This past Sunday, in Engage, John and Sheila Collins shared a profoundly moving film—“Nostalgia for the Light”. Filmed in the Atacama Desert of Chile, and encompassing both the astronomical research taking place there, as well as the heartrending search of Chilean women for the bodies of their “disappeared” family members killed after the military coup of 1973, this work of art is thought-provoking on many levels.
I was struck, however, by the similarity of the theme of this film—the human search for cosmic meaning and continuity—to the theme of a book I read last year which also moved me at the core of my being. The book is Barbara Brown Taylor’s “The Luminous Web” (which also inspired Sara Thompson Tweedy’s recent sermon on creation).
In these essays, Taylor explores what the latest scientific theories of quantum physics and chaos theory can teach a person of faith—concluding that we are “part of an infinite web of relationship, flung out across the vastness of space like a luminous net”.
Continuing to quote her: “In a world like ours, which even the new science calls a web of relationship, there is no place to stand apart from and above the rest of creation. Only in the most abstract sense can we assert our sovereignty over blue-green algae, toads, palm trees and swans. Our dominion, such as it is, lies in the privilege of our consciousness. We among all the others have been given the job of keeping covenant. We among all the others have been given the privilege of knowing whom to thank. Meanwhile we live in covenant with every living creature of all flesh, and our survival depends on our responsiveness to that fact.”
I don’t pretend to even begin to understand quantum physics or string theory, but I know that science is not a stumbling block to my faith. Rather it has given me a new, mind-expanding perspective of God, creation, and my place in this wondrous universe.
Peace, Helen
250 Bryant Avenue
