You tricked me, God

“You tricked me, God.” These words of the prophet Jeremiah, as recorded in a modern paraphrased Bible, reflect the way each of us feels at one time or another. If that sounds sacrilegious, what Jeremiah actually said is even worse. He called God a “trickster stream”. In many cultures, the Trickster is a deity who is always wreaking havoc in people’s lives by setting them up then pulling the rug out from under them. How could anyone, especially a great prophet like Jeremiah call our loving, caring God a trickster? Because he lived an honest life with God and didn’t feel that relationship needed to be sugar-coated so people would think, “Oh, what a wonderful man of God, Jeremiah is.”

I think all of us who seek to include some spirituality in our lives have had the experience of trying to do what God wants only to have our lives go to hell in a hand basket. What makes it worse is that we observe those who have no apparent spirituality seem to do well and succeed at anything they try. In the end we feel tricked, but are afraid to admit it.

Death and resurrection are the way of life. They are the way of God. It is evident in nature and exemplified in the life of Jesus. It is foolish to suppose that we are special and should be spared from the “death” side of that cycle. What is really lousy is that the “death” is usually preceded by a good bit of suffering. In the Catholic tradition, we offer our suffering as a sharing in Christ’s suffering, believing that it was Christ’s passion, suffering, and death that purchased our redemption to freedom and life. And so, by accepting and offering up our suffering, we can look forward to share in Christ’s resurrection.

When my life is falling apart and I seem to have lost it all – whether through grief, illness, circumstance or my own mistakes – I offer my pain to God, believing that he will bring resurrection.

God’s String Symphony

I have written from time to time about the joys of quantum mechanics and its theological implications. However, one of the shortfalls of quantum mechanics is that it makes no allowance for gravity. On the other hand, while Einstein’s theory of general relativity offers a good explanation of gravity, it assumes a flat still universe that is not foaming with quantum particles interacting at the speed of light. Both theories work extremely well in their respective arenas, but are at the core irreconcilable. All mathematical attempts to reconcile the two theories have produced the same answer, infinity. This could cause someone like myself to conclude that God is behind it all. But science has been unwilling to acknowledge God as an answer to any equation for 600 years. So the search for the unifying theory goes on.

String theory examines the way the smallest, most fundamental particles in the universe combine to form the sub atomic particles we are familiar with, as well as produce gravity. They are called “strings” because the closest analogy to an object in our observable world is a bowed violin string. They are extremely small one dimensional loops vibrating in nine dimensions that resound in what is best understood as a musical chord. Combine these strings to form electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks and a myriad of other sub atomic particles (including the theoretical graviton that is the messenger particle of gravity) and each atom and each molecule becomes a motif in a song. Each person or even inanimate object in our universe becomes a theme played for the duration of its life. In short, the entire universe is a grand symphony that has been playing for 15 billion years on unimaginably tiny instruments. (If an atom were expanded to the size of the known universe, a string would be about the size of the tree in your back yard.)

No wonder music has always been the language of the soul. It expresses love for each other and yearning for God. Animals, even plants respond to music. And they respond to harmonic music more positively than non-harmonic music. It behooves each individual to ask themselves the question, “What kind of song am I?” Hopefully, we all instinctively know that we are singing in harmonious joy with God, each other and the universe at large. If not, it is time to change our tune.

Why Did Jesus Die?

A Good Friday Meditation

One would think that the creator of the universe could come up with an easier solution to man’s sinfulness than suffering and dying on the cross. Alternatives come to mind. Wipe out mankind and start over. Supernova the Sun and focus your efforts on other parts of the universe. But God is not in the habit of not finishing what he started, and the problem of man’s separation from God required a solution.

Human beings are unique because they alone of all species on this planet, pray. Even other hominid species such as Neanderthal man or Floresiensis man have no reliable archeological evidence of having sought a relationship with God. Neither evolutionists nor archeologists offer any coherent explanation of how this came about, but it is evident that while the human search for spirituality is unique among earthbound species, it is universal among humans. In the common tradition of Jews, Christians and Muslims, it is merely recorded that “God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Early humans saw themselves as descended from God. Adam was the son of God. Eve, who emanated from Adam, was his mate and helper. Together they communed with God. The Bible records the primordial paradise of the Garden of Eden as having a single restriction, that Adam could not pursue the knowledge of right and wrong, what we would call a moral code or law. The rule of Eden was simple – tend the garden and enjoy God’s presence. It was Eve who succumbed to the temptation of the serpent and took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But if Eve disobeyed first, why does the Bible always refer to the sin of Adam as the reason for man’s fall? Eve succumbed to temptation, but Adam chose to disobey rather than offer his life as an intercessory sacrifice for his wife. Adam’s failure resulted in man’s separation from God and millennia of man seeking to placate God through laws and codes of moral conduct that never produced morality but self righteous hypocrisy. Jesus, God’s only begotten son (Adam was God’s created son.), offered himself as an intercessory sacrifice for the sins of all humankind – and so succeeded in restoring man to the simplicity of the Garden of Eden, where Adam’s failure had driven man out. The cross becomes the tree of life, and we return to the simple rule – take care of the earth and enjoy God’s presence.

I have often heard it said by various preachers that Jesus died to fulfill a Levitical law. But Christ died on Passover, not the Day of Atonement. At Passover, there was neither a Levitical law nor Levitical priesthood. The father of each household offered a spotless lamb to protect his household from the wrath of God and begin their journey to the promised land. In Christ’s sacrifice, God the Father offered the spotless lamb of his son to protect his household, all humankind, and begin our journey to our promised place of communion with God.

It is far too easy to look back over the two millennia since Christ’s intercessory sacrifice and think he failed. We have not taken care of the earth. Churches surround themselves with rules and laws. Humankind has disintegrated into sectarian violence and distrust. But in the midst of the overall despair, there are brightly shining stars of hope. When one looks at the life of someone like St. Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we see the possibility of a life that truly lives the freedom that Christ purchased on the cross. From God’s perspective, the cross opens the door of redemption to everyone equally. But from our perspective, we accept that redemption individually as we set our own greed and ambitions aside to enjoy God’s presence in simplicity and purity. So each person enjoys the presence of God just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden to a greater or lesser degree depending upon their own faith and choices. Jesus believed that was worth dying for.

Light, Time, and God

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Matter, Antimatter, Photons and Time.

Everyone over the age of six knows that time moves in only one direction. Yesterday came before today, and today comes before tomorrow. But in the quantum world time zigzags back and forth in a shimmering dance as matter, antimatter, and photons interact with each other. When a photon (light particle) encounters a vacuum, it discharges itself into an electron (matter), and a positron (antimatter) converting its energy into mass.  Rather than be completely destroyed, the photon moves backward in time to give the electron and positron “space” to collide, annihilating each other with the ensuing energy discharging the photon that started the dance.

There is an exception to the matter/antimatter cycle of destruction that involves a singularity (black hole). If the photon is converted into mass along the gravitational vortex of a singularity, the matter and antimatter are not able to collide because one will be drawn into the gravitational field of the black hole while the other will race off in the opposite direction. Fifteen thousand million years ago the universe was one giant singularity. When light surrounded the singularity, mass and radiation was created that began spreading out in all directions beginning the expanding, cooling universe we know today. That expansion is what started the clock moving forward. As long as the universe is expanding, time moves away from yesterday and toward tomorrow. This moment of primordial light interacting with primordial darkness is what we know as the big bang. Genesis describes it this way, “God said: ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God separated the light from the darkness.”

Light particles (photons) are able to do this because of two basic properties of the photon. First, every particle in the universe has an antiparticle seeking to destroy it except for one, the photon. Photons are their own antiparticle so they are never destroyed in matter – antimatter collisions. Second, from a photon’s perspective, there is no such thing as time.

We turn our radio telescopes to the sky and watch photons in the cosmic background radiation pass by the Earth. It is easy for us to imagine those photons traveling for 15 thousand million years from the big bang itself. But the photon “sees” the big bang, the current state of the universe, and the chilling end of the universe in the same instant. To a photon, all times are “now”. The result is that everything in the universe: past, present, and future, is connected to everything else by a web of electromagnetic radiation that “sees” everything at once.  No wonder Saint John wrote, “God is light. In him is no darkness at all.”

Once again, we come back to the basic quantum understanding of God, which is the incarnate understanding of God, that Creator and Creation are one. God is the energy that permeates the universe and empowers its existence. This is a giant leap of courage for the lifelong believer to give up their Sunday school understanding of God who is “out there somewhere watching” to one in which God’s glory is not just seen in the world, but is “all and in all”. It is also a giant leap of courage for those who have decided that science has made God irrelevant to recognize that science and the universe make no sense without God for “in God we live and move and have our being.”

Satisfaction

You have made man a little less than the angels.
And crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him to rule over the works of your hands.
Putting all things under his feet.
-  Psalm 8:6,7

These promises are given first to Jesus, the Son of Man. Second, to those who are in Christ. Third, to all mankind, made in God’s image.

Let us live in confidence for God did not make us helpless creatures to be downtrodden by circumstances. God made us powerful beyond measure to be the rulers of our fate and the captains of our own soul.

But while that power is in our own hands, we are called to surrender it to the will of Christ and build up his kingdom to his glory – not our own kingdom to our own glory.

In this way we partner with Christ. Our power is not diminished , but infinitely enhanced. We are not denied satisfaction, but find complete satisfaction in the fulfillment of our true self as God made us. And in that fulfillment, discover the joy and peace that surpasses all comprehension.

Saintliness

“You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God.”
                – Isaiah 62:3

The king wears his crown so all will know he is the king. When one sees the crown, they know the king is here. So is the life of a saint the crown of God. One looks at the life of a saint such as Blessed Mother Theresa, and knows that God is here. We are all called to sainthood. To live lives on this Earth so those who see us will see the presence of God.

Lord, let me live the life of a saint with unfailing love and devotion to you, and untiring compassion and ministry to your people.

Fear Not

“Fear not. You will not be put to shame.” Isaiah 54:1

What a promise from God. How many times I have fretted that my poor decisions will lead me to ruin. But God promises understanding, compassion, and eternal love. He knows how prone we are to screw things up. So, he encourages us, “Fear not.”

God’s love and care never leaves us alone. He promises that we will not be put to shame.