In the television series Fringe, there is an exchange between two scientists who recognize that they have gone too far in some of their research. Quoted here is a portion of the script as Dr. Walter Bishop (played by John Noble) and Dr. Nicholas Boone (played by Jefferson Mays)1 reflect on past mistakes, souls, redemption, and judgement.

WALTER: Well… that makes one of us. A little memory loss is often kind to the soul.
NICHOLAS BOONE: That a figure of speech? Or do you believe there is such a thing? The soul?
WALTER: There are days when I wish I did. There are days when I wish I didn’t.
NICHOLAS BOONE: I often wake up at night, frightened, with the understanding that there are things man shouldn’t know. That the scientific trespasses I’ve committed…
WALTER: …will one day be judged. Belly and I would often debate this very thing. William Bell. You’ve heard of him?
NICHOLAS BOONE: Well, of course. Founder of Massive Dynamic, richest man in the world.
WALTER: We used to share a lab. Quite a fall, hmm? If indeed there is a soul, we must consider then that there is still time for redemption. We’re not being hauled off to be judged yet, Nicholas.2

Similarly, one of the themes that can be picked out in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake trilogy is a critique of science. The books point us toward questions related to what should and should not be attempted in the scientific endeavour. There are many things that can be attempted; yet, humans must ask, “What are the costs involved in such a path?” To this date we have not been good at analyzing such questions or setting appropriate limits. Yet, “there is still time for redemption.”


1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1390443/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
2 http://fringepedia.net/wiki/Midnight 

Most rolled their eyes when they heard of it; others laughed at the silliness of creating synthetic meat in a petri dish when millions of cows walk the earth; some were simply nauseated. Margaret Atwood had a quiet smirk. A Dutch lab invited the media to a press conference at which a researcher sat down to a hamburger with a meat patty that had been grown in the lab.1 They explained how 20,000 small strips of meat had been grown at the staggering cost of £250,000 per 142 grams of meat. Back to Atwood, she has increased her fame by prophesying that humans would one day make synthetic meat in the lab. An excerpt from her 2003 novel, Oryx and Crake, confirms her foresight:

“This is the latest,” said Crake.
What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.
“What the hell is it?” said Jimmy.
“Those are chickens,” said Crake. “Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They’ve got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.”
“But there aren’t any heads,” said Jimmy. He grasped the concept– he’d grown up with sus multiorganifer, after all– but this thing was going too far . . .
“That’s the head in the middle,” said the woman. “There’s a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don’t need those.”
“This is horrible,” said Jimmy. The thing was a nightmare. It was like an animal-protein tuber.2

Actual synthetic meat grown in the Dutch lab took three months to grow and was dry, firm, and required bovine stem cells to initiate the process. Some have suggested that it might be a bit like eating a rather large wart. Still, this is just the beginning of a potential food revolution that could change the very definition of food.

Meanwhile, Margaret Atwood signs her latest book completing the trilogy started in Oryx and Crake. Maddaddam,3 her new dystopian novel picks up where The Year of the Flood left off. All three of the books are a painful reminder of the implications of allowing scientists to define morality and the limits of acceptable experimentation. They readily point us to the need for moral and scientific boundaries as well as relationship with the Creator. Others will now attempt to perfect such experiments; other sponsors will want to get in on what Google co-founder, Sergey Brin has started financing. Is there any end in sight? Not according to Margaret Atwood.

1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2384715/At-tastes-meat–Worlds-test-tube-artificial-beef-Googleburger-gets-GOOD-review-eaten-time.html
2 Oryx and Crake, 2003 – http://www.amazon.ca/Oryx-Crake-Margaret-Atwood/dp/030739848X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1379625203&sr=8-1; Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. 2009 Paperback
Edition. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003, page 202.
3 Maddaddam, 2013 – http://www.amazon.ca/MaddAddam-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0771008465/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379625337&sr=8-1&keywords=maddadam

One of the more philosophical Star Trek movies was Star Trek: The Motion Picture released in 1979. The plot line wrestled with what makes humans human; what makes a machine a machine; what makes a sentient being sentient; and what might happen when an alien race encounters a human-made probe. The story revolved around a Voyager space probe (the fictional Voyager 6) that had been repaired by unknown inhabitants of an unknown solar system before being sent back to earth to find its creator. Commander Spock gets the most important line in the movie. In a rare expression of human emotions Spock cries for V’Ger and says, “Each of us… at some time in our lives, turns to someone – a father, a brother, a God… and asks…’Why am I here? What was I meant to be?'”1

These words came to me once more as I read the news that Voyager 1 had left our solar system (the first of two actual Voyager vessels) making it the first human-made object to explore interstellar space.2 Originally launched on September 5th, 1977, it is an example of “boldly going where no one has gone before.” Crossing the boundary into this territory places Voyager into space in which the dominance of our star finally fades to imperceptible levels and allows for the measurement of interstellar magnetic fields, galactic particles, and high energy plasma ejected from other stars. Such measurements will enhance our perception of the universe and contribute to our understanding of fundamental questions like “Why am I here?” and “What was I meant to be?”

1 Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Directed by Robert Wise. Performed by Leonard Nimoy. 1979.
2 http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/353199/description/At_last_Voyager_1_slips_into_interstellar_space

In 1919 William Butler Yeats wrote a rather dark poem that matched the mood of the time subsequent to the end of World War I. Yes, there was celebration of the end of the war but there was also a sense that something had changed. A darkness had crept into the world.

The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?1

This poem continues to be quoted and referenced and still has great relevance today. In 1996 Rolling Stone reporter Will Dana stated, “We used to think the center couldn’t hold,” referring to Yeat’s poem, “All of a sudden, there doesn’t seem to be a center at all.” We live in a “centreless” world. Such is the cultural experience of living in a world stipulated without any reference to the transcendent.2

This is what Nietzsche anticipated in 1882, in his book, The Gay Science, when he wrote,

“Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?” Nietzsche anticipated that with the decline of Christianity it will seem for a time as if all things had become weightless or without center. Nietzsche continues, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives—who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent?”3

Must the prophetic words of Nietzche continue to unfold? Or, is there is a Way back to God? Let those who have ears and eyes, hear and see.

1 William Butler Yeats (1865-1939); written in 1919. http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html
2 As quoted in http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/cultural-ptsd ; “Cultural PTSD” in Comment Magazine,  May 31, 2013.
3 As quoted in http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/cultural-ptsd ; “Cultural PTSD” in Comment Magazine,  May 31, 2013.

I find Solomon to be one of the most tragic figures in all of the Old Testament. Read about him in First Kings and particularly 1 Kings 10:1-11:13. He becomes king of the greatest kingdom in the world and is humble enough to ask God for wisdom in ruling over the kingdom. God granted him great wisdom and he is recognized by all as the wisest king ever to live. Other rulers came to visit and were enthralled with his wisdom and wealth. At that point, Solomon began to lose perspective. He began to believe that he was special and entitled to all that he had. Certainly making a huge throne decorated with ivory and overlaid with fine gold suggests that he was losing perspective and thinking highly of himself. Then there is his other weakness: sexual addiction. At least that is what I would call it when someone has had sexual relations with more than 1000 women. 1 Kings tells us that Solomon had 700 wives (of royal birth) and 300 concubines. In our present day, Tiger Woods has admitted to having sex with 120 women and has taken therapy for sexual addiction. Mick Jagger estimates that he has slept with approximately 4000 people. At one point Jagger went for therapy for his sexual addiction but seduced the therapist and slept with her.1

Practically speaking, many of Solomon’s marriages would be classified as brief sexual relationships in our contemporary society. Solomon did not know each of these women as long-time partners with whom he confided. They were not wives in that sense of the word. I would speculate that perhaps there was something in his relationship with the Queen of Sheba which may have been a catalyst to this bad turn of his life. The Bible relates his rapid departure from a chaste life immediately after it speaks of her visit. If Solomon were a ruler of a country today there would most certainly be a public outcry to have him seek psychological treatment.

How did a man with such wisdom fall so low? The enemy of God took advantage of a weakness in the personality of Solomon. Solomon did not deny himself the finer things of life: a large throne, a beautiful palace, and the delight of multiple sexual encounters. Other kings of this time were allowed, indeed entitled, to the finest of the women in the land (rock stars and golf pros may also be seen as entitled in our time). These women gladly gave themselves to a powerful king or, in some cases, were so bound by slavery that this was the best of many bad options for them. But Solomon was not to be like every other king in the world. He was called to a higher standard; he was called to God’s standard and he failed to live up to this. “The Lord was very angry with Solomon” (11:9); and yet he treated him with loving grace and continued to use him even as Solomon experienced serious consequences as a result of his self-indulgent lifestyle.

This is why I see Solomon as one of the most tragic figures of the Old Testament. I can learn from his prayer for wisdom and I can learn from his many wise decisions; but perhaps I learn the most from his failings. I learn that I must avoid indulging myself with good things. There are many things I have in my life that are good but they must be enjoyed with gratitude and self-control. Certainly, my sexual life with one wife must be guarded; but, also my entertainment, food, and drink must come under the Lordship of my God. “God, I pray for wisdom in all areas of my life and I pray for wisdom for the whole Body of Christ.” May we who have known the grace and mercy of God live grateful, satisfied, and self-disciplined lives.

1 Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger, 2012, Gallery Books.

I often cringe when people suggest that we should all stop “judging.” Sometimes my cringe is because I feel bad for the person who feels that others are passing judgement on their actions. Sometimes I cringe because I feel that the person is seeking to justify actions that are certainly not worthy of praise. Sometimes I cringe because I simply do not know what to do with the emotions I feel when someone hurts someone else. If I judge that someone has made a judgement upon someone, do I have enough knowledge to know why that person has made the judgement? If I condemn the judgement, am I also guilty of judgement? Sometimes my cringe is because I sense that people are continuing to hurt others with words meant to correct a fault.

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1

This passage tells us to treat others with the respect with which we would want to be treated. It is a recognition that we will see the sin in others’ lives but may not recognize the same type of sin in our own life. For example, I may see the lifestyles of those who earn large salaries and judge that they are living excessively and that they should live their lives differently. I may judge that they have succumbed to the sin of greed. I may not see that I have chosen a lifestyle in which I use more resources than I need and that others may see my lifestyle as excessive when compared to theirs. An appropriate reaction would be for me to live with generosity and model a lifestyle in which I seek to use wisely the resources that have been entrusted to me. I can also pray that others might wisely use the resources with which they have been entrusted whether those resources be small or large.

I may look on the sexual lifestyles of others and recognize sin without seeing the sinfulness and brokenness of my own sexuality. As Robert Burns wrote, “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!”1 Might we begin to see, not only the sin of others, for we all know that there is sin in our world, but, might we also see ourselves as others see us.

Might we see that we too are broken and in need of rescue from ourselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”2 If I choose to do so, I can pray for others who sin against God and against people and ask God to be gracious toward us all. Might we seek to see ourselves as God sees us.

1 From “To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church,” a 1786 Scots language poem by Robert Burns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Louse
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship; http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2723088-nachfolge

These words found in Romans 1:20-23 are worth meditating upon.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

The passage counsels that God’s eternal power and divine nature can be clearly seen in what has been made. So, how do we understand the many people who see all that has been created and suggest that it simply came to be out of nothing. Take for example the newborn star, Herbig-Haro 46/471 which has only recently been detected.2 Since light from this star takes approximately 1400 years to arrive on earth, astronomers are now observing events that occurred around 600 AD. The enormity of the distances and the incredible explosive power of a star coming into existence inspires awe. Yet, to whom or what will we ascribe this power and awe? Is this evidence of God’s eternal power and divine nature or simply the universe continuing its birthing process? Will we recognize an eternal God or postulate an eternal universe? Which is the more likely to be eternal, matter or God?

These are legitimate questions and it is necessary to ponder upon them to come up with answers that satisfy. I think upon these questions to ensure that I continue to agree with previous conclusions. I must also consider my motives for looking in one direction or the other as I answer such questions. Why would I rather believe in an eternal and impersonal universe than an eternal and personal God? What difficult consequences might I be seeking to avoid? Given the nature of the universe, which is more likely to be eternal, matter or God? Indeed, it would seem that God would be just the kind of being that one would expect to be eternal. Yet each of us must meditate upon these things for we have been given the ability and the freedom to come to conclusions on this ourselves. Others will come to different conclusions but I must meditate, reflect, and draw conclusions that will then influence the way I live. For my part, I have found that I can agree with C. S. Lewis when he said, “I felt in my bones that this universe does not explain itself.”3

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbig%E2%80%93Haro_object
2 This research was presented in a paper entitled “ALMA Observations of the HH 46/47 Molecular Outflow” by Héctor Arce et al, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal; http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-room/press-releases/632-alma-takes-close-look-at-drama-of-starbirth
3 http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne in 1624. His poem by the same name suggests that the things that each of us do affect others around us. We are all part of the community of humankind and what I do has an effect on the whole. I thought of this the other day as I went for a run. I was continuing to train for a competition that, because of life circumstances, I could no longer fit into my schedule. One part of my brain said, “Why should I run today? There is no race in your near future.” Yet another part of my brain reminded me that I run not just for myself. I run to stay healthy so that I might be around for more time to take care of the needs of my wife and family. I run to inspire others to stay fit and healthy. I even run to affect the overall fitness level of my country. When statistics are run on how many people are physically active in Canada, I want to be one of the people that brings up the national average.

The same is true of other aspects of our lives. The decisions I make and the good or evil I choose to do affects others. There are extreme examples. If I choose to drink alcohol and drive there is a good chance that I might seriously injure or kill someone with my car. But there are less extreme examples as well. If I consider it my right to pursue my own selfish direction in life and not work at my relationship with my wife it affects my wife, my children, my friendships, and society as a whole. Every person who walks away from marriage and divorces their spouse adds to the statistics of divorce and makes it that much easier for others to believe that it is normal, natural, and okay. So each of us can recognize that we have an effect on the whole of our society.

The good that we can do also inspires others. When a person takes a week or two of their holidays to go to Haiti or Cuba or Uganda to help with a water project, serve the poor, or build a school, others are inspired to do the same. When we volunteer on a local school committee, community association, strata board, or flood relief effort, we challenge others to consider their part in serving others. Together we make a difference.

How do I want my life to be remembered by those who follow? What am I doing right now that is an inspiration or a distraction to others? We are all connected. No man or woman is an island.

‘No Man is an Island’
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.1

1 MEDITATION XVII; Devotions upon Emergent Occasions; John Donne; http://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html

I have often been intrigued by the words of the song “Wide Eyed” sung by Nicole Nordeman.  The lyrics and the melody are beautiful; yet I have often found it difficult to understand what the song writers are trying to say. The lyrics are written below and there is a link you can click to listen to Nicole Nordeman’s performance of the song while you read the lyrics.

Wide Eyed
Performed by Nicole Nordeman on her 1998 album, Wide Eyed
(Written by Derald Daugherty and Steve Hindalong; © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.)

When I met him on a sidewalk
He was preaching to a mailbox
Down on 16th Avenue
And he told me he was Jesus
Sent from Jupiter to free us
With a bottle of tequila and one shoe
He raged about repentance
He finished every sentence
With a promise that the end was close at hand
I didn’t even try to understand

He left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what he had to say
Then casually dismissed him as a fraud
I forgot he was created in the image of my God

When I met her in a bookstore
She was browsing on the first floor
Through a yoga magazine
And she told me in her past life
She was some plantation slave’s wife
She had to figure out what that might mean
She believes the healing powers of her crystals
Can bring balance and new purpose to her life
Sounds nice

She left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what she had to say
Then casually dismissed her as a fraud
I forgot she was created in the image of my God

Not so long ago, a man from Galilee
Fed thousands with His bread and His theology
And the truth He spoke, quickly became the joke of educated
Self-inflated Pharisees like me

And they were wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
They were tongue tied, drawn by their conclusions
Would I have turned and walked away
And laughed at what He had to say
And casually dismissed Him as a fraud
Unaware that I was staring at the image of my God

The first verse speaks of a person we might find on any inner city street corner: he seems to be delusional and lost in his addiction to alcohol. He is so incredible and his claims so outlandish that we miss the value of the person underneath the addiction; yet, just like me, he has a mother and was once someone’s little boy. He was created in the imago dei and, like a coin, still retains the image of God stamped upon him no matter how worn and damaged the coin may be. He has something to teach us even as we look at the wreckage of his life and wonder what we could do to help him.

The second person met in the song is a woman in a bookstore who is searching for answers in her life. The singer of the song wishes her well in her search but seems to not engage her in a conversation that might direct her to the image of God in which she was created. The singer has a preconceived notion that this woman would not be interested; but this does not change the fact that the woman in the bookstore also has the image indelibly stamped upon her whether or not she attends to it.

The singer begins to wonder what her response to Jesus might have been had she lived in the time when he walked and spoke in Galilee. Would she have been too well-educated to accept the teachings of this local carpenter’s son who fed people with bread and fish and theology? Would she have casually dismissed him as a fraud and missed the fact that he was the very image of our God?

The song reminds me that I want to be aware of the people who cross my path and what I can learn from my interactions with them. I want to look for any glimmer of the imago dei in those I meet. I want to be wide-eyed and aware, looking for opportunities to speak words of truth and right theology based upon the teachings of Jesus of Galilee and trust that his words will be sufficient for all of our lives.