As a follow-up to Saturday’s blog entitled “Observation,” I offer the following quotes related to science and observation. The first two are equally true although in tension with each other.

[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations. – Claude Bernard (1813-78) French physiologist, 1865.

The dispassionate intellect, the open mind, the unprejudiced observer, exist in an exact sense only in a sort of intellectualist folk-lore; states even approaching them cannot be reached without a moral and emotional effort most of us cannot or will not make. – Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter (1872-1939) English surgeon.

Sherlock Holmes, although fictional, is a great proponent of observation, data, and theory – in that order.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. – Sherlock Holmes, the fictional creation of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British physician and novelist.

George Santayana offers this definition which seems to agree with my own sentiments.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated. – George Santayana (1863-1952) U. S. philosopher and writer. The Life of Reason.

Lastly, Voltaire has this witty comment.

Common sense is not so common. – Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher.

Because I have studied science most of my life, some people will confide with me that they wish they had studied more science. I usually tell them that it is never too late to start. The convenient thing about science is that one can begin studying at any time. Science, at its core, starts with observation and extrapolation. We have all observed that if the wind is coming out of the east then a flag on a flagpole will point to the west. So, we observe a flag and can draw conclusions about which way the wind is blowing. If we notice that a flag ten feet above the ground is pointing one direction and one on top of a 250 foot building is pointing another direction, we can draw some conclusions about the movement of air currents at different altitudes.

The world is wide open for this type of observation and discovery. Great scientific breakthroughs happen because someone paid attention to their world. Take a look around you and see what lines of observation might be available to you. Many of us can see the moon rise and set from where we live. Have we really observed the moon? Can you answer this simple question? When the moon is waning, that is, going from full to new moon, which side of the moon is lit up? Left? Right? Another way to ask this question is, “When the moon is waning, does it take the shape of a ‘C’ or a ‘D’?” One should be able to answer this question after just a few nights of observation. If you get good at answering this question you will be able to make predictions about whether the moon will be brighter or dimmer the next evening. It will also allow you to make predictions about tides if you happen to live close to the ocean. The movement of tidal waters is another great source of scientific study. See what you can learn by noticing the direction anchored boats turn in the water at any given time of the day and how high the water is on the shore. What can you learn from these simple descriptions?

Another lunar observation that is available to us relates to the direction in which the moon revolves around the earth. You can do some observation over the next few days or weeks to see if you can determine whether the rotation is clockwise or anti-clockwise relative to a view from above the earth’s north pole. Here is a hint, you will need to observe where the moon rises in the sky (east, west, north, or south) and the time of moonrise over a few days. Is the time of moonrise the same every day or does it rise later or earlier each day? This was a query posed to me by a tenth grade physics teacher which set me off on a lifetime of observation and discovery. Try not to cheat and look up the answer on the internet. This is where much of present scientific study can falter. We get lazy and do not seek the answer ourselves. Instead, we trust someone else’s answer without even seeing the data that led them to their conclusion.

There is a group of crows that collect mussels from the seashore close
to my house. They have learned how to do a sort of crowish “science.” Once the birds have collected the mussels they must find ways to break open the shells to get at the life-giving meat inside. This hunger, and survival by eating, is the huge motivator for their scientific study. If they drop the mussels from a height onto rocky places, some will break open; but often the mussels will catch too much air and flutter to the ground without making a significant impact with the ground. These crows have observed that if they drop them on the seawall, a walking and biking path along the shores of the ocean, there is a good chance that a human will step on the mussels or run them over with their bicycle. This nicely opens the shells and allows the crows to get their breakfast or dinner of mussels. These crows have become keen observers of human behaviour. They know when the paths are busy and how to use this tool to their advantage. They have also discovered that bicycles are much more likely to break open the shells than are footsteps. Cyclists race along the path and do not even notice that they are running over mussel shells whereas pedestrians tend to step around the shells to avoid the crunching underfoot. In places where the seawall is nicely divided into a cycling path on one side and a pedestrian path on the other side, one can observe approximately ten mussel shells on the bicycle side for every one mussel shell on the pedestrian side. Crows have learned probability. Presumably, the crows that do put the odd shell on the pedestrian side also know that occasionally the tourists do not pay attention to the segregation of bicycles and pedestrians; and cyclists will sometimes ride on the pedestrian path.

Vancouver has massive murders of crows that fly through the air at predictable times. Every evening, about a half hour before sunset, they fly past the windows of my home. I am not sure how long it took me to come to this conclusion but it was a natural one as I noted the murders of crows, the time of day, and the amount of light at the time. They are expert at flight and use the currents of air to their great advantage. I am sure I could learn several things about the weather and bird behaviour if I took the time to chart things like wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, temperature, speed of the birds and altitude at which they fly. Science is very egalitarian. It makes itself available to all.

This quote by Eugene Peterson fits well with my own thoughts of the last few days.

Before it ever crossed our minds that God might be important, God singled us out as important.  Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us.  We are known before we know.
This realization has a practical result: no longer do we run here and there.  Our lives are not puzzles to be figured out.  Rather, we come to God, who knows us and reveals to us the truth of our lives.  The fundamental mistake is to begin with ourselves and not God.  God is the center from which all life develops.  If we use our ego as the center from which to plot the geometry of our lives, we will live eccentrically.
All wise reflection corroborates Scripture here.  We enter a world we didn’t create.  We grow into a life already provided for us.  We arrive in a complex of relationships with other wills and destinies that are already in full operation before we are introduced.  If we are going to live appropriately, we must be aware that we are living in the middle of a story that was begun and will be concluded by another.  And this other is God.
My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself.  There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me.  That means that everything I think and feel is by nature a response, and the one to whom I respond is God.  I never speak the first word.  I never make the first move.1.

It occurs to me that if we start with ourselves and extrapolate to God, we end up with a superhuman, a god made in our own image. If we start with God we find that we are marked with his image. We end up with little creators.

1. Eugene H. Peterson, Run With the Horses (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1983), p. 38.

Once we begin to think about our place in time and geography, the mystery of where we happen to exist is great. Think of all of the other points in time we might have been born. I was born in the latter half of the 20th century; but, I could just as easily have been one of the many people born at the beginning of the 20th century, or in the 5th century of the current era, or 2000 years before the current era. I might have also been born in the year 3000 of the current era, if our world should happen to last that long.

Then, there is the mystery of where I was born. I am one of the fortunate ones to have been born in a wealthy country of the 20th century. It was not a wealthy country in the 5th century but, when I happened to come along, Canada was one of the greatest countries on the planet. The good fortune of living in a country with modern medicine, plentiful food, and clean drinking water is certainly something about which to be grateful. The mystery of how this happens is astonishing.

The reality is that all of us have arrived in the middle of the story. We appear at a time and a place that has been shaped by countless lives that have gone before us. We could not choose the kind of world into which we were born and there are limits on how much we can affect it now that we are here. We are in the middle chapters. It is not the beginning of the book; nor is it yet the end. Each of us finds our place in this story. Some of us work hard to find our place and make our mark. Others are content to drift with the tide of time and place.

Some of the lives that have come before us have been obscure and did little to shape this time and place. Others have put a permanent mark on the world as we know it. What mark will you leave upon this planet? What is your perception of the degree to which you want to shape the world? Each of us indeed has a choice. No one is requiring us to change the world. Yet each of us has the ability to do just that. There is a principle in the book of Esther which proposes that we may have been placed in our current circumstances for a reason. This principle suggests that all of us have choices that we can freely make. When opportunities to act come our way, we may choose to do nothing while others act and have an effect on the circumstances of the day; or we may choose to see the opportunity as something for which we are uniquely prepared and choose to act with resolve. Esther 4:14 can be paraphrased, “If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise from another place; but who knows but that you have come to your position for such a time as this?”

Jesus set the book of nature before me and I saw that all the flowers he has created are lovely. The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wildflowers to make the meadows gay.

It is just the same in the world of souls which is the garden of Jesus. He has created the great saints who are like the lilies and the roses, but he has also created much lesser saints and they must be content to be the daisies or the violets which rejoice his eyes whenever he glances down. Perfection consists in doing his will, in being that which he wants us to be.

Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be – and becoming that person.

Saint Therese of Lisieux, from Story of a Soul

There is a humorous scene in the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? in which two characters discuss the spiritual decisions made by three of the four fellow travelers. Tommy, has just sold his soul to the devil, while Pete and Delmar were caught up in an emotional moment and committed themselves to a Christian Church.

Tommy Johnson: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain’t it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I’m the only one that remains unaffiliated.1

Ulysses (masterfully played by George Clooney) suggests that he is unaffiliated and not committed to any particular view. Yet, his rejection of each of the options embraced by those with whom he travels is a choice in itself. He seems to be willing to simply take his chances.  There may be many others who can relate to this. Certainly, I meet people who have decided to play the odds and seek to remain unaffiliated. Mary-Chapin Carpenter expresses this sentiment in her song, “I Take My Chances.”

I took a walk in the rain one day on the wrong side of the tracks
I stood on the rails till I saw that train
Just to see how my heart would react
Now some people say that you shouldn’t tempt fate
And for them I would not disagree
But I never learned nothing from playing it safe
I say fate should not tempt me

I take my chances, I don’t mind working without a net
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get
I sat alone in the dark one night, tuning in by remote
I found a preacher who spoke of the light but there was brimstone in his throat
He’d show me the way according to him in return for my personal check
I flipped my channel back to CNN and I lit another cigarette

I take my chances, forgiveness doesn’t come with a debt
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get
I’ve crossed lines of words and wire and both have cut me deep
I’ve been frozen out and I’ve been on fire and the tears are mine to weep
Now I can cry until I laugh and laugh until I cry
So cut the deck right in half, I’ll play from either side

I take my chances, I pay my dollar and I place my bet
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get
I take my chances, I don’t cling to remorse or regret
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

I take my chances
I take my chances

But even as we cut the deck and roll the dice, most of us are aware that there is more to it than that. There is no such thing as remaining unaffiliated. Every choice we make, or refuse to make, puts us squarely in the camp of others who have chosen before us. Non-affiliation is simply affiliation with those who refuse to choose.

1 Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Directed by Joel Cohen and
Ethan Cohen. Performed by George Clooney and Chris Thomas King. 2000.

Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, The Lacuna, contains a number of insights into world politics in 1930 through the early 1950s. At one point, Kingsolver gives a powerful analysis of the events that led to extreme investigations into the disloyalty and subversive activities of American citizens suspected of having communist ties. In the 1940s through 1950s, many who had even a passing association with persons with a connection to communism were fired from government jobs or blacklisted from working in education or the entertainment industry. In her novel, one of her characters describes the cause this way.

“Do you want to know my theory? . . . I think it’s the bomb. . . . When that bomb went off over Japan, when we saw that an entire city could be turned to fire and gas, it changed the psychology of this country. And when I say ‘psychology,’ I mean that very literally. It’s the radio, you see. The radio makes everyone feel the same thing at the same time. Instead of millions of various thoughts, one big psychological fixation. The radio commands our gut response. . . . That bomb scared the holy Moses out of us. We became horrified in our hearts that we had used it. Okay, it ended the war, it saved American life and so on and so forth. But everyone feels guilty, deep inside. Little Japanese children turned into flaming gas, we know this. How could we not feel bad. . . . Okay. We used the bomb. We convinced ourselves we are very special people, to get to use this weapon. Ideal scenario, we would like to think it came to us from God, meant for our own use and no one else’s. . . . Suddenly we are God’s chosen, we have this bomb, and we better be pretty damn certain no one else is going to get this bomb. We must clean our house thoroughly. Can you imagine what would happen if England also had the bomb, France, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union all had this bomb? How could a person go to sleep at night? . . . You see, this is what I am saying. The radio. It creates for us a psychology. . . . Winston Churchill says ‘iron curtain.’ Did you see how they all went crazy over that? . . . J. Edgar Hoover says this curtain is what separates us from Satan and perhaps also the disease of leprosy. . . . ‘Communism is not a political party but an evil and a malignant way of life’ – these are his words. A disease condition. A quarantine is necessary to keep it from infecting the nation.”

As I read these words I found myself drawing connections to the events of September 11, 2001 when 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets and attacked America. In the 1940s, the radio had a powerful ability to shape the culture of the American people. Everyone was scared by what was broadcast on the radio. In 2001, it was television and the internet which allowed for the rapid dispersal of information and a galvanizing of public opinion. An instant fear struck America. If this can happen, what else might be possible? The internet discussions made “everyone feel the same thing at the same time. Instead of millions of various thoughts, one big psychological fixation.” America was instantly in a state of fear. It was not communism but terrorism that brought fear. It was not an “iron curtain” that galvanized the thoughts into one psychological fixation but the “war on terrorism.” That state of fear and security alert brought on by these events still affects our psychology today.

It would be interesting to interview Barbara Kingsolver and see how much comparison she was seeking to draw between this dark period of history in 1940s America and the dark mood of 2001 in America and the world. Was this consciously in her mind or was she merely seeking to remind us of the dangers of extreme thinking? Reading literary reviews suggests that other readers have made similar connections between then and now. You may want to pick up a copy of The Lacuna for yourself and consider what connections and emotions are created for you as you read this well-written story.

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2009.

I like this description of city and garden and Fall and Redemption in Making the Best of It.1

We must be careful, however, to see the Fall also in its context as just one part of the story. Some Christians instead have interpreted our current existence as if we are in a world utterly fallen, corrupted beyond repair, a valley of the shadow of death through which we must travel as expeditiously as possible in order to reach the sunlit lands of the next life. In particular, culture itself is seen as a bad thing in the form of the city – the antipode to Eden (which is, to make this contrast work best, depicted as a “natural” place, not the garden it was, which of course implies culture). The first city was founded by Cain. Aha! That means cities are bad, and thus all human culture downstream of the Fall is bad.

Yet long before the Bible set up its ongoing dialectic between the evil city (Babel/Babylon) and the good city (Jerusalem/Zion), even a little study of the immediate Biblical context suggests an interweaving of the good and the bad after the Fall. Genesis 4 proceeds from the story of Cain and Abel to show us at least two forms of cultural decline in the person of Lamech, who marries two wives and then boasts to them of his disproportionate violence, killing a man who had (merely) hurt him. Yet this Lamech fathers three sons, one of whom is the ancestor of nomads, those who dwell in tents and heard livestock; another of whom is the first musician; and the third of whom is the archetypal metalsmith. However one might be suspicious of cities, and however much one might disdain loutish Lamech, in the gracious providence of God even this family produces cultural advancement through three creative and productive sons.

I have always marvelled at a creator God who could use so many flawed people for His purposes. There are many in the Bible whom I would not want to meet, let alone befriend, who are used to fulfill the cultural or spiritual purposes of God. He seems infinitely capable of meeting us at our level and redeeming some part of our lives. He has worked through history with those who have pledged their faith in Him and those who have not and still brings about growth and progress in this family of humanity. I marvel at a God who allows good rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous; who works with the faithful and the depraved; and allows atheists to create art and science and literature which benefits humans and other creatures on this planet. I may not like this “loutish Lamech” but I am thankful for his farming, musical, and black smithy sons. It is a good thing that He can use any one. That tells me that, despite my flaws and sin and sloth, He can still use me.

1. Stackhouse, John G., Jr. Making the Best of It: Following Christ In The Real World. New York: Oxford University Press , Inc., 2008.

Tucked in a 64 year old book is a mathematical formula that gives clues about grouping procedures. Bossard1 points out that the number of people in a group may increase by simple mathematical progression, but the increase of relationships comes through geometric progression.

Two variables are defined. Let Y equal the number of persons in the group, and X the number of personal relationships between the members. Then using the formula X = (Y2 – Y)/2 (that is, X equals Y squared minus Y all divided by 2), as Bossard1 has, we find that the larger the group, the more disproportionate the increase in personal relationships.

Size of group: 2 3 4  5   8   12   15  35
Relationships: 1 3 6 10  28  66 105 595

Note how radically the number of relationships increases with the addition of one or two people. What does this do to the individual in terms of communication, understanding, and ability to participate without pressure or frustrations?

Hundreds or thousands may be spectators. Working, interacting groups seem to do best when composed of five to eight members. If the group is larger, some become performers and others spectators. At age six, spontaneous groups seldom exceed three or four children. Sizes now accepted for school classes are much too large for good cooperative work.2

If the mathematical formula is a hang-up, try drawing the relationships on a page of paper to convince yourself of the truth of this work. See the example at the end of this blog.

What implications do such formulas have for those of us who work with small groups in education or church leadership? How might we be excluding people in some of our educational contexts? We talk a lot about being communities of believers or communities of learners but this information suggests that members could easily be left on the fringe and never truly feel part of the group. The person who can entertain a large group of 1000 people may not be the best person to teach people to care for others or interact with others. Some of the goals we seek to accomplish in school or church cannot be accomplished in the size of groups we seek to use. We would be better served to restructure some of our groups so that peer learning can happen in groups of twos and threes. Neil Cole has some further insight on group dynamics in his book Cultivating a Life For God: Multiplying Disciples Through Life Transformation Groups.3 It may well be worth another look.

1 James H. S. Bossard. The Sociology of Child Development. New York: Harper and Brother, 1948. p. 146.
2 This whole section is adapted from an article by Mary Margaret Scobey, entitled “Developing and Using Classroom Groups,” 1960. See http://ascd.com/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_196312_scobey.pdf.
3 Cole, Neil. Cultivating a Life For God: Multiplying Disciples Through Life Transformation Groups. Carol Stream: ChurchSmart Resources, 1999.

I once again find myself thinking about the concept of home. Home is so much more than a house or a city or a family or a marriage or a collection of people with whom we feel an affinity. Home is at the deepest core of what it means to be human. Coyotes have dens where they raise their young, birds have nests from which they launch their chicks, ants have a communal nest which they will defend with their lives, but we humans are unique in that we have been commanded by our God to “leave our father and mother and be united”1 to that other person with whom we will form a new home. Yet, we still have difficulty expressing the concept of home. Barbara Kingsolver has said,

I’ve spent hundreds of pages, even whole novels, trying to explain what home means to me. Sometimes I think that is the only thing I ever write about. Home is place, geography, and psyche; it’s a matter of survival and safety, a condition of attachment and self-definition. It’s where you learn from your parents and repeat to your children all the stories of what it means to belong to the place and people of your ken.2

Her latest novel, The Lacuna, is about a man with no home at all. Separated from his biological father, Harrison Shepherd lives with his mother who is so busy smoking cigarettes and trying to find the next man who will “take care of her” that she has little time for her son. The men who come into his life are distant and transient. His country, the one to which he feels the greatest loyalty, is Mexico. Yet, he has only adopted Mexico by virtue of spending his youth there with his mother and with a man who was not his father nor his mother’s husband. Mexicans see him as a little gringo and on occasions when he lives in Washington, DC, he is seen as a foreigner. He truly is a man with no country and no home. Even his name, too awkward for Mexicans to pronounce, is lost and he is called by whatever nick-name others choose to give him. This lack of home results in a man who, like the words of a James Taylor song suggests, builds a home behind his eyes and carries it in his heart.3

Yet, his is a very broken home. For, with the concept of home, it is “hard to know what it is if you never had one.”4 As I continue to read the book I find myself hoping that Harrison Shepherd will indeed find home. I am hoping for a great ending like that depicted in another work of fiction, ‘Till We Have Faces, where the protagonist comes to the end of her life and can say, with joy,

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.5

1 Genesis 2:24.
2 Kingsolver, Barbara. Small Wonder. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
3 “Oh it’s enough to be on your way; It’s enough just to cover ground; It’s enough to be moving on; Home, build it behind your eyes; Carry it in your heart; Safe among your own.” “Enough to be On Your Way” words and music by James Taylor, Hourglass, 1997.
4 “Home…hard to know what it is if you never had one; Home…I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home; That’s where the heart is.” “Walk On” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind, 2000, words by Bono and music by U2.
5 C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1980.