On Believing
I don’t know why bad things happen to good people.
I don’t know why or how two armies can go to war and both do so in the name of God.
I don’t know why those men flew those planes into those buildings one September day; but supposedly did it in the name of God.
I don’t know how any religious group can trumpet their moral religious values and then even more fervently pass JUDGMENT on their fellow men.
I don’t know how any spiritual leader could ever encourage hate or dissention. (no matter what the ends and means happen to be)
I don’t know how an omnipotent and merciful God could allow the second by second tragedies and horror that are continuously inflicted on humanity - by their fellow men. War. Genocide. Oppression. Lies. Hate.
I don’t know how a loving God can permit a natural disaster to devestate millions of lives.
Yet I look up to the sky on a crisp rural night. I peer into the deep space with my telescope and marvel at the glow of objects whose light left its source long before anything resembling a human yet existed - or when dinosaurs still roamed our planet. I look at the stars, each one something like our own - the Sun. There are billions all around us. Then there is empty space and then there are billions more upon billions more. All of these suns. All of these worlds. Out there. Where did it all come from? The farther out we look, the farther back in time we go. Technology has brought us to the very edge of our creation. It seems certain that all matter in the Universe came from one infinitesimally small point of infinite or nearly infinite mass called the Singularity that exploded with a force unimaginably huge. From the great heat and pressure were eventually formed the basic elements, the molecules that make up everything we are and know. About 14 Billion years ago it all began.
So what happened before that? What made the singularity?
How did our beautiful planet, with its single moon to stabilize its orbit, and its breathable atmosphere come to being? How did it happen to be just close enough to the Sun and have just the right combination of electromagnetic fields and atmospheric conditions to make it so habitable to so many creatures?
How did LIFE come to being? How did those creatures get here? I can wrap my little brain around gravity and pressure and heat and chemistry - but the creation of life?
What about our ability to be aware of ourselves and aware of others and contemplate our origins? What about our ability to quantify our thoughts and feelings into language?
I put my headphones in my ears and they are connected to a device that can process millions of numbers per second. A device that can reproduce sound from a digital source - composed of ones and zeros.
I listen to Mozart and Beethoven. I listen to Art Tatum and John Coltrane. I listen to James Taylor and Willie Nelson. Something happens. I re-live their creations note by note. I marvel at the structure of composition. The poetry speaks to my heart; that they too felt the way I feel. Just human. I look at my beautiful children. I put my arms around my beautiful Wife.
Where does love come from?
Where did WE come from?
So many questions… ugly questions… beautiful questions… but I still believe… more than ever… I still believe…
(photo of the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51 by Charley Socci 2001)
