Science and Religion

What would we do for entertainment without scientists telling us, with breathless excitement, that “God did not create the universe,” as if they were the first to discover this astonishing proposition? Stephen Hawking is the latest, but certainly not the first. When Napoleon asked Laplace, two hundred years ago, where was God in his scientific system, the mathematician replied, “I do not need God to explain the universe.” We never did. That is what scientists do not understand.

There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.

It is important for us to understand the mistake Professor Hawking has made, because the mutual hostility between religion and science is one of the curses of our age, and it is damaging to religion and science in equal measure.

But let us hail a scientific genius. Professor Hawking is one of the truly great minds of our time. Two thousand years ago the rabbis coined a blessing – you can find it in any Jewish prayer book – on seeing a great scientist, regardless of his or her religious beliefs…the right attitude of religion to science is admiration and thankfulness.

The Bible is not proto-science, pseudo-science or myth masquerading as science. It is interested in other questions entirely. Who are we? Why are we here? How then shall we live? It is to answer those questions… that we seek to know the mind of God.

--Lord Sachs reply to Stephen Hawkings in The Times

My deepest me is God

Mysticism begins when the totally transcendent image of God starts to recede; and there's a deepening sense of God as immanent, present, here, now, within me. Augustine's line was "God is more intimate to me than I am to myself” or “more me than I am myself." St. Catherine of Genoa shouted it in the streets, "My deepest me is God!"

So you must overcome the gap to know—and then Someone Else is doing the knowing through you. God is no longer "out there." At this point, it's not like one has a new relationship with God; it's like one has a whole new God! “God himself is my counselor, and at night my innermost being instructs me,” says the Psalmist (16:7).

The mystics are those who are let in on this secret mystery of God's love affair with all souls, and recognize the simultaneous love affair with the individual soul—as if it were the only one God loves. It's absolutely our unique affair, and that sets the whole thing on a different and deeper ground than mere organized religion can ever achieve by itself.


Richard Rohr
Adapted from Following the Mystics
through the Narrow Gate (CD/DVD)

Reading for 7 Creation

In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.

Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist (b. 1937)

Reading for 6 Creation

To preserve this sacred world of our origins from destruction, our great need is for a renewal of the entire Western religious-spiritual tradition in relation to the integral functioning of the biosystems of the planet Earth. We need to move from a spirituality of alienation from the natural world to a spirituality of intimacy with the natural world, from a spirituality of the Divine as revealed in verbal revelation to a spirituality of the Divine as revealed in the visible world about us, from a spirituality concerned with justice simply to humans to a spirituality concerned with justice to all those other components of the great earth community. The destiny of Christianity will be determined to a large extent by its capacity to fulfill these three commitments. --Thomas Berry, Christianity and Ecology

A Voice for the Animals

Wonderful Speaking of Faith interview with wildlife conservations Allen Rabinowitz

Gift of Good Land, reading for 5 Creation

We cannot live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration . . . in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.
--Wendell Berry

Rain, Thomas Merton

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of bread at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

From Rain and the Rhinoceros

Reading for 3 Creation

In this evolving universe, God does not dictate the outcome of nature’s activities, but allows the world to become what it is able to become in all of its diversity: one could say that God has a purpose rather than a fixed plan, a goal rather than a blueprint. As the nineteenth-century Anglican minister Charles Kingsley put it, God has made a world that is able to make itself. John Polkinghorne states that God has given the world a free process, just as God has given human beings free choice. Divine Love frees the universe and life to develop as they are able to by using all of their divinely given powers and capacities. The universe, as Augustine of Hippo said in the fourth century, is “God’s love song.” Because God’s Love is poured out within the creation, theologian Denis Edwards asserts that “the Trinitarian God is present to every creature in its being and becoming.” These are but some of the concepts that contemporary theologians are offering to account for God’s relationship to an evolving creation.

--from the Episcopal Church's Catechism of Creation

1 Creation Homily Podcast

Click here

2 Creation

In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) wrote, “The whole universe in its wholeness more perfectly shares in and represents the divine goodness than any one creature by itself” (47:1). Now what we humans did was quite selfish and self-centered. The human ego took over and we thought our species was the only one God really cared about, and we extracted the soul from everything else! We ended up living in a cold and dis-enchanted universe. We had to build churches, temples, and synagogues to try to capture the sacred that was already there. And soon we could not even see soul in other humans outside of our group! Creation and even other humans were simply here for our utilitarian purposes. It was all here for our consumption.
At that moment, we entered into a state of alienation that is really the state of “sin.” We no longer belonged to this world. Maybe now (we can begin) to walk outside barefoot, like Francis did, experiencing no disconnect between ourselves and “Sister Earth, our Mother”—and in reparation for centuries of Christian blindness.

1 Creation: Creation as Sacrament

All creation is a sacrament, a visible sign of the invisible presence. The sacramentality of the creation comes first of all from the fact that the Creator leaves an imprint on every creature, as an artist leaves something of himself or herself in every work. Each fragrant rose or singing bird, every cell or atom, bears some imprint of the divine creative love that brings it into being. Each individual, essentially related to God by its indelible imprint, exists in the divine presence and mediates the divine presence. This relationship to God gives each being its worth and dignity, its mystery. Because of this relationship, the entire universe and each creature in it can function as a sacrament or sign of God. All creation mediates and expresses something of the mystery of God to those who can read the signs. --Charles Cummings,Eco-Spirituality

Angel in the River

Below is the lectio readings the Ordinary Mindfulness crew used this morning (we meet at St D's at 7:30). Read over it perhaps paying attention to who you meet when you open mind and heart in meditation.

Lectio: Sept 20, 2010

Genesis 32 (Jacob on the night before reuniting with his brother Esau whose inheritance he stole many years before)

The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ 27So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ 28Then the man* said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,* for you have striven with God and with humans,* and have prevailed.’ 29Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel,* saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

---

Whether in grief, anger, wanting, or restlessness, we can see that much of the work with the contractions of the heart is the work of our unfinished business. We encounter the forces and situations that have held us closed to ourselves and others. What is conflicted, ungrieved, unfinished shows itself as soon as we become attentive. It is here that we must learn how to work respectfully with the profound forces that govern human life. It is the layers of these energies that create contractions and suffering and the freeing of them that brings awakening and release. --After the Ecstasy the Laundry, Jack Kornfield

The Psalm, 113, embodies the heart of this week's lessons--it actually embodies much of what is best in our tradition.

Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high *
but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?

6

He takes up the weak out of the dust *
and lifts up the poor from the ashes.

7

He sets them with the princes, *
with the princes of his people.

8

He makes the woman of a childless house *
to be a joyful mother of children.

Repentance is so much more fun than...

most folks realize. Almost nothing to do with 'turn or burn!' Much more to do with 'turn and learn.'

Repentance is turning toward our deepest desire. It really is, no kidding. Somewhere along the way we need just enough life experience to realize that in order to discover our deepest desires with often have to look outside ourselves. We need the wisdom of others. We need...(what shall we call it?)...mmmmm...ah, God. We need the stunning mystery of creative life and love we call God.

Repentance is quite literally turning toward this wisdom and this mystery again and again--like a person with a compass hiking in a lovely, challenging, ever-new landscape.

Deepest desire. True north. A good compass. An open, and perhaps adventurous, heart.

Stretching the Heart toward Hospitality

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

What is God Like?

As usual, Bill Loader combines good scholarship, compassion, wisdom and brevity. Here's an excerpt:

Jesus spent much of his ministry, it seems, in a struggle to portray a different way of imagining God which more matched the reality. God is not to be modelled on the aloof king and powerful father, but on the mother looking for a lost coin and the dad running down the road to meet a lost son. The facades of dignity are dropped in favour of affection and caring. It is a very different model of God and produces a very different way of handling human life and biblical tradition.

Both models represented in the story reflect deep devotion. Both in different ways protect some things that are valuable. Both are based on scripture. One is healing. So is the other, but healing is subordinate to other concerns.

We are left guessing about the healing process and the pathology. The story, however, aptly reflects a different kind of paralysis which is chronic in religious communities. This story and its exposition in community offers an opportunity for healing

For more, go to his site.

Cloud of Witnesses

I'm just back from vacation and haven't yet got my brain in gear to do much thinking about Sunday. But...I find the Hebrew's passage about faith especially interesting. I tend to want to argue with it, at least find ways to talk about faith differently. Especially in terms more in keeping with trust than with faithfulness to doctrine.

I also like what Richard Rohr has to say: "True religion is not a denial of doubt but a transformation of it. and often, to be honest, a temporary deepening of our doubt and darkness to get us there."

So...a start

Martha and Mary

Questions within Luke 10:38-42

How are you doing finding the balance between being quiet and being active?

Are we too hard on Martha? Could we find the "BOTH-AND" like Brother Lawrence indicated in the quote below?
The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

The Practice of the Presence of God

Art by Tim Nyberg

Ordinarily Extraordinary

The first lesson this week is a great story to enter via lectio. For meditatio you might try asking yourself, When am I like the characters in this narrative?

2 Kings 5.1-14
Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter...(read more)

Fruit of the Spirit

Table of Fruit, Cezanne

If we 'read, mark, learn and inwardly digest' Paul's encouragement to his friends in Galatia, what will the Spirit be saying to us at this moment in our lives?

...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Read more

First thoughts on Jesus and Jerusalem (Luke 2)

Bill Loader is always good.  This week especially so.  My notes below are cribbed from his site.

• It’s completely predictable for political-power-people like Herod to be nervous about social-power-people like Jesus—and to want to ‘tame’ them.
• Jesus replies to ‘that fox’ Herod that he has just been dealing with ‘powers’.  Casting out demons and curing sick people.
• The trouble is that this is not the only ‘power’ will Jesus will confront as he embodies ‘setting the captives free.’
• Jerusalem is the power center in Israel.  Prophets die there trying to set captives free.  Mother hens go there to protect their babies.  Wisdom (Sophia embodied)  and mother hens will always long to protect and comfort their beloved.  Prophets, Jesus, Sophia, we, all of us do this embodying.  The various ‘Powers’ will always draw a response that combines compassion and action from the braver of us.

One verse of the psalm brings this together for me personally

• What if I had not believed
  that I should see the goodness of the LORD *
  in the land of the living! (Psalm 27.17)

I answer—Well, if I hadn’t believed and seen the goodness of God myself  I wouldn’t have been set free and healed.  Nor would I have this meddlesome-get-involved  mother-hen feeling from time to time.

Hymn for the Last Day of Epiphany

 

Now we cease our alleluias

and more thoughtfully rejoice,

that with human language muted

we might hear God’s softer voice.

 

Now we leave the shining mountain

in the company of friends,

whose encouragement we’ll treasure

as the path we take descends.

 

Now we study Christ’s temptations

in the wilderness alone

and trust, in the face of evil,

we’ll have answers of our own.

 

Now we set our faces forward,

following the steps of him

who with mindfulness and courage

journeys to Jerusalem.

A Wandering Aramean

We start Lent this year telling a story that begins, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor….”

This is big clue of what Lent invites us toward in Liturgical time, or story time. We’re invited to think about those times when life feels like we’re wandering in a desert ourselves and then to realize there’s nothing at all unusual about this!  We come from a long line of people who know what it’s like to be lost. 

And the invitation continues with the the very compelling question that follows—How do we find our way?  Tempting as it is for a priest or preacher to give ‘a definitive answer,’ it’s really a personal question, don’t you think?

When Little Things=Big Things

An encouraging bit of news (\in-ˈkər-ij-ing—literally, having to do with making the heart bigger) came in the Science page of the NY Times this week. Elizabeth Sheehan, founder of Containers to Clinics was preparing to take their first clinic to the Dominican Republic. Their ‘clinics’ are made of two old shipping containers which together house two examining rooms, a laboratory and a pharmacy. Very portable. Easy to redirect. They will be on their way to Haiti now if they can get a medical team assembled.

Elizabeth Hausler, who is an engineer and founder of Build Change went to India to learn more about earthquakes following the devastating quake of 2001. She learned that earthquakes rarely kill people: poorly constructed buildings kill people. She also learned that post-quake rebuilding has usually been done by governments and big nonprofits and has usually been done ‘top-down.' She reports “Contractors would swoop in and build a bunch of houses for people and leave.” Homeowners are often not involved. Houses are too often wrong for the country, the climate, the culture. The main door might open to the street in a place where people are more private and prefer the main door to open onto a courtyard. “If a door is in the wrong place, then the homeowner is going to knock a hole in the wall — and that’s not good for the structure.” Dr Hausler was able to help rebuild in Indonesia after the tsunami and in China after the Sichuan quake. In both places she helped aid officials work with local governments and local homeowners. Dr Hausler now plans to help in Haiti, to which I quietly say, Thank you, God.

The Gospel this Sunday pulses with amazing phrases. “Bring good news to the poor.” “Proclaim release to the captives.” “Let the oppressed go free.” We don’t all do this in the same way, or in the name of Jesus or of any other religion. Nevertheless for whoever does it, and does it well...Thank you, God

Up and Down and Up Again

We’re moving into the liturgical seasons of great contrasts: Epiphany to Lent to Easter. Up and down and up again. Our own seasons rarely match up with liturgical season and yet our lives eventually do as we follow Jesus. We find inspiration and desolation and consolation. We feel strong, we feel weak, we feel reinvigorated. We cultivate spirituality because it’s enjoyable sometimes, we cling to it because life terrifies us sometimes, we simple rest in God sometimes because gradually we come to trust God almost no matter what. It helps to pay attention to these seasons year after year after year.
It’s early in Epiphany now. We’re climbing, reaching the highest point, the mountain of Transfiguration, the week before Ash Wednesday. Then we descend slowly until we reach almost to hell on Good Friday. Suddenly Jesus speaks to us again on Easter in a closed room or a cemetery garden and we can hardly believe we’ve lived to see such Life. It’s quite a journey.

Home by Another way

After Epiphany...

After Epiphany--after feeling inspired and empowered--it might be nice to coast a bit. Alas, not to be.

The lesson from Isaiah doesn't speak of rest but of challenge.

Thus says the Lord...
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Mostly, I'd rather the Lord be with me on the banks of the river instead of in the river. And with me toasting marshmallows around the fire instead of leading me into the fire itself. But being in the river and in the fire is part of the grace (and reality) of our baptism.

The Epiphany season journey of the Magi is one way to look at the One Great Journey. We're called by something irresistible and wonderful and we choose to go and are given light to find the way.

The experience of Israel uprooted and dragged away is another way to look at the One Great Journey. So many things happen in lives that land us in places we really don't want to be.

God promises to be with us in both places. Both in inspiration and desperation, and the wonderful and terrible challenge is to open our tender and vulnerable hearts equally in both places, which requires courage and practice.

We'd rather grace come all by itself, without any effort on our part (isn't that what grace means?). Yes and no.

As Norman MacLean writes in A River Runs Through It, " all good things -- trout as well as eternal salvation -- come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."