talking to myself

Love and do what you will

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The inner cold

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The best moments are those un-planned.

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The old gnarled tree

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Francis

Francis has been living in the assisted living quarters for about two years now, needing little care, but gradually getting weaker.  During this time he has been using a concentrator at night to help him with his breathing while he sleeps.  Over the last year his ability to breath normally has gradually decreased and causing him some distress, though he would never admit it.  He loves his independence so he never tells us anything about how he feels, or how he is breathing; he leaves that up to us, knowing that we are watching him.  He has known for awhile that he is moving towards full time care, dreading it, but he is compliant when the time comes for more help, which of course has been slowly growing over the last couple of years.

About two weeks ago his breathing became more labored during the day.  We took his pul-sox and it was 96% lying down, with the concentrator on 5%.  The percentage is good, but once he starts moving; he uses a walker, the percentage drops quickly.   Fearing Congestive heart failure, Theresa the head nurse got him an appointment with his primary physician, so I took him to Dr Manning’s office to get checked out.  Once we got there, and after a talk, Dr Manning thought it would be good to put him in the hospital, and while there get a chest x-ray, and since his lungs were filling up with liquid to get him some intravenous diuretic to help clear the lungs up, and also a blood test for a hemoglobin check.  Francis like most people hates hospitals, but like always he went along with us, since he was having such trouble taking breaths.  He only had to stay one night in observation; the nurse on duty noticed how uncomfortable he was, and could not rest, she notified the doctor and got an early release after all the test were done.  Normally he would have been there for two or perhaps three days.  When I brought him home the next morning he was feeling better, breathing easier but still very weak.  He is now using a wheelchair full time, and has to use oxygen on a permanent basis.  He has a tank on the back of his wheel chair, and he continues to use the concentrator at night.  At this time we use 2 liters, which is what is normally used. 

On Christmas Eve he was very restless, did not want to eat and I think a little despondent over his condition.  We talked a bit and I told him that if he wanted to get stronger he must eat; if he does not eat he will only get weaker.  So now he is eating better, wanting to get stronger, and hopefully but doubtfully be able to move back into his old quarters.

What happens when you get to be his age, is when you get ill you never bounce back to the same level that you were before the incident.  When talking to him about this I let him know that he would adapt, and hopefully hit a plateau, and still be independent much of the time, though he would have to sleep in a full care room so that we can keep an eye on him.  Luckily his mind is still very sharp so he understands what is going on.

He is a very gentle soul, a transparent personality, very childlike, but wise and crafty (in a very good way), at the same time.   He has a good sense of humor and is a man of deep prayer and insight when time is spent listening to him.  He is loved by many people, and over the yeas has had many visitors coming to see him, though lately he has painfully come to the conclusion that he needs to pull back a bit on that.  He allows us to let others know if he can’t see anyone.  Hopefully he will get a little stronger and more people will be able to visit him.

When working with the aged, I often wonder how I will deal with my diminishment, will I be able to be as graceful as most of the old timers I help to take care of.  Perhaps it is just the little choices we make everyday that will lead to a graceful old age, barring dementia of course……but even then some pull it off with grace and aplomb.  Old age is tough, but working with them, knowing them, talking with them takes the edge off a bit, when thinking about my twilight years.

Peace

mitch

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Evolution of a Thought

  Evolution of a Thought

What we can learn from what separates humans from ants, bugs, bears, and snakes. 
 
By Rabbi Avi Shafran 
Beneath the surface of the societal debate about whether the theory of evolution should be the only approach to biology in the American public school lies the real issue of contention: whether human beings are essentially different from the other occupants of the biosphere.

There are certainly enough unanswered questions about evolution and unknown details about the Biblical account of creation to permit the two to at least coexist, if not fully resolve themselves, in a single human mind. What truly animates those opposed to the way science is currently taught to most American schoolchildren is the notion - tirelessly promoted by adherents of the Church of Secularism - that humans are in essence mere apes, if singularly intelligent ones.
Science, of course, can never prove otherwise, limited as it is to the realm of the physical. And our bodies do, after all, function in a manner similar to those of gorillas and chimpanzees. But a purely "natural selection" approach to biology inexorably leads to the "animalization" of the human being, to the view that our sense of ourselves as special, as responsible creatures, is but an illusion and a folly.

And yet, all people who possess the conviction that it is wrong to steal, or to murder, or to mate with close relatives, or to cheat on one's spouse (or on one's taxes); all who see virtue in generosity, civility, altruism or kindness; all, for that matter, who choose to wear clothes, believe - against the dictates of Darwinism - that the human realm is qualitatively different from the animal (or, in secular-speak, the rest of the animal).

Either we humans are just another evolutionary development, leaving words like "right," "wrong," good" and "bad" without any real meaning, or we are answerable, as most of us feel deeply we are, to Something Higher.

The latter, of course, is the bedrock-principle of Judaism. And while there may be no way for the physical sciences to prove that humans are essentially different from all else, there are nevertheless some objective indications, subtle but powerful, that support the contention.

Language, of course, is one. G-d's infusion of spirit into the first human being, the Torah informs us, made him "a living soul." But Jewish tradition renders that phrase "a speaking soul." Communication, to be sure, exists among many life forms, but the conveying of abstract concepts - including the aforementioned "right," "wrong," "good" and "bad" - is something quintessentially human.

That we men and women generally care for our elders is another species-anomaly. Natural selection is myopically future-fixated. Progeny are what count in the evolutionary imperative; the elderly have already served their evolutionary purpose. And so animals care for their young, not their old. Most humans, though, feel an obligation to look not only ahead but behind.

And then there is a thought that had been percolating in my mind for a several days, growing slowly - evolving, if you will - until it emerged, fully-developed, only recently, at the end of a tiring hike, when, lying on a large flat rock, I caught my breath, watched an ant and remembered a Psalm.

My wife and I had spent a few days in the northeastern Catskill Mountains, and that morning had climbed up the steep rocky path leading from a winding country road to Kaaterskill Falls, a hidden and stunning double waterfall.

The trek was exhilarating but exhausting (at least to me; my wife waited patiently each time I paused to rest). When we reached the falls, nestled in a lush, verdant forest, we marveled at the beauty of the two cascading torrents, and at the loud yet soothing music provided by the rushing masses of water.

And there, on the rock, next to me, was the ant, meandering most likely in search of a meal (we had already eaten that morning). As I watched the insect, the Psalm - the 104th - came tiptoeing into my head. It is traditionally recited at the end of morning services on Rosh Chodesh, the first day of a new Jewish month; indeed, my thought had germinated when I had recited it the previous Rosh Chodesh, eleven days earlier.

It is a paean to the variety, interrelatedness, beauty and grandeur of nature. It speaks of the clouds and the wind, mountains and valleys, the food provided every creature according to its needs, nesting birds and sheltered rabbits. "How great are Your works, oh G-d!" the Psalmist interjects amid his observations, "All of them crafted with wisdom."

"I will sing to G-d while I live," he concludes. "May my words be sweet to Him... Let my soul bless G-d - praised be He."

King David's rush of appreciation and praise, born of nature's magnificence, seemed an appropriate accompaniment to both the falls in their glory and the ant in his search. Pondering that, I felt the thought congeal. The tiny creature and we lumbering interlopers on his turf had much in common; he needed his nourishment, just as we would soon be hunting lunch down ourselves. Yet there was stark evidence that morning of an essential difference between the ant and us. Between the ant and the Psalmist.

It was yet another, and significant, aspect of human uniqueness, another aptitude unknown in the animal world, and not easily related to any evolutionary advantage.

The bug, I realized, like all the other bugs - and bears and snakes - in the woods, was utterly oblivious to the beauty around him.

 
©AM ECHAD RESOURCES. Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. 
 

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Listen

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Driven

I think the old adage “never argue religion and politics”….. is probably a very wise one, but one that is very seldom followed. Everything today seems to be based on one group either berating another group or religion, or trying to prove the superiority of “ones” party or religion over others, a lot of wasted energy and time. From time to time I fall into this trap, and in the end, always regret it, since communication is simply not possible when this kind of seeking to influence others enters the picture; better to let others think and believe what they will, and hopefully others will give that respect back to me. Even if it isn’t given back, I don’t think it is that important, since it is in the nature of being human to disagree and also to misunderstand one another.

I have also noticed that if someone has issues with his or her past, be it parental, or religious, or political; these issues have a way of getting in the way of true communication, leading to simplistic and black white judgments of those who bring to the surface these inner conflicts. I suppose problems with authority, are the most common, something that I am still seeking to work thru, though my authority issues seem to be more manageable and less painful as I get older and hopefully wiser..

I have learned that I can’t influence anyone, nor dissuade anyone of anything, nor can anyone influence me, or change my outlook, unless I am ready to put aside my own prejudices and simply listen and perhaps learn; not always an easy thing to do.

I have also experienced first hand how people tend to judge other groups or religions by their lowest common denominator, to make sweeping generalizing of the worst kind, and then sit back and act as if they have stated a great truth! I have of course done this, why else would I see it in others. When this happens to me I usually just shut down, why bother (?), better to just conserve my energy for other more constructive endeavors.

I doubt that there is anyway around this, since we are more emotional than rational, and the more rational, people protest that they are, the more black and white they can be in their sizing up others, and their beliefs, not realizing that they in turn are causing others to do the same thing to them; labeling them as representing a particular group, be it theist, atheist or something other. I suppose those of a more fundamentalist bent tend to do this, since they always have a ready quote from scripture or some philosopher, to back them up. Such an endeavor is worthless since they can be countered by some other quote from the same scriptures or some other philosopher, or perhaps scientist if one leans in that direction. Of course being a fundamentalist is not reserved to just the religious; atheist, and political pundits do the same thing.

I suppose religion can be the worst, we can do the worst things to each other in the name of God. I am not only speaking of those who are fundamentalist, but also liberals who can be worse in their disdain for anyone who disagrees with them. Of course there are many exceptions in both groups, but the squeaky wheel makes the most noise, another adage that is only too true.

So do I give up trying to communicate? No I don’t, but I am trying to learn that I can’t really influence what others do or think, also to let others make their own mistakes, just as I have made mine, to simply let others be, and allow God to work in their lives just as I have experienced God working in mine. While it is true that each of us is the center of his or her universe, it is good to learn that in the world of other “inner beings” who also have a rich, and deep inner life, it is best to not believe that, since they are also speaking from their own center. I think it is true that the only true center is God, and it is the love that flows from that Center that will allow the ability to simply listen, to grow and mature, to let others be, and allow God grace to do its work. Each of us is unique, so let it be.

To treat others as I want to be treated is a difficult practice, since it takes a great deal of being present to the moment, to the person in front of me, to be able to do this. Emotions are powerful, and sometimes even if not felt, are central, in how they influence my ability to listen and to respect others.

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Prayer

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The word became flesh

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Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

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Why Bother to Think About Religion?

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As I think

As I think about my childhood and the experiences that come to mind, among the more pleasant ones, which are many, a few really stand out, and cause me to reflect on them from time to time.

Nostalgia  are memories that float up from the past that often leave an ache in the heart, it is like visiting paradise, looking back on a time of innocence and unsullied happiness; at  least that is what the experiences seems to conjure up for me.

I remember when I was between the ages of 7 and 13, before the hormonal teenage years forced me out of my childhood paradise; a time when I actually thought I was in a sort of heaven, were I felt only joy, freedom and a real desire to play, to run wild, wrestle with my friends, to throw myself 100 percent into what I was doing.  This often happened for a short time just before sunset, when energy seemed to become elevated and an openness to the moment was experienced with a painful intensity; since the knowledge was there that it would soon be over.    Usually when it got dark some of the neighborhood children were called in, and when just one of the participants left it took away from the experience, the balance was lost and so we would all begin to wind down, to feel tired and sadly as it got darker go home.  I always experienced this as a sort of death, like I was somehow leaving real life for something less, more constrained and less real, the wildness was gone, the carefree dance with the energy of life was over, at least on the surface. 

Childhood is for children, and so I am very content to leave it behind, but it is always nice to revisit it from time to time.  I don’t think I would like to go back and be young again, since it is our nature to grow, learn, and simply move on.  Granted middle age, or should I say late middle age is not as “fun” as it was being a child, but I think over all I love life more, and enjoy it with a deeper intensity, than when I was a child. One reason that I would not go back if I could; I would have to leave too much experience and knowledge behind, not a very good trade as far as I can see.  Of course there is a lot about being a child that I did not like another reason for really being happy to be an adult, and an older one.  School comes to mind.  To say I hated school would be an understatement, to say that I was a good student would be a bald face lie, and to say that my teachers loved me would also be less than the truth.  I don’t know why I hated school, perhaps I was just lazy.  I always loved reading and study, but for some reason if someone told me to study, or read something, I seemed to lose all energy to do it.   I think I was just stubborn, people tell me that I still am, but to this day I still have trouble if others tell me what I need to read or believe.  Perhaps I am arrogant, another thing I have been told by others from time to time.  I still hate to drive by schools, detest going into a school building, don’t like anything about them.  Now I know this is irrational, that schools are good and that I also benefited by going to them.  I learned my 3 R’s, also got my love of reading from going to school.  I remember being in the first grade and wanting so much to read the books that I saw laying around the house but could not.  So I took to reading, but once I leaned, I went my own way.  Good or bad I really don’t know, though I think I would have probably like being a good student. 

Well you know the old saying “this is the good old days”….which means twenty years from now the memories of today will seem better than the present.  Perhaps happiness is not something we can advert to, perhaps we need some distance to know that at that  time we were happy, we  were just too busy living to notice.  I know that I am happiest when I am not actively seeking it out, it sort of sneaks up one me, when I am not looking, when I am simply doing what I should be doing, happiness seems to just flow from that. 

I know people who have very difficult lives, who have lives of great suffering but also seem to have a great deal of happiness.  When I talk to such people about this, they usually tell me it is their faith, since it gives meaning to their lives, a place to stand from, a way to decipher life and its meaning.  Now some people seem to think that faith is some kind of crutch for the weak, well that may be true at times, but I think faith allows us to face life head on, to embrace whatever comes, to go inward connect with God, and by doing that we discover who we really are, the beloved of God, made in God’s image and likeness, which is love I guess.  I think we are being true to ourselves when we love, when we seek to help others, when we allow our hearts to expand. We are made to give, to love, it is our nature to do so, not to do so which can seem easy on the surface, is really the hardest road to take, since people who are always trying to find the easy way out tend to be the most unhappy, they seem too busy taking care of themselves to notice what others have to offer them or need.

In any case I think we are supposed to wear out, to use up our energy to help others, to love and hopefully to heal.  We are also made to allow others to love and also be a source of healing in our lives.  If this is not leaned then all the giving could be just another way to control others and keep them at a distance.  In any case, we all learn and grow, some faster than others, we should be content to simply help each other on the journey.

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Mercy and Justice

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Bitter Truth

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Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

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Let them be

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The man with the sign

He looked so tired standing there
With the sign held for all to see
Next to the stop sign
Looking miserable
And humiliated
Asking for money or food
There are so many of them
Some are con men for sure
But which ones
How does one judge.
I slowly pulled up
And saw him with down cast eyes
Waiting and shamed
I had to blow my horn
For him to know that I saw him
That I did not turn my head away
I gave him something
He looked at me and smiled
And so I meeting swift was over.
It is better at times to help
Ones never knows
But in need he was no doubt
If we only help those who are worthy
Then most of us would never receive…..
 Neither mercy nor love
Since both are a gift freely given
A gift that we bestow on one another
With no strings attached.

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Was Life Begun By Chance?

Tangents
	Gregg Easterbrook

The English astronomer Fred Hoyle, who died last week at the age of 86, may be remembered as the person who coined the phrase "Big Bang." Or he may be remembered as the researcher who cracked the scientific mystery of how stars manufacture the elements necessary for planets to form. Or Hoyle may be remembered as a prominent modern scientist who believed that life could not have begun by chance – and was denied a Nobel Prize for saying so. Or he may be remembered as a highly credentialled scientist who put forward the seemingly nutty idea that diseases fall on Earth from space. There’s a lot that could be remembered about Fred Hoyle. I think what is most important to remember is this: his life showed that questions of science and meaning are not mutually exclusive, but rather are intertwined. The son of an English wool merchant, Hoyle showed an early gift for astronomy: by the age of 10, he could amaze adults by taking accurate navigational sightings off the stars. Bored with school, he often played hooky. But rather than sneaking into movies, he sneaked into libraries to study chemistry texts; his parents were less than thrilled to discovery him making gunpowder one day. At university he won mathematics prizes and, as World War II approached, worked with the hush-hush British radar project. On the project Hoyle met two other scientists, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, who would, like him, go on to become renowned science mavericks. All three became fascinated with the discovery that the galaxies were flying apart from each other as if their enormity had once been compressed into a single point, and the consequent theory – then at the cutting edge of cosmology – that the universe began with an unimaginable explosion. The three couldn’t stand this theory, which seemed to defy common sense: an entire universe squeezed into a single point? Hoyle gave a speech in which he mocked the notion by calling it the Big Bang, which caught on as the theory’s name, though Hoyle meant to be flippant. Hoyle, Bondi and Gold were also distressed that under the Big Bang theory, the universe had a finite creation in time, prior to which there was nothing. This not only seemed to them another defiance of common sense – how could there be nothing, no anything? – it also nagged at Hoyle for spiritual reasons. At that time, Hoyle was a committed atheist. The Big Bang’s discrete moment of creation sounded to him too much like what was described in Genesis. Indeed, though some on the religious right today rather curiously view the Big Bang as an idea that undercuts the biblical view of creation, in the mid-century the astronomer Arthur Eddington argued that evidence of a Bang-caused universe made "religion possible for a reasonable man of science." And even if similarities between Bang thinking and Genesis were just a coincidence, the Big Bang implied some majestic force, sufficient to call forth an entire cosmos. Hoyle the atheist couldn’t stand that thought. As an alternative to the Big Bang, Hoyle, Bondi and Gold proposed the "steady state" theory. The universe, they said, has simply always existed: it had no origin in time and needed none, because no condition other than existence is possible. To make up for the fact that stars are burning away their fuel, the three supposed, there must be a hidden “continuous creation” that supplies hydrogen for suns, keeping an eternal universe alight. Detractors scoffed. Just where, they asked, does this mysterious continuous creation get its stuff? Of course, the Big Bang theory also assumes that stuff enigmatically emerges out of nowhere. So far all theories of the cosmos involve mystifying stuff-out-of-nowhere, with the dispute being whether it happens slowly or all at once. It’s hard to imagine a theory of creation that doesn’t entail something from nothing. The idea of an eternal “steady state” universe fell into disfavor when research of the 1960s began to confirm a Big Bang. Especially important was the discovery of “background radiation,” a faint cosmic glow, present everywhere, that seems as though it could only have been caused by a primeval energy discharge far more powerful than all stars combined. Big Bang calculations predicted there would be background radiation, whereas steady-state calculations predicted there would not be. Over the years, as Bang thinking became the scientific mainstream, Hoyle, Bondi and Gold gradually softened their advocacy of the eternal steady-state universe, though maintaining the notion could someday make a comeback. Current ideas about “virtual particles” that pop out of nothing, and about an extremely potent “Higgs field” of latent energy that permeates the cosmos, suggest it may not be impossible that some natural force does replenish existence. While he was fiddling with steady-state theories, Hoyle focused on one of the objections to the Big Bang -- that it seemed to account for why there are light elements such as hydrogen and helium, but not for why there are the heavy elements on which planets and life are based. Hoyle and others studying the problem began to theorize that heavy elements were formed by stars. Solar burning would fuse simple hydrogen and helium into progressively more complex atoms, a process dubbed “nucleogenesis.” Then the star would explode as a supernova and hurl its contents into space, where eventually the heavy stuff would form planets. But study of nuclear fusion turned up what appeared to be an alarming barrier. In tests, it seemed the solar foundry process ought to stop with the light element beryllium, never proceeding upward to the vital complex atoms. Years of work--we’ll skip the details--convinced Hoyle and three collaborators that stars form a full range of elements because an isotope of carbon can catalyze the jump to atoms more complicated than beryllium. The existence of this carbon isotope was statistically unlikely, in fact quite unlikely. Yet it turned out that exactly the correct isotope is present in “main sequence” stars like our sun. Hoyle was stunned by this discovery, for to him the presence within the roaring heat of stars of an unlikely substance, without which there could never be planets or organic life, seemed to suggest a guiding hand. He pronounced himself “greatly shaken” – meaning his atheism was shaken by an indication of purpose, a postmodern inversion of the traditional experience in which faith is shaken by indications of chance. Shaken atheism inspired Hoyle to begin pondering the origin of life, and he came to conclusions that defied scientific orthodoxy. The idea that the first animate compounds spontaneously assembled themselves was “absurd,” he declared, with a probability of only one in 10 followed by 40,000 zeros, much greater odds than that monkeys chained to typewriters would bang out Hamlet. And experiments with letting monkeys press letter-buttons show they require hours to blunder onto the shortest word, suggesting that even given billions of years they would never produce Shakespeare, much less a grocery list – just as lab experiments have never been able to employ chance to produce any living substance from simulated primordial “soup.” Hoyle would state, “the probability of life originating at random is so utterly miniscule as to make the random concept absurd.” So what’s going on? Somewhere in the universe, Hoyle came to believe, there must be “higher intelligence,” influencing if not necessarily directing events. The higher power might be God or might be some sort of advanced natural intelligence that is not organic. Suggesting that God really does exist got Hoyle into trouble which the scientific materialists who dominated the academy and literary thought; suggesting that aliens could have created human life got him into even more trouble. Establishment unhappiness did not stop Hoyle. He tormented Darwinian biologists at Cambridge University by asking, if life began on Earth, why don’t we see any evidence of the beginning? Why can’t we figure out what the conditions were? Why does it seem as though life suddenly appeared here fully functional? Hoyle began to advocate panspermia, the idea that life began somewhere else in the universe and was transported here. Perhaps, he said, advanced aliens specifically send the building blocks of life to promising planets like Earth, and someday when we meet those aliens they’ll teach us how life really began. Or perhaps an as-yet-unknown natural process creates building blocks of life and sets them adrift through space, where they fall on worlds and trigger organic chemistry. Hoyle was encouraged in this speculation by the discovery that bacteria living near deep-ocean heat vents endure higher temperatures than they would if entering Earth’s atmosphere from space. He was also encouraged by findings that enormous clouds of carbon-based molecules, similar to those in living things, drift through the cosmos. Aliens seeded the universe? Life from space? Sounds like a bad episode of "The X Files," and Hoyle was reviled for these views. When, in 1983, a collaborator on the nucleogenesis project won the Nobel Prize for physics and Hoyle did not, this was widely seen in the science world as a deliberate snub to his nonconformist views. The fact that Hoyle’s hobby was writing science fiction – much of it far-out stuff about alien civilizations – didn’t help. Yet there is no reason in principle why alien involvement in the origin of terrestrial life should not be considered. If the universe is at least 13 billion years old, as studies now suggest, there should have been ample time for other forms of intelligence to evolve, and who knows what sort of grand project they might undertake? Perhaps, the deliberate dispersal of life. Alternatively, if God is running the show, who knows how many life-forms the divine might create to populate an enormous cosmos, or what responsibilities for spreading new life other ancient beings might have been given? Undaunted by criticism – and comforted by the respectability he eventually won, becoming president of the Royal Astronomical Society and knighted Sir Fred – Hoyle went still further. Why, he asked, do diseases appear in many places at once rather than evolve in one place then slowly spread outward? His answer: Because germs are falling on us from space. Hoyle spent much of his last years laboring to show that the emergence of new influenza strains corresponds with the transit of Earth through clouds that contain organic molecules. This work is considered quirky at best by other researchers, though it might be noted that so far there’s no disproof, either. Quirky pursuits aside, Hoyle is credited both with the essential work of nucleogenesis and with forcing the debate over cosmic origins to become more scientific: competing ideas about how the universe began are now matched against each other to see which one can withstand criticism. Maybe the Big Bang will win, maybe the steady state will rally, maybe some other explanation will come into view. But because his name became associated with science fiction and unusual views about disease, the larger significance of Hoyle’s intellectual journey may be missed. He began his scientific career as a determined atheist and philosophical materialist--that is, one who holds that there is nothing more than what meets the eyes. By the time of his death, Hoyle believed that life must be the result of some unseen intelligence and that "there is a coherent plan for the universe, although I admit I have no idea what it is." And he ended by believing there is much, much more than what meets the eye: that humanity is still in the early hours of its awaking to a wondrously vast universe. These are great thoughts, and may stand the test of time. Fred Hoyle, who thought them, was a great man.

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Richard Dawkins

Tangents  by Gregg Easterbrook 
 
  Don’t take this personally, but if you are an American adult there is a one in two chance that Richard Dawkins, a renowned professor of science at Oxford, thinks you are “ignorant, stupid or insane,” unless you are “wicked.” These are the adjectives Dawkins chooses to describe the roughly 100 million Americans adults who, if public opinion polls are right, believe Homo sapiens was created directly by God, rather than gradually by evolution. Ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. Not much to choose from there!
   
The extremity of Dawkins’s statement represents yet another indication that the debate between natural and supernatural explanations for existence is carried out at the level of nasty caricature. Science figures denounce the doubters of evolution as ignorant rubes or Elmer Gantrys; evangelicals denounce biologists as sinister brainwashers whose secret agenda is the destruction of faith. What ought to be a fascinating discourse--What made us? How? Why?--instead too often becomes an occasion for childish name-calling on both sides. Isn’t there some way we can discuss God versus Darwin in civil tones?

Yes, but first a few words on who Dawkins is. A zoologist by training, he has become to recent decades what Thomas Huxley was to the late decades of the 19th century, the most forceful public proponent of Darwin. Dawkins’s 1986 small masterpiece "The Blind Watchmaker" spells out in detail the reasons why even something as astonishingly complex as the six-billion-point strand of human DNA could have gradually self-assembled without guidance. (A 1996 volume, "Climbing Mount Improbable," revisits the same argument adding details of recent research.) His 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" supposes that living things exist to support their genes, rather than vice versa. His most recent book, "Unweaving the Rainbow," argues that even if you believe there’s no God, you can still look on creation with awe.

Roughly since the mid-1970s, Dawkins has staked out hard-line positions against faith, belief in higher powers, and objections to natural selection theory. He devotes great energy to refuting claims of faults in evolutionary thinking, and especially to refuting creationism. Dawkins has declared existence to be "lacking all purpose," and the world "neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous." He says "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pointless indifference." (The universe I observe pretty clearly contains both good and evil, but maybe Dawkins travels in different circles.) He has called religion "very boring and not worth talking about," but talks about it constantly, for instance in a 1992 speech titled "A Scientist’s Case Against God."

Impressed by Dawkins’s ardor against creationism, the American software billionaire Charles Simonyi endowed a chair for him at Oxford in "public understanding of science." From his chair Dawkins regularly expounds against belief as "a scientist," though technically he’s a professor of science, not a working scientist. One of the first things Dawkins did from his tenured position was lead a crusade against Cambridge University’s plan to endow a chair in theology. Theology is all ridiculous superstition, Dawkins said, and unworthy of being dignified by study.

Which brings us to the first problem with Dawkins’s positions: he is arrogant. It’s one thing to say that the other side is wrong--maybe there’s no divine, believers may turn out wrong--and quite another to denounce the other side as ignorant, stupid, insane and so worthless its arguments should not even be heard. (Sorry, I left out wicked.) Saying the other side’s argument should not be heard is at best plugging your fingers into your ears, at worst the instinct to suppress free thought; it’s amazing to hear a tenured Oxford don essentially calling for intellectual restrictions.

Dawkins complains in the article that so many people believe things about science that are off the wall--for example, that early humans co-existed with dinosaurs--because their science educations are poor. He’ll get no argument from me on that. But I suspect one reason so many Americans have a poor understanding of evolutionary theory is that overbearing figures such as Dawkins talk down to them and act contemptuous of their religious beliefs. So people respond--perhaps quite rationally--by screening out the views of scientists whose motives they distrust. In this regard, it is telling that polls show Americans overwhelmingly accept many findings of modern research, such as the theories of relativity and of cosmic expansion. The scientists who favor these ideas generally aren’t in the habit of mocking peoples’ faiths, and so they are believed by the general public. If Dawkins’s professional goal is “public understanding of science,” he is a flop, seemingly trying his best to make worse what he is supposed to fix.

These things said, let’s focus for a moment on areas where Dawkins has strong points. The basic idea of evolution is, today, about as well established as the basic idea that the moon circles the Earth. Even Pope John Paul II has acknowledged that natural selection is “more than just a theory.” There is a rich, close to overwhelming body of evidence that living things evolve in response to changes in their environments and to other forces: the extreme creationists who deny any kind of evolution at all really are flat-Earth types, and it is hard to find anything nice to say about their positions. Dawkins is right endlessly to call evolution an established fact.

And there is haunting power to other of Dawkins’s contentions, especially about human inability to comprehend the time-scale of evolution. Cells becoming animals becoming people seems incomprehensible without guidance, but then four billion years--roughly the length of time life has existed on Earth--seems incomprehensible, too. Perhaps over such a span, the complex really could arise on its own from the inanimate.

But Dawkins is often guilty of sins of which he accuses others, including arguing against straw men and playing fast and loose with the flaws in his own ideas. In the "ignorance" article he declares, for example, that doctrinaire creationists “dominate the school boards in some states.” Oh really? Which ones, exactly? Creationists did take over the Kansas State Board of Education and issue a non-binding recommendation against teaching some aspects of Darwinian thought. The recommendation was rejected by Kansas’s Republican governor and ignored by all Kansas school districts, and the creationists were voted out last year. Today, every U.S. state requires basic instruction in the theory of evolution. By pretending otherwise, Dawkins tries to exaggerate his opponents' influence and cast them as a looming anti-intellectual menace.

Dawkins, like others who want evolution to win on all counts, tends to glide past the little problem that Darwinian thinking cannot explain (and in Darwin’s work itself, does not even try to explain) the origin of life. This is no small detail. I haven’t the slightest doubt that evolutionary mechanics explain how eohippus became the modern horse, or how Homo hablis became Homo sapiens. But why was there eohippus or primitive humanity or any kind of life in the first place? Maybe the ultimate explanation is natural, but today biologists don’t have much more than wild guesses, much less a solid theory.

Dawkins uses sleight of hand when he tries to suggest that anyone who doubts any aspect of evolutionary thought, including the chance creation of life, is the sort of extremist who thinks all the different Galapagos finches came fully formed directly from the Garden of Eden. You can accept the basic notion of evolution and still have real questions about why the gift of life exists--witness Fred Hoyle, a highly accomplished modern scientist who did just that.

Dawkins is guilty of a very human fault: insisting that people who don’t agree with him are not just wrong but ignorant, stupid, three-headed, etc. This is painful, because it’s just another force discouraging debate on the incredibly fascinating question of whether our origin is divine, spontaneous, or some combination of the two. It’s hard to think of a topic that’s more interesting to talk about, and there could be an engaging, ongoing discourse on this point among scientists, theologians, and others, if only the doctrinaire believers would stop denouncing the scientists and the doctrinaire scientists would stop denouncing the believers. In this, Dawkins, an extremely smart man with a great deal of interest to say, has managed to make himself part of the problem. But maybe I think that because I’m insane--or wicked.

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Tit for Tat

Tit for Tat is not where it is at

For the tit leads to more tats

And the tats to more tits

Till the tits and tats

Get so mixed up

That what the titt-ing

And the tatt-ing is for is missed

So don't even start

Nip it in the bud

So the Tit never comes to light

And you will find some peace

For keeping score

While at times tried

Is impossible

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zoom

There ain’t much anyone can do about it
Life that is,
It just moves on.
Sometimes smooth,
And more often than not bumpy;
With sudden turns that need to be made,
Potholes that jar the bones,
And the occasional flat,
That slows us down for a tad,
But then we are on the road again
Making up for lost time
If that is even possible.
We bump into others
And we might become friends.
Or sometimes enemies.
But bump we do, ain’t nothing can be done about it.
We start out as jazzy new models
With shinning bodies
And good gas flow,
But the bumps and grinds of life
Slowly wears us out
Till late model Fords we become.
Slower, not as shiny
But hopefully wiser,
Still enjoying life at a slower pace,
But inside where none can see us,
The young hot rodder still lives
With the shiny paint
And powerful motor and new tires
Zooming down the inner paths
That we discover as we age.

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Christmas Wishes By Fr James OCSO

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growth in trust

We don’t know what we have until we lose it

We take what we have for granted until it is gone,

Or perhaps taken from us,

By force or by chance.

Our possessions,

Our health,

Our friend’s,

Can be gone in an instant.

Life hangs by a thread though we forget,

Perhaps for the good;

Denial is not always bad,

It allows us to continue until IT happens.

Neither faith,

Nor being good,

Or honest will stop that.

Life happens to all of us.

No escape nor should there be.

The road must be walked to the end

The chalice must be emptied

Until our pilgrimage is over

And we hope against hope

That our faith is based on truth

And not on a lie,

The growth in trust is based on a decision

To run the race to the end

And when it comes

To dive into the unknown

Into the light.

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Sorrow Rushes in

No matter what I believe
when the loss of a friend is close
sorrow rushes in
a surge that cannot be stopped.

 
When the person is good,
who is kind and loving,
who touches the lives of others
so much bigger the void it creates

 
An emptiness is opened
a void created
when a light leaves the world
and it becomes a colder place

Leaving behind family
children though adult bereft
with an abundance of tears
that if left unchecked, would drown the world

 
Such a life
and the death that ends it
and the sorrow
is a tribute to a life well lived.

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Losing a friend

A good friend of mine (Bill) was diagnosed with liver cancer a few weeks ago; he is a very kind man, gentle with a ready smile for everyone or anyone he happens to meet.  His wife died about 8 years ago but he has 8 children with whom he is very close.  That fact alone is very telling about what kind of a man he is. His children adore him, and have gathered around him at this time.  I saw him the other night and he seemed in good spirits.  He was bald because of the radiation treatments he had to go thru and also the chemo, but he was in good spirits.  We talked a bit, though he does not like to talk about his illness; though he mentioned to me that he did not expect to live long, since the cancer has spread, so he seemed to be prepared.  He is a man of deep faith.

Today another friend came and notified me that Bill was told today that they will stop Chemo and put him on hospice since there is nothing else they can do.  From what I gather they do not expect him to live thru Christmas.  This saddens me, it is always hard to say goodbye to a really good man that one has grown to love.  Hopefully I will be able to see him again before he dies.

I am sure it is very hard on the children; goodbyes always are when they are permanent.  When a parent dies there is always a void that will never be filled.  The pain lessens as the years go by, but they are always missed, at least the good parents are missed, and Bill is one of those, probably one of the best.

Peace

Mitch

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about humor

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Mary's FIAT

Mary's heart was a listening one,
seeking the meaning of all that happened to her,
pondering it all slowly
for a lifetime it seems.
A woman of faith like us,
she walked the road of doubt at times,
since she is like us
always struggling to understand.
Her son a mystery who was different,
wiser, more loving than others,
with insights shocking in their simplicity
and also in their unfathomable depth.
No wonder she pondered all things in her heart.
Her FIAT unlike mine
came from a full heart that was whole,
healed by the depth of the love she had for her son,
who though shrouded in human flesh
she none the less worshipped,
loved, and adored.
In silence, alone with the mystery
that perhaps even Joseph did not understand.
Like us Mary also was lonely
except perhaps with her son
who understood her fully
and loved her unconditionally
just as He loves us.
Such is our comfort
and our hope
to be seen fully
and loved in spite of it all,
by someone who sees into our deepest heart
and understands it all,
and that is where love and mercy flow.

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My Soul's Dark Night By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

My Soul's Dark Night By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

The best of evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this struggle.
By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

I am a product of the best in evangelicalism: converted 32 years ago in a flood of tears after hearing the gospel, discipled by a strong prayer group, taught by great theologians. I know the strength of evangelicalism in bringing people to an intimate relationship with Jesus.

But what happens when you have relied on this intimacy and the day comes when God seems distant? What happens in the dark night of the soul?

I found out this past year. Weeks after finishing The Good Life, my son Wendell was diagnosed with bone cancer. The operation to remove a malignant tumor took 10 hours—the longest day of my life. Wendell survived, but he's still in chemo.

I had barely caught my breath when my daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with melanoma.

Back in the hospital, I again prayed fervently. Soon after, my wife, Patty, underwent major knee surgery. Where was my good life?

Exhausted from hospitals, two years of writing The Good Life, and an ugly situation with a disgruntled former employee, I found myself wrestling with the Prince of Darkness, who attacks us when we are weakest. I walked around at night, asking God why he would allow this. Alone, shaken, fearful, I longed for the closeness with God I had experienced even in the darkest days of prison.

What happens when you have relied on intimacy with God, and the day comes when he seems distant?

An answer came in September. I was standing alone on the deck of a friend's home in North Carolina, overlooking the spectacular Smoky Mountains arising out of the mist. I was moved by the glory of God's creation. It's impossible not to know God as the Creator, I realized, for there is no other rational explanation for reality. God cannot not be.

It struck me that I don't have to make sense of the agonies I bear or hear a clear answer. God is not a creature of my emotions or senses. God is God, the one who created me and takes responsibility for my children's destiny and mine. I can only cling to the certainty that he is and he has spoken.

I'm not sure how well the contemporary evangelical world prepares us for this struggle, which I suspect many evangelicals experience but fear to admit because of the expectations we create. At such times, we can turn for strength to older and richer theological traditions probably unfamiliar to many—writings by saints who endured agonies both physical and spiritual.

Teresa of Avila was a 16th-century Spanish mystic and author of The Interior Castle. Teresa, who suffered from paralyzing illnesses, wrote, "For his Majesty can do nothing greater for us than grant us a life which is an imitation of that lived by his beloved Son. I feel certain, therefore, that these favors [sufferings] are given us to strengthen our weakness."

John of the Cross, persecuted and thrown into prison, wrote the classic The Dark Night of the Soul. "O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation," John wrote. "If you knew how pleasing to God is suffering and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything, but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord."

In the evangelical heritage, we could draw on spiritual forebears like the Puritans and Charles Spurgeon. "When thy God hides his face, say not that he has forgotten thee," Spurgeon once wrote. "He is but tarrying a little while to make thee love him better, and when he cometh, thou shalt have joy in the Lord and shalt rejoice with joy unspeakable."

The point of these older traditions is that faith becomes strongest when we are without consolation and must walk into the darkness with complete abandon.

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

As theologian Michael Novak explains, true faith says, "Let this be done, Lord, according to your will"—even if we don't know what "this" is.

Evangelicals must rely on more than cheerful tunes, easy answers, and happy smiles. We must dig deeply into the church's treasures to find what it is like to worship God, not because of our circumstances, but in spite of them.

Following the events of 2005, my faith is deepened. Countless times over the years I've experienced God and his providence, but I've also known the dark night. God, I've realized, is not just the friend who takes my hand, but also the great, majestic Creator who reigns forever.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
December 2005, Vol. 49, No. 12, Page 80

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Breathe