Science, Faith and Inner Stillness
For me – and I hope as you hear/ read this, for you
too, these seemingly quite disparate ‘projects’, ‘The Jesus Prayer Illustrated’
and ‘The Cross and the Cosmos’ will feel linked together to challenge you/me to think of widely different aspects of God’s personhood – and of our faith in
an age of wonders.
The very ancient Jesus Prayer (possibly 2nd
or 3rd century AD but certainly in use by the 4th century) is an aid to draw us intimately into the deep presence of Christ. It is
traditionally repeated over and over, sometimes with the help of a knotted
prayer rope, and before a traditional style icon to settle us for prayer
focused on the Lordship, compassion and eternality of Christ. Read more on this blog about The Jesus Prayer by clicking here
The use of contemporary icons – images that invite
the imagination to 'take off into space' in the company of the cosmic God –
sits, at one level, in dramatic contrast to the striving to attain the profound inner peace that can
come through use of the Jesus Prayer – but at another level sits absolutely
comfortably alongside it.
Well, I say comfortably – but that is a word that
will not resonate with everyone in this context.
We are children of an age in which new knowledge in a
myriad of fields streams towards us daily, if not hourly or minute by minute.
New understandings emerge one after the other, tumbling over each other as they
bid for our attention – or somewhat dangerously – for us to dismiss them as
irrelevant. And if we, as Christians, are seen to dismiss the wonders of
science, then we perhaps deserve to be dismissed by those who are at the
cutting edge of Astronomy, Cosmology, Palaentology, Quantum physics,
Neurosciences, Nanoscopy (the study of the sub-microscopic), oceanography – and
many many more exciting fields of exploration. And all these fields are uncovering
marvels at a pace never experienced until this, our present age. As one of the
poems in the collection says
That is true – but the poem does not even begin to
reflect the dizzy paciness of the uncovering of knowledge in this our present age.
Of course, there are many experts engaged in these fields
of research and exploration who are brilliant communicators of their topics and
can excite those who want to be excited by the depth of their understandings.
But, with notable, and comparatively few exceptions,
these women and men are primarily rationalists so can only go so far in their
expressions of awe and wonder. As the sign-off phrase for the European Space
Agency/ Hubble podcasts says, ‘Once again, nature surprises us – beyond our
wildest dreams.
And for the Christian; we can hopefully see all of
this incredible surge of knowledge as the handiwork of a God – who in essence,
proves himself God yet furher and further by the astonishing ways in which the
Universe, his creation, ‘works’ (a word, surely, far too limited and
mechanistic to describe the wonder of it all, for our vocabulary is perhaps, unsurprisingly too
limited for this purpose. We are, after all, mere humans attempting to describe the work of God).
So, can we, Christ’s people, celebrate all of this –
and hold firm to our understandings of a loving Creator, Saviour and Redeemer
who in the cosmic vastness of this startling universe loves every one of us –
to the point of dying for us.
That is the aim of this work – to offer these ideas
on the internet and to encourage fellow Christians and seekers to celebrate the
awe and wonder of it all whilst striving for the intimacy and the inner
stillness that ‘The Jesus Prayer’ invites us to participate in.
I hope you are willing to engage with this challenge –
at whatever level you feel God calls you to.
Amen
One area which might illuminate these ideas is in the amazing sphere of Nanotechnology - the science of working with materials at a sub-microscopic level, a science that may radically transform the worlds of computers and electronics. What a thought that our sleek laptops and tablets may seem bulky and slow in a couple of decades time! And there is now a whole collection of poems with a science theme which you can access HERE
One area which might illuminate these ideas is in the amazing sphere of Nanotechnology - the science of working with materials at a sub-microscopic level, a science that may radically transform the worlds of computers and electronics. What a thought that our sleek laptops and tablets may seem bulky and slow in a couple of decades time! And there is now a whole collection of poems with a science theme which you can access HERE
