It does not take Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein to see the correlation between the physical world and our society’s and culture’s present ethical-moral state. (Just to be clear, both of these scientific giants did believe such a correlation existed.) No amount of self-actualization or ferocious piety blaming the other guy from either the right or the left will make a difference.
Category Archives: Nature
Outliers, 6 – Consequences
In the 2020s, we find ourselves swimming in the social, moral, ethical, environmental, industrial, cultural, and economic swamp which is the consequence of this deconstruction. The swamp is filled with the increasingly murky waters of personalized, politicized “truth” seeking to drown and smother Truth in the muck of “everything is OK, as long as you’re not intolerant (oops! how did that new “Truth” slip in there?), except of those we declare to be intolerant because they tell us there really is Truth and right and wrong and good and bad in the world.”
Little Things Make Big Things
But what if that is really a small part, an atom or molecule, of the great story of meaning that is bound up in the great Whole, what we are meant to portray – the Story of Love and Bonding and Creating?
Elephant Hunting
Elephants can blend into forest almost seamlessly, camouflaged by their grey-brown colour and the propensity to mistake their legs for tree-trunks when glimpsed through the foliage. Suddenly, the rogue surged upon them bellowing and in full battle-array. The hunter fired both barrels of his .577 calibre gun. The elephant was still coming. Blinded by rage, it headed for his bearer. The hunter managed to scramble up a large tree, adrenalin carrying him quickly aloft among its huge limbs.
Loving the World
When I walk among the trees, down a path, over a field, through a garden; when I stand on a mountain- or hill-side, when I feel the gentle summer breeze and the cold snap of the winter wind on my face, when I plunge into the rushing water of the river or the rolling waves of the sea, when I gaze enrapt into the eyes of a newborn, or those of the one I specially love, when I stand awestruck under the starlit vault of the heavens, everywhere and in everything, from the least blade of grass to the most awesome, lofty white pine back of my home, from the weary face of the commuter on the bus to the happiest child with the best surprise in her hands, I see the Creator! (The Holy Spirit in both the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible is feminine, if you didn’t know!)
Mountain-tops and Dark Vales
Think about any mountain-top or peak experience or achievement your have ever had. Maybe it was finally breaking through in your career or chosen role in life and getting the recognition and reward you longed for and felt you justly deserved. Maybe it was winning the heart of “the One” and believing your “live-happily-ever-after” dream was coming true. Maybe it was winning a big competition, or the big championship, the gold medal, the highest individual honour in the that thing you are really passionate about! Maybe it was an heroic act that wowed the people all around and astonished even yourself in the doing – and still does when you think back on it. Maybe it was the “eureka” moment of your conversion to God when you decided to live to honour the Creator.
Faith and Hope: Assurance and Conviction, 6
Humans do not function as merely and simply biological machinery. All our history and experience from all the history we have any clue about declare that we have ever held to the Cosmos being an awesome and awe-full place which shouts that it was and is created by an operative will according to a design. The will and design are demonstrated by what is, what is in evidence, in actual existence all around us, inside and out, in all things and everywhere all the time. And it all points to Something higher and greater than we – in fact, Someone much more than Something.
The Parable of the Three Birds
Once upon a time, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Vulture, and Mrs. Crow met around a grizzly bear’s carcass. The bear had simply died of old age. Mrs. Eagle ate her fill and set aside some large portions at her feet to take back to her nest for her young. Then Mrs. Vulture did the same, and finally Mrs. Crow had her turn. At last, all were satisfied.
Faith and Hope: Assurance and Conviction, 5
Trust-faith is always a personal affair, a decision made by individuals based on particular reasons that make a convincing case to the decider. Such is conviction. Assurance is a strong confidence that our conviction and trust is well-founded, having weighed the evidence from different perspectives, including the possibility that we may just be wrong in our conclusion, but that that is quite unlikely. Hope is what flows from this combination for hope looks to the future with new eyes, new understanding, new possibilities and vistas founded on trust-faith, and the conviction and assurance that ground it and give it depth.
Certainty, Doubt, and Faith
The “War” between science and religion is a misconception. Theists and atheists both believe we can discover much about reality by the scientific method. Both believe that our innate creativity and remarkable intellect can use the creation to bring into being things that would not exist without human invention.
World.V.You 