrate, at that time still to find its place in the palates of Kiwi diners. My husband has heard me extol the virtues of my Zoo Prof, John Morton, many times over the years. In fact it is a family joke whenever we walk or drive past mangrove swamps; "don't let Mum get started on the wonders of the mangrove!" This gentle man, in his chalk-dusted academic gown repeatedly shrugged back on to his shoulders, was an inspiration and guide to my young self for three years at Auckland Uni, and for much longer than that through his books and articles.
have been a hefty cookbook; the cuttlefish recipes are numbered 785 - 788. On the back is my rendering of the Prof's blackboard drawings which illustrated his live demonstration of how to get the ink sac out of this tasty invertebrate, at that time still to find its place in the palates of Kiwi diners. My husband has heard me extol the virtues of my Zoo Prof, John Morton, many times over the years. In fact it is a family joke whenever we walk or drive past mangrove swamps; "don't let Mum get started on the wonders of the mangrove!" This gentle man, in his chalk-dusted academic gown repeatedly shrugged back on to his shoulders, was an inspiration and guide to my young self for three years at Auckland Uni, and for much longer than that through his books and articles.My most abiding memory of John Edward Morton, who died this week, comes from the beginning of the academic year in 1971. I am glad to tell the whole story, even though it's an embarrassment to me, because it is actually a critical part of my discovering what it means to live a "godshapedlife". In 1970, despite having excellent teachers and a good brain, I failed Zoology II, and here's why.
I was brought up in a wonderful Christian family, where the Bible was honoured and well-used. But you could not describe my parents' theology in that time as "evangelical." My Dad did his theological training in the "liberal" era, when science was seen to inform interpretation, and there was no felt compunction to explain the discrepancies between modern discoveries and Biblical texts. For example, I remember a sermon where Dad genuinely believed that the feeding of five thousand people, by Jesus at Galilee, came about because everyone there shared the lunch they had hitherto secreted away. The miracle was the overcoming of their selfishness. (Dad has a very different take on miracles these days). So as a follower of Jesus, I was not at all threatened by my academic studies of animals, fossils and evolution. Surely we were just discovering the means God had used in his 'ex nihilo' creation of our wonderful world. And I know now that this was the view taken by Professor Morton too, though I don't recall him saying anything explicit about that in our lectures.
But adolescence is a time of learning, of churning, and of spurning what your elders teach. I came under the influence of a group of "fundamentalists" as my Dad called them, who believed you can't be a Christian unless you believe every word of Genesis is literally true. This sent me down the track of a six-day creation, a literal worldwide Noah's flood and a rejection of the material with which I was inculcated in my Zoo II paper on Evolution, taught by a number of the AU staff including JEM. Through seemingly-learned writers like John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, I swallowed the "young earth" line so completely and passionately that instead of regurgitating my lectures in the end of the year exam, I wrote a completely different interpretation smattered with Bible verses and quotes from The Genesis Flood, the popular authority on flood geology written by Whitcomb and Morris in 1961.
Although this was only one paper of several I was taking in stage Two Zoology that year, I was not really surprised to receive a D for the course. At the time I probably saw it as the price you pay for academic integrity. My parents thought I hadn't studied hard enough and made me quit my four hours a week job as a waitress. Looking back now, I see it as a rite of passage. Adolescence is about individuation, about becoming your own person. That exam was a statement that Vivian McLeay would not compromise her faith in God for the sake of some letters after her name. It was important part of growing up.
As was the realisation that I had made a huge misjudgment. A final exam contributing to a Science degree is not the place to make a stand for a little-known and now pretty much discredited alternative view. There is a time and place to buck the system and that wasn't it. And that was the gist of what Prof said to me in February 1971. I can't remember how he called me in to see him, no email then, so it was probably a phone call from the Department secretary to my flat in Mount Eden. It was certainly before lectures had started. (I had of course re-enrolled for the course, thinking it would be a shoo-in to repeat, but not realising that the Senior Zoology lectures were alternated, all second and third years doing Invertebrates one year, and Vertebrates the next. So I had to do a whole swag of new material.)
"Come in", said the Prof, and I entered his sanctuary peopled with formalin-filled specimen jars. His first sentence will ever stick in my memory. "Miss McLeay," he said, the formality of the day tinged with his exasperation, "why didn't you tell me you were struggling with these issues of faith? If you had just talked with me, we could have found a w
ay for you to answer with integrity but still demonstrate that you knew and understood the science you had been taught." It was a good conversation, Jesus was there 'in the midst' of us, and I felt respected and validated, despite my academic failure. That next year I passed Zoo II (although for reasons stated above, I deem it pretty much Zoo III!) and over the years have considerably broadened my thinking about science, faith and Genesis. (These days I probably fall in the Intelligent Design sector, but along with Homosexuality and Hell, Evolution will be one of my Questions for God when I get to heaven.) I finished my Science degree in Dunedin, concurrently with starting my theology studies, and the Psychology Major with which I ended up has been very useful to me in the long run. Maybe if I had finished a Zoology degree, my faith journey would have taken a different path. That conversation with the Prof certainly had an ongoing influence.
ay for you to answer with integrity but still demonstrate that you knew and understood the science you had been taught." It was a good conversation, Jesus was there 'in the midst' of us, and I felt respected and validated, despite my academic failure. That next year I passed Zoo II (although for reasons stated above, I deem it pretty much Zoo III!) and over the years have considerably broadened my thinking about science, faith and Genesis. (These days I probably fall in the Intelligent Design sector, but along with Homosexuality and Hell, Evolution will be one of my Questions for God when I get to heaven.) I finished my Science degree in Dunedin, concurrently with starting my theology studies, and the Psychology Major with which I ended up has been very useful to me in the long run. Maybe if I had finished a Zoology degree, my faith journey would have taken a different path. That conversation with the Prof certainly had an ongoing influence.So Thank You John Edward Morton, zoologist, environmentalist and man of God. Your obituary in the Anglican news called you a Creation Theologian, and that is a fitting epitaph.
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