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Guest author: Liz Budd Ellmann, MDiv
Every 2.2 seconds, a foot long pulse of neutrinos leaves the circular accelerator at Fermilab near Chicago, Illinois, USA and is aimed northward toward a target a half mile underground in a defunct 19th century iron mine in Soudan, Minnesota, USA. The tiny particles travel at almost the speed of light, reaching Soudan 2.5 thousandths of a second later.
Last week I visited my family on the north shore of Lake Superior where my grandparents built a cabin. My father took me to visit an experiment that has captured his imagination. He ferried me to the underworld.
In an old mining cage, we descended down, down, down, half a mile into the dark, damp earth where iron miners once toiled. We entered a modern high-energy physics lab carved into 2.7 billion year old rock. On one wall, a huge bright mural tells the story of scientists experimenting with fundamental structures of the universe (see mural by Joseph Giannetti). Bats fly through space in the mural, as they do in the deep mine.
The lab houses receptors consisting of six-thousand tons of giant steel plates that detect the existence of neutrinos that have been blasted from the Fermilab accelerator 735 kilometers (457 miles!) away. The neutrinos not only move through clay and rock but also are so small they pass through the emptiness of atoms. Only neutrinos that strike the nucleus of atoms within the six-thousand-ton-steel-plate receptors are detected. Of the billions of neutrinos sent every 2.2 seconds, only four neutrinos a day are recorded.
There are no commercial applications for the information gained by the elaborate and expensive experiment half a mile underground. Pure science. Basic inquiry. A passion for understanding. But what are we trying to understand? Creation. God’s universe. God’s great labyrinth. In fact, the name of the experiment is MINOS meaning Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search. You may recall in mythology that Minos was the builder of the labyrinth.
Dallying with quantum physics puts me in a state of awe. I certainly do not understand all that is going on, but the realization that neutrinos are God’s handiwork deepens my faith and appreciation for all God has created, including the vastness of space in everything I perceive to be solid, like rock and steel.
My father prays differently than I do. His search is unlike mine. And yet, we seek. We search. We yearn for connection with the great mystery.
In the comments section of the blog, please share your thoughts about how you go deeper and explore further. What inspires awe for you?
08/03,2010, at 16:42
How wonderful and inspiring to experience the different ways we search. As clergy, we can often live in the realm of spiritual searching through the various forms of prayer, contemplation, study, discussion and ritual. Science, a "religion" to some, offers all of us (religious, spiritual, or secular) ways to engage in the search for meaning; the search for answers to great mysteries; and the engagement with awe like no other. Searching in the realm of science is neither contrary to, greater than nor less than spiritual/psychological/emotional searching. It is another rich element of how we are human, and of how we can choose to connect with ourselves and others. Thank you for this posting. Peace.
08/03,2010, at 17:00
'deeper' and 'further' arises ~ as if by chance ~ when i manage to 'step past myself', my self concerns and my self obsessions, and glimpse the larger context within which I am intricately interwoven. Then does a much more magnificent understanding of 'my' 'self' arise. It is REAL. I am so much more than I imagine from my habitual small way of seeing. This is where AWE dwells, and is met, and arises within me. It is a 'very thin place' as the ancient Celts would say, 'There's nay much 'tween one self and the Laird' Cultivating this thin space is the result of disciplined effort to step past oneself, in meditation, in nature, with companions on the road.
08/03,2010, at 21:17
I enjoyed reading Descending. Liz asked, "What inspires awe for you?" Recently I read Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief - soon after hearing Fr. Terry Moran speak on The New Cosmology. Both perspectives gave me a new awareness of God's presence as I prayed. From the farthest reaches of the universe to the deepest parts of my cells, God is there!
08/03,2010, at 23:25
Quantum physics inspires both awe and wonder. So much is yet to be discovered and understood. The work in this area is doing much to broaden our understanding of the universe and provide us with ways we might be connected spiritually. At the same time I am reminded that my sense of awe comes, as always, in simple ways. I am often struck dumb at the sparkle I see in a child who is truly alive. It amazes me how much of my own inner-child comes forth when I see a child really happy. It is truly a gift. We are blessed by complexity and simplicity.
08/03,2010, at 23:26
For me going deeper and exploring further God's love for His people happens when I am able to serve those in need by visiting them in their homes, two by two, as Vincentians of The Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Today was EXTRAORDINARY -- we listened; we responded with compassion. care and $$ to keep their electric from being shut off by 4:00 today or their water running or pay their past due rent or give them gas for their vehicle so they could go to their new job; we prayed and they cried, at times sobbed, in our arms...knowing truly that God loves them just as they are, even in the mess they are, HE lets them know He is THERE WITH THEM!!! The song about us being His hands, His heart, His voice came on the radio as we completed a difficult home visit and my Vincentian partner (Young Adult 19 years old) -- and we just looked at each other and shed our own tears. This is an experience of going deeper - together with the poor - in their hot homes (93 today in Wisconsin - is very hot and humid!) - and us bringing them HOPE, joy, love and peace -- only because we prayed the "Radiating Christ" Prayer (which follows) BEFORE we began our Home Visits -- so everything we heard, everything we said would be Radiating HIM through us---shining HIS light for them in their darkness. What a JOY at the end of the day experienciong the awareness that DEEP down inside you were an instrument of HIM today and giving GLORY and PRAISE to our God for this gift presented to us today by those in need. I told my partner "I cannot imagine NOT serving the poor and needy - I cannot imagine NOT bringing Christ to those I meet on this life's journey." What a gift from God to LIVE OUT the GOSPEL Message. All Praise and Honor be His -- as St. John Cardinal Newman said --- today we simply asked to be used in our opening prayer and we became "links in a chain, a bond of connection amongst His people". What JOY to be that link..shining HIS light on those in need! “Radiating Christ” A Prayer Adapted from the Writings of The Venerable John Henry Newman By the Missionaries of Charity Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being, so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus! Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as your shine; So to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from you, none of it will be ours; it will be you, shining on others through us. Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. -------- I Have My Mission God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself, but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory--we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name. God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission--I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his--if indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work: I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling. Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me--still He knows what He is about. 0 my God, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I--more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfill Thy high purposes in me whatever they be; work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see, I ask not to know--I ask simply to be used. from John Henry Newman's Meditations and Devotions
08/04,2010, at 04:23
I was sailing with a friend who is a research scientist at the lab where my wife works. For ten years before going to graduate school he was a Trappist at St. Joseph's Abby. I asked him what the difference was between the monk's cell and the research lab? His comment: "No difference, in each place you seek the truth. And in both places the more you know the less you know and new questions always reveal themselves. This keeps a healthy helping of mystery always alive'" Tony Burkart, Franklin, Me.
08/04,2010, at 08:32
Great article Liz! I just returned from our family cabin in north Wisconsin - it is so awesomely beautiful up there! I am always inspired to write and praise God for such splendor. I am a scientist and spiritual director, now working on an MA in theology. I love to read books by physicists on spirituality - they can take me into wonder just as effectively as mystical poetry. The advances made in quantum physics are astounding as they pertain in their own way to ancient wisdom, sacred stories and nomenclature. If you have ever read the Lrod's prayer in Aramaic you will know that it speaks of vibration and light and the same forces that QP now breaks down into particles and waves. I am reading a great book call Catching the Light, by Arthur Zajonc, Physics professor at Amhearst and director of teh Academic Program of the Center for Contemplative Mind, and Sr director of the Fetzer Institute. The book details the history of our ideas about light - what it is and where it comes from. It is both spiritual and scientific and a wonderful amalgamation of science and religious/philisophical ideology. He has also written a book called Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry and brand new book with Parker Palmer called The Heart of Higher Education, about our need to teach more a more holistic worldview in western culture. When I read QP spirituality I am struck by 3 things: amazing creation, our ability to discover it, and the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients that is completely coincident with what we are finding in science, but just explained more in metaphor. We have so much to learn from both our contemporary explorers and the ancients, who did a much better job of realizing nonmaterial (spiritual) reality than we do today. Thank you so much for offering this unifying expose!
08/04,2010, at 12:26
Wonderful reflections on the many ways God puts awe-inspiring opportunities in each day. Thank you for sharing yours!
08/04,2010, at 16:57
As I was reflecting today, I am awed that God continues to grace me with noticing. My "aha" of the Divine was I can be in the presence of others and see Him in them, the noticing of the Holy within others as well as myself. I am inspired to seek it, I am awed that I participate in it, yet humbled to be in it's presence. As I continue to notice and continue to be awestruck, those are for me the opportunities to be filled with grace and to be present to that grace, to be graced with an opportunity to be the face of grace. We are so very different, yet we all yearn for the other, in this we are called to be awed in the omnipotency and gentility of the Divine.
08/13,2010, at 11:45
Thanks for publishing Liz B. Ellmann's article. In order to know what is real and valuable we need an ulltimate referent and that is the Universe Itself. To get there, in the language of Thomas Berry, we need to make three very serious commitments: one to observational science, two to a developmental universe, and three to an inner self-organizing process.