“CONSIDER THE LILIES…”
Schlumbergera truncata… I looked it up, and that’s what you call it if you’re a botanist. The rest of us call it “Thanksgiving cactus.” The only reason I know this one is Thanksgiving cactus is that it’s blooming now. The Christmas cactus looks exactly like this, but it begins its blooming season a month from now. How does the one that’s blooming now know it isn’t a Christmas cactus? I have no idea. It’s a mystery.
…And I’m in the mood for mystery… for enchantment. Some of my friends and I are meeting every week for discussions around the idea that science and religion needn’t be considered contradictory fields of inquiry. In the first discussion our little group began with a quote by Vincent Van Gogh: “When I have a terrible need of - - dare I say, ‘religion’ - - then I go outside at night and paint the stars.” I can’t paint like Van Gogh; but I have a camera, and I go out to take pictures of mysteries close to home.
This week we will remind ourselves of the mystery by taking a look at one of my favorite poems:
thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
- - e.e. cummings
1 comment:
More and more I am coming to believe that science and religion or shall I say faith need each other. Science has brought us so much empirical knowledge or our wonderful world, and yet, there is so much unseen and unknown. I am so thankful that I have come more and more to the place of living with the questions rather than having to know all the answers.
I recently saw an interesting movie called "The Dust Factory," where a teen ager (Ryan Kelly) has just come from his grandmother's funeral. She was, he tells us, the first dead person he had ever seen, and when it came his turn to toss a shovel of dirt on her grave-bound casket, he couldn't do it.
That night he's lying on his bed and there's a full moon. "My Dad told me the moon's a big magic ball of dust, and I believed him. I used to be able to see the man in the moon, until my mom gave me my Dad's telescope. Then all I found up there were a bunch of craters and rocks." And then he says, "It's weird, sometimes when I look at the moon without my telescope I can almost see him again...almost." (Ah, the persistence of faith).
And as he turns from the telescope and looks at the framed cartoon-like picture of the moon on his table, clearly outlining the "man in the moon," you can almost hear him thinking which it it--rock of man? it's almost as if he wants to turn back to his childhood image rather than explore the limitless possibilities that science and more mature knowledge open up, like the children of Israel wanting to return to the imagined safety and security and sameness that slavery in Egypt provided, rather than face the challenge of the unknown and yet to be explored.
I think there is always that hesitation when we find ourselves on the brink of new discovery and our limits are pushed ever wider. "Let's go back," we seem to say to ourselves, "it's too dangerous, we might lose our faith, we might lose God, we might lose our selves!" And of course the fears are legitimate. We will lose our faith and God and even ourselves because our understanding of each of those is ever evolving, reforming in our minds and understanding and changing our lives. We must re-think our faith, discover God over and over in new situations, remembering that when we take the risk of losing God, God never loses sight of us.
I also picked up The Brothers Karamazov a few months back and re-read it. I was struck by how up-to-date it is in places. The debate on the separation of church and state that occurs in Ch. 5 seems pretty current to me. Also the conversation between Ivan and Alosha on whether or not God exists. Did God create us or did we create God--Book Five, Ch. 4.
As always, my friend, I am grateful for your brilliant thinking and writing, but most of all for your friendship.
Taylor
Post a Comment