Science and the Spiritual Quest

I just started teaching another class in Eastern Religions last night, and in my introductory essay I mention the following story. A few years ago, there was a conference in New York called “Science and the Spiritual Quest” during which evidence was presented that the awareness of a Creator may actually be innate to human beings.

A certain Professor Petrovich tested British and Japanese children to see if they would be able to tell the difference between physical and metaphysical explanations. In one experiment, she showed the children (between 4 and 14 years of age) a picture of a book on a table, and asked who put it there. “Mom!” came the answer. A picture of the sun followed, along with the question “Who placed the sun in the sky?” The British kids said “God.” Interestingly, so did the Japanese kids: “Kamisama [God]! He did it!”

Petrovich observed, “Japanese culture discourages speculation into the metaphysical because that’s something we never know. But the Japanese children did speculate, quite willingly, and in the same way as British children.” A former UPI religion correspondent, in writing about this conference, rightly points out that the Apostle Paul was way ahead of his time when he said “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

A similar experiment was conducted with both groups of kids. They were shown a photo of a dog and asked, “How did the first dog ever come into being.” Once again, both groups said, “God did it.” In an interview, Petrovich said, “My Japanese research assistants kept telling me that thinking about God as creator is just not part of Japanese philosophy.”

I find this fascinating but I suppose there’s no reason to be surprised. We do have a conscience, in fact, everybody does. And it tells us that the universe didn’t just happen, and that we’re not an accident. For years, I’ve been meaning to get around to reading The Spiritual Life of Children by Robert Coles. I suppose I should finally get around to reading it.

Grave Matters

“Epitaph” literally means “over a tomb,” and if nothing else, reading them does tend to give us pause. Some of them were unintentionally funny:

She lived with her husband fifty years
And died in the confident hope of a better life

Here lies Peter Montgomery,
who was accidentally shot in his thirtieth year.
This monument was erected by grateful relatives.

Here lies the body of the Reverend T, Henry, M.A.,
who long labored as a Christian missionary amongst the Rajputs.
He was shot by his houseboy.
At the bottom, it read:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

A famous musical composer, it is said, had the following inscribed as his epitaph:

He has gone to the only place
Where his own works are excelled

And then there was pyrotechnics manufacturer who apparently had led a less than saintly life, and his read:

Erected by his spouse, to the memory of
A.B., maker of fireworks.
He has gone to the only place where
His own works are excelled.

A cemetery in Indiana has a century old tombstone with this inscription:

Pause, stranger, when you pass me by:
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be.
So prepare for death and follow me.

Someone came along and scratched a post-script on the bottom:

To follow you I’m not content,
Until I know which way you went.

As far as I know, every culture, in every place in the world, during every period of history, has held out hope of life beyond this one. The sentiments expressed by the epitaphs are one indication, of course, but the fact that they felt a need to even put up some sort of monument in the first place is also significant. What does that say but life must have had a meaning, and that meaning must go beyond the brief length of years spent upon this earth?

I’ve always liked this one:

Here I take my final rest
Beneath this tombstone wall.
Say that I tried my best and
Was your friend, that’s all.

Life is in the Blood

I’m preaching on Sunday on John 6, about Jesus’ claim to be the “bread of life.” In the sermon, I’m going to discuss His unforgettable words in the latter part of the chapter, in verse 54: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus spoke in very graphic terms of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. To say that was shocking would be an understatement. Human flesh was not exactly considered kosher! Consuming blood, any blood, was absolutely forbidden according to Mosaic Law. Leviticus 17:11 says “Life…is in the blood…It is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

Some of you may recognize the name Anne Rice, one of the most popular novelists in recent times. She is perhaps most famous for a series of books on vampires and other supernatural characters. Her books have sold more than 75 million copies. She wrote her first novel in 1976, called Interview with the Vampire, and it has sold more than 8 million copies all by itself.

Her fans were stunned when, in 1998, she announced that she had abandoned atheism and was now returning to her Catholic roots. Not only that, but she also refused to write anymore about the “living dead.” "I would never go back, not even if they say, 'You will be financially ruined; you've got to write another vampire book.' I would say no. I have no choice. I would be a fool for all eternity to turn my back on God like that."

What Rice finally came to realize was that the novels she had been writing had essentially been metaphors for her own life. And it had certainly not been an easy one, either. When she was just 14, her mother died from alcoholism. Anne and her husband had a daughter together, but she died of leukemia when she was only 5. That may explain why she turned her back on God, and this was reflected in her writing. Undead characters, obsessed with the darkness, wandering about in a world with no hope and no God, literally sucking the life out of their innocent victims.

One of the most powerful motivators for her turnaround, according to her interview, was a desperate longing for communion. She most needed the body and blood of Jesus. "The Lord came looking for me," she remembers. "Everywhere I turned, I found images of the Lord and His love." I’ve never read any of her other novels, by the way, but I’ve started to read her fictionalized account of the life of Christ. Since her change of heart, she has actually become quite a scholar of the New Testament.

If you read John carefully, you may find indications that he assumed his readers were already familiar with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. If that’s the case, it may make sense why there’s one scene that we never find in his version. There’s no Last Supper! But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t told us something very important about what that supper meant. Our greatest need is to feast, spiritually, on the flesh and blood of Christ, as pictured here in this passage. Life truly is in the blood.

The Library

University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections

When I was in second grade, we moved to Centerville, Iowa, to a big, old house on Main Street. I'll never forget my first visit to the library there: I made my way up a cracked sidewalk to a tiny, somewhat dimly lit building where a nice older lady showed me around the rows and rows of books. I had recently discovered The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron at school, and I was about to find that there were countless more adventures to be had in books. I've loved libraries ever since.

I walked into the Graduate Reading Room at Suzzallo Library as a freshman at the University of Washington. It was absolutely silent. I looked up at the huge, arched ceilings and saw the globes hanging at each end. Across the red square at the other library, undergraduates like me could go listen to music, hang out with friends, or sleep even. Not here. Everyone in this place was learning, and surrounded by such a church-like atmosphere, reading books seemed practically sacred.

I still love books, but I also realize that times have changed. Perhaps more accurately, I have changed. I don't have four years to devote full-time to studying at a great institution like UW, but I sincerely want to be a "life long learner." I think I'm very fortunate to live in a time when so much information is available now in so many different formats. I remember reading through some of the Post-Nicene Fathers in order to write a ten-page paper during my sophomore year. I had to check out an ancient, oversize volume the "old fashioned way." Now, I can not only read all of those texts online, it's an easy matter to listen to them while I'm walking or driving. It's a tremendous advantage that opens up all kinds of possibilities.

Still, I'll never get over the feeling of opening up a dusty old hardback to unlock whatever treasures are inside. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have to be either/or: either old-school "book learnin'" or "reading" plugged into my iPod. I'm content to live in both worlds.

A "Free Ride" at M.I.T.

Somewhere amidst all the junk in my attic there are file boxes with what’s left of notes and handouts from my undergraduate years at the University of Washington. I’m sure I’ve still got some typed (I can’t remember the last time I actually had to use a typewriter) papers from a medieval history class I took as a sophomore, and I think I must even still have mimeographed (with the familiar blue font) course outlines from a class I had on Judaism during my senior year. What if, instead of decades-old relics, you had access to current resources and lecture notes? And what if they were just a few clicks away, rather than gathering dust in storage? Amazingly enough, M.I.T. has made all of their courses available to anyone, anywhere, and it’s all absolutely free!

It’s part of what’s called the “open education” movement, and M.I.T. is at the forefront. The following quote is from a book on their site called Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge, edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M.S. Vijay Kumar. There’s good news and bad news, according to the introduction:

“Today, a confluence of events is creating the perfect storm for significantly advancing education. With a growing inventory of openly available educational tools and resources, and with an increasingly engaged and connected community, transformative opportunities for education abound. We see a proliferation of new initiatives, many with the potential to radically change the ecology and the economics of education. However, to date, many innovative educational endeavors still remain in isolated and closed domains, rarely shared across classrooms, disciplines, or institutions. Thus, educators find it difficult to advance their pedagogical practice and knowledge as a community.”

This is one storm in the middle of which we can all be glad to get caught! Maybe I ought to start with a refresher course in English grammar…

Time spent browsing through the OpenCourseWare at M.I.T. site is definitely time well spent:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Young@Heart

Put Young@Heart on your must-see list. You’ll love watching this documentary of a group of senior citizens singing everything from “Should I Stay or Should I Go” to “Purple Haze.” There’s not the slightest hint of mockery or condescension – chorus director Bob Cilman takes his job seriously and passionately, and it is amazing to hear these folks sing, both in rehearsals and on stage.

At times, it is as funny as Trekkies (definitely my all-time favorite documentary), but unlike that one, Young@Heart has moments of genuine poignancy, such as when more than one of the members (some of whom are in their nineties) pass away, and the survivors struggle to deal with the loss while on the tour bus. I doubt you’ll forget Dylan’s "Forever Young" performed in a prison yard. The looks of both regret and hope on their faces as the young men there listen to the words are worth the price of admission all by itself.

I have to admit that the first time I’d ever heard “Fix You” by Coldplay was while watching this film. An elderly man sits on stage, and it takes a few moments before you realize that the steady clicking sound is coming from his oxygen machine. He sings these words beautifully:

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone, but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and that goes for my house, too. It’s definitely worth a look.

The God Of All Comfort

I’ve been struck by one particular New Testament phrase ever since I read it for the first time. Paul writes of “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” in 2 Corinthians 1:3. That description came to be so meaningful to me that I finally preached a sermon on it this summer. It still helps when I get depressed. This is some of what I had to say:

You may already be familiar with the story of William Cowper from 18th century England. He wrote some incredibly beautiful poetry and some great hymns. A couple of famous ones are:

GOD moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Olney Hymns (1779)--'Light Shining out of Darkness'

There is a fountain fill'd with blood

Drawn from EMMANUEL's veins;

And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

Olney Hymns (1779)--'Praise for the Fountain Opened'

But Cowper was plagued by bouts of profound depression. In his journal, he wrote:

(I was struck) with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same, can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair. I presently lost all relish for those studies, to which before I had been closely attached; the classics had no longer any charms for me; I had need of something more salutary than amusement, but I had not one to direct me where to find it.

Every ten years, Cowper would go through unbearable suffering. According to his journals, it was then that he would remember a terrible dream he had had years before. Although he never writes about the details in his journal, a "word" was spoken along the lines of "It is all over with you, you are lost."

As bad as it was (and it was about as bleak as it could be), one ray of hope in Cowper’s life was his very good friend John Newton. You probably remember Newton as the former slave ship captain who converted to Christianity, and later wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Neither Newton nor Cowper were strangers to pain and grief. In fact, one thing they had in common was that both had lost their mothers at age 6. But this may give you an insight into Newton’s approach to the Christian life:

Two heaps of human happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one heap and add to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something. I should be glad to do greater things, but I will not neglect this. When I hear a knock on my study door, I hear a message from God; it may be a lesson of instruction perhaps a lesson of penitence; but, since it is his message, it must be interesting.

That may help explain why Newton was such a faithful friend to Cowper for years, even through his terrible bouts with depression. Cowper said, "A sincerer or more affectionate friend no man ever had."

John Newton was human. I have no doubt that Newton was tempted to give in to despair at times just as Cowper was, in fact, even as Paul must have been. But I believe God offered him great comfort as he turned from looking inward, avoiding self-pity, and instead looked outwardly to those around him in need, in order to help however he could. God comforts us; he lifts us up, as we seek to offer comfort others. You could be the ray of hope that makes the difference in someone else’s life!