Part of Ice Cube

Don´t  be misled by the shortness of this post -- it deals with an immense topic that goes way beyond the power of words. 

Early this week I read something in the New York Times concerning a scientific research project in Antarctica called “Ice Cube.” It is designed to detect tiny particles such as gamma rays reaching the earth from outer space. Recently some scientists have programmed it to detect high energy particles called neutrinos. Here is the sentence that caught my attention:

Over the past decade, Ice Cube has detected hundreds of high energy neutrinos that originated outside the solar system. In 2017, other telescopes pinpointed the origin of a neutrino detected by Ice Cube in a galaxy four billion light years away.“

Wait! Did I read that correctly? Yup! Four Billion light years away! 

The first thing I thought of as I read this number was that God is intimately involved in all of the processes that catapulted this neutrino across the face of creation. So my God has to be bigger than the seemingly limitless expanses of outer space. I thought of some verses from Psalm 8:

O Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!

When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and stars that you set in place,

What is man that you are mindful of him,

and a son of man that you care for him?

The psalmist is awed by the vastness and the beauty he sees in the night sky with just his naked eye. How much more, then, should we be in awe of the God who has been flinging neutrinos across four billion light-years all the time!

If you have God in your pocket, a God who is comfortably understandable, and bounded by your own ideas and minus any mystery, then your God is way too small for the job! I mean, four billion light years! Our God is indeed an Awesome God!

We cannot even imagine the extent and depth of his love for each of us -- I mean, four billion light-years!

This is good material for meditation, if you can keep from fainting in the face of all this Immensity.

A photo from the James Webb Space Telescope

MY LATEST SPIRITUAL READING

 During the past week or so, the world has been privileged to see the first official images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). If you're reading this post, then you have access to the internet. If so, then I hope that you've taken the opportunity to look at these amazing pictures. There is so much information about JWST easily available on line that I don't need to suggest any links.  

The JWST was launched on Christmas Day, seven months ago, and, right on schedule, began sending back photos in June. One scientist observed "These pictures are so beautiful they make you want to cry." I have been using them now and then as part of my lectio divina (holy reading). If you haven't been delving into the treasure trove of these awesome images on the internet (other than the couple that made the front pages a few days ago), I strongly encourage you to begin to do so. Of course, the bigger the screen you use, the more beautiful the images will appear. Below are a few of these photos each accompanied by a scriptural quotation:

"Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens..." 

(Deut.10:14)

                   "He numbers the stars and gives to all of them their names." (Psalm 147:4)

"When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established;  what is man that thou art mindful of him. (Psalm 8:3-4, RSV trans.)                                                                                

"Let the heavens praise thy wonders, O Lord!" (Ps 89:5  RSV)

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

I came across the following just this morning. I think it offers a good moral for the story of JWST, something for each of us to reflect upon:

"People who are  into [control] can't deal with a world that is too wide or too open. They need a universe that is narrow and closed up, small enough for them to manage easily. Anything foreign is a threat."( A. Holtz, Street Wisdom, 2003, p. 73)

It's fun to imagine what our country and our world would look like if everyone spent an hour a day staring at one or another of the JWST images. Folks might suddenly realize how terribly small and constricted their personal worlds are, with their walls of prejudice and man-made boundaries of hatred. What if all of us became conscious of God's view of the world as reflected in these awesome pictures? 

NO SURPRISES, PLEASE!

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This past Thursday the lectionary invited us to reflect on this well-known episode on Jesus' life:

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.

They were astonished and said,

“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?

Is he not the carpenter’s son?

Is not his mother named Mary

and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?

Are not his sisters all with us?

Where did this man get all this?”

And they took offense at him. (Mt 13:54-56)

The first thought that usually comes to mind as I read this passage is always the "scandal of familiarity," the notion that we tend to assume we already know everything about a particular person and have them captured securely in one or another box. So when Jesus performs miracles and preaches in ways that move people's hearts like never before, his townspeople can't figure it out because it doesn't fit their preconceptions of this man whom they've know for all these years and whose relatives still live among them. And since Jesus' behavior doesn't fit their preconception of the "carpenter's son" they take offense at him.

That's probably pretty close to what the gospel writer had in mind when he recorded the story. But I'd like to suggest a slightly different take that might make for a more profitable meditation for us who are hunkered down trying to hide from the covid-19 virus.

See if you agree with this thought from cultural anthropologists: the role of most religions is often to make sure that nothing changes. For millennia people have been sacrificing to their gods to make sure that the crops grow as usual, that the spring rains return as they're supposed to, that they and their families can live out their lives in peace. 

This seems to reflect our built-in preference for predictability (which means the ability to control things around us) and for understanding (figuring out the meaning of things on various levels). We don't like living with mystery, with events that lie beyond the reach of our senses and our intellect. To say that something is a mystery is to admit that we can't control it.

Now, back to the incident of Jesus in his hometown. The townspeople have been hearing about Jesus' miracles and now hear for themselves his incredibly powerful preaching. Their first reaction is to be "astonished"by Jesus' power, but their astonishment quickly turns to resentment and hostility. Why? Because they find themselves confronted with something that they cannot understand. God is doing something new in their midst, but instead of rejoicing and glorifying the Lord because if it, they feel threatened.

God is saying through Jesus "Behold, I am doing something new (Isaiah 43:19)!" An encounter with Jesus is an encounter with mystery. The incarnation, when you think about it, is incomprehensible: The infinite becomes finite, the Totally Other comes among us as a little baby, the Lord and Creator of the universe walks around Galilee as a simple rabbi. "Incomprehensible" is right!

Christians believe that this incomprehensible mystery is still going on at all times in every person, in every created thing and in every corner of the universe. Because of the incarnation, "God comes to us as our life," in every event great or small, pleasant or unpleasant, joyful or frightful. 

So, when God comes to us as covid-19, what is our prayer? Maybe it could be "Lord, take care of your people, keep us healthy and safe, and let us not lose hope in your loving care." Behind our prayer, whatever it might be on a particular day, is the underlying faith that God loves each of us infinitely and absolutely, and that everything is under God's control and God in Jesus Christ is in our midst to love and to save, to bring to the entire world healing and peace. 

"Behold, I am doing something new. Wear your mask!"

A TIME FOR ICONS

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I have in front of me as I'm writing this an icon that I painted in the monastery of S. Martin du Canigou

S. Martin du Canigou

on a mountaintop in the Pyrenees in 1986. Serious icon artists would say they "write" their icons, but since this was my first time, I have to admit that I just "painted" it.

The contrasting ways that Christ is portrayed in the icons of Eastern Christian tradition versus the religious paintings of the West can be very revealing. The following are some over-simplified thoughts on the subject that have occurred to me this week.

First, the artistic tradition of the Western Graeco-Roman world concentrates on the human side of Jesus, at least for the past,say, 1500 years. Artists have portrayed just about every moment of Jesus' life and death, from the annunciation by Gabriel to the ascension of Jesus.These portrayals have been an aid to our reflection about Emmanuel, God-with-us on earth. 

We've become very comfortable with this human Jesus. This is a Jesus we can comprehend, with whom we can identify in his sufferings and joys. This "life-size" Jesus is someone we can claim as our own. 

The icon I painted 1976

Contrast this picture of Jesus with the icons that are the Eastern Churches' way of portraying Christ in icons. Icons are not meant to be representative art: They have only a plain background (no distant mountains or other details), and no attempt at perspective or use of light-and-shadow to offer an illusion of depth. The Christ that they portray is not located in time or place.The timeless Christ depicted in an icon poses quite a contrast with the Jesus portrayed in our Western paintings lying in a manger or healing a blind beggar on a busy street corner.  

Think of the way we refer to "Jesus Christ." The Western church has traditionally emphasized the Jesus side, the "Jesus of history" who came and dwelt among us for about thirty years, who preached and healed, who taught and suffered, who died and rose again. The Eastern church has emphasized instead the divine side, the "Christ of faith," the second Person of the trinity, the Word made flesh through whom the world was created in the beginning and whose presence pervades everything ion the universe. This is the Christ portrayed in icons.

Of course we need both sides, the human Jesus and the divine Christ if we are to have the mystery of God-made-man, the incarnation. But I've been reflecting recently on how important it is for us westerners to cultivate a sense of the Christ of the icons. During the pandemic I can certainly meditate on a painting of a suffering Christ hanging in agony on the cross, but I've been finding it more encouraging and uplifting to pray in front of my icon, listening to the Christ of Faith who created all that is and who is still present everywhere, whether inside the smallest subatomic particle, or in a black hole millions of lightyears away, the risen Christ who is present in every one of us as well.

Later on I'll get back to the paintings of the very human Jesus that I'm more familiar with, but for right now I need to stay close to the victorious Word of God who is Lord of heaven and earth and all that is in them.

THE CHRIST OF THE PANDEMIC

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When you can honor and receive your own moment of sadness or fullness as a gracious participation in the eternal sadness or fullness of God, you are beginning to recognize yourself as a participating member of this one universal Body. You are moving from I to we.  

- Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, 42.

I'm taking my time reading and absorbing Rohr's "The Universal Christ." I highly recommend it. Like most of his books that I've read, it requires the reader to let go of many treasured preconceptions, beliefs and mindsets that he or she considers fundamental to his or her belief in God.  

The present book couldn't be more timely. Its thesis is that we have concentrated on "Jesus," the human person who live for thirty years in a particular time and place, and have almost forgotten "Christ," the Second Person of the Trinity, the Divine Word who existed from all eternity and through whom everything as created and is maintained in existence even today. In Colossians 3:11, Paul says "Christ is all and is in all," or "Christ is everything and is in everyone." 

Since we're so at home with the human "Jesus," we underplay the "Christ" side, leaving an imbalance that has caused countless problems for the churches ever since. One problem that Rohr keeps mentioning is that "Jesus" is small enough that various groups can latch on to Him and "own" him exclusively, leaving the rest of humanity excluded from any relationship with Him. "No one owns him and no one ever will (35)." 

"Christ Pantocrator" (All-powerful)       Cefalu, Sicily

As I mentioned in my April 4, 2020 post, the counterbalancing concept of "the universal Christ" completely bypasses every kind of limitation and division that comes with the human "Jesus" side of the incarnation and invites us to relate to the Christ who is from all eternity, who created everything that is, including worlds and maybe universes that we will never discover, We can't capture the Universal Christ and use him for our own purposes.

This way of seeing Christ seems exactly the right perspective for looking at the present pandemic. In the quotation from Colossians 3:11 cited above, "Christ is all and is in all,"  the Greek word for "all" is panta, the same root that we find in "pandemic." When in last week's gospel our Lord says "I am the way and the truth and the life," who is speaking? It would seem that at this point the emphasis has shifted from the human side of Jesus who has just washed the feet of his disciples, to the mysterious and boundless "universal Christ."

So, while we see and hear all of the beautiful human interest stories of bravery and compassion and so forth springing from the pandemic, and see them as imitations of Jesus, it is important to balance the picture with the image of the "universal Christ," who exists in everything and everyone from before time began. "The Christ is always way too much for us (35)" may sound like bad news to some people who need to be in control all the time, but it's wonderfully good news to all of us who are suffering during this pandemic because it means that Christ is immeasurably greater than any tragedy or trial or disease we can imagine.

   

FINCHES, MOTHS AND MIDDLE EARS

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Medical Update:

 

Thank you for the kind suggestions of home remedies in the comments box last week. Before trying them I went to an ear-nose-and-throat specialist yesterday and he examined me for ten minutes and told me that I have a slight blockage of the Eustachian tube in my left ear. Although it’s nothing serious, it could take a few more weeks for that stuffy feeling to clear up. He gave me some samples of nasal spray to help Mother Nature along. I hope that this will be the last you’ll have to hear about my middle ear.

ON FINCHES' BEAKS

By sheer coincidence I’ve been reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Beak of the Finch by science writer Jonathan Weiner (1995), that centers on the story of two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spent twenty years studying finches on a tiny remote islet in the Galapagos. It’s one of those books that give you a whole new way of looking at the world.  

The Grants' incredibly meticulous measurements of everything (e.g. actually counting the numbers of various seeds in random square-meter plots of ground, and banding and measuring every single finch on the islet for twenty years) revealed, when the data was crunched in a computer, that Darwin didn’t know the strength of his own theory. The Grants detail how the beaks of the three species of finches change in response to the kinds and quantity of seeds available. They watched the beaks change not over eons or millennia but in a couple of short years.

They showed that evolution is not, as Darwin thought, just something in the distant past, nor is it an imperceptibly slow process that can only be observed from the perspective of spotty fossil records. We can see it happening, ebbing back and forth and in all sorts of intricate ways.

Lots of evolutionary biologists routinely demonstrate every day the various principles of evolution at work both in the wild and in laboratories. One scientist, Martin Taylor, was being paid by American Cyanamid to observe and record the rapid evolution of Heliothis virescens, a moth that has been decimating cotton crops in the South for decades. By analyzing the DNA of moths from several states each month he has come to understand exactly how the moths evolve a resistance to a new pesticide – they can do so in the space of a single growing season -- and notes “The moths have become almost absolutely resistant to all pesticides.”

UNBELIEVABLE CREATION

So there I am reading this book as I sit waiting in the doctor’s office because of a slight blockage in the tube that allows the pressure in the middle ear to match the ambient atmospheric pressure. We certainly are “wonderfully made,” aren’t we? I suppose that the finches in the Galapagos have Eustachian tubes, too. I'm not wondering so much about how we all happen to have gotten Eustachian tubes, I'm just in awe of the simple fact that we have them at all.

Meditating over the years on the beautiful account of creation in Genesis has helped me to

Michelangelo's version of the Big Bang

appreciate the truth that God is the creator of all things in heaven and on earth. But for me it’s become much more a source of wonderment to realize that the billions of DNA genes and chromosomes in us living creatures are able to do all the things they do, and that the tiniest accidental variation in a chromosome can result in immense changes if it proves helpful for the survival of that individual and thus is passed on as an adaptation to some environmental stressor such as a pesticide or a drought. Creation is continuing full tilt today.

BIBLE BELT IRONY

I used to get asked (no so frequently nowadays) if as a Catholic I’m allowed to believe in the theory of evolution. These days, though, no one has asked if I'm allowed to believe that houseflies and moths have somehow become resistant to every known pesticide. No one has asked me if I am allowed to believe in the observable facts of evolutionary biology all around me. 

Heliothis virescens believes in Darwin

There's an ironic twist to this question in the experience of Martin Taylor, the scientist who is monitoring the evolving resistance of those moths in the "Cotton Belt," which is also known as “the Bible Belt.” He observes,  

Cotton growers are having to deal with these pests in the very states whose legislatures are so hostile to the theory of evolution. Because it is evolution itself that they are struggling against in their fields each season. These people are trying to ban the teaching of evolution while their own cotton crops are failing because of evolution. How can you be a Creationist farmer any more?

Well, no matter how it came about, I think that the Eustachian tube in my left ear is a pretty impressive work of God. Even if it is stuffed up right now.  

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." (Ps. 139:14)