Pieces of a Far Grander Pie

Yesterday, I had lunch at Jeb's, a local restaurant in Lowville, and after lunch took a somewhat circuitous route back to the place we rent on N. State St.  Looking down one block, it crossed my mind that I would pass the home of a parishioner and then passed my mind that I would meet her on the street.  Then other thoughts crept in, and I walked.  Sure enough, within a minute or two I saw said parishioner coming out her front door, and we chatted for a brief moment.  She didn't seem particularly surprised when I told her, "I knew I was going to see you,"  And we went our separate ways.

As readers of this blog know by now, I think a good deal about the relationship of faith and science—and about the contentious battle being waged between biblical literalism and scientism for the hearts and minds of the American people.  What I wish both sides could see is that there are things going on in life and the universe far greater than their narrow ideologies allow them to see.  How did I know I would see my parishioner?  Why do many people have similar experiences?  What are these subterranean levels of knowing that undeniably and inexplicably allow us to know bits and pieces of the future that we shouldn't be able to know?  There are things going on here that are beyond the ken of both sides.  Atheist scientists can rail and foment at the mouth all they want, but there are times when prayer actually and really has an impact on lives.  It is a form of "future influencing" somehow parallel to my brief moment of "future knowing" that shouldn't "logically" exist but they do.  Something is going on in these places, and it seems obvious to me that when we eventually begin to understand them better we will find scientific and spiritual realities converging in ways that we can't even guess at today.

Faith and science should both expand our minds, our horizons, and inspire us (yes, fill us with the Spirit) to continue the journey forward in discovery of deeper realities than either sees now—a journey that will eventually reveal that the knowledge of science and the knowledge of faith are but two pieces of a larger and far grander pie.  Instead, the literalists-fundamentalists and the science-ists build their massive fortifications of intellectual/spiritual narrowness and lob their grenades of half-truth and half-arrogance at each other, almost glorying in a totally unnecessary war.  They seem to need each other, to feed off of each other, and to gain their sense of identity from being against each other.

As I've said before, violence—including its intellectual and spiritual varieties—always has consequences, and they are seldom pretty.  Violence kills, destroys, wrecks & ruins.  The violent clash going on between the religion-ists and science-ists is at once unscientific and unspiritual—and it is hurtful as violence always is.  End of rant.