My Theory of Everything

Before you begin:  This has been percolating in me for awhile.  It has now boiled over.  All thoughts and opinions are my own mind at work as an armchair theologian and scientist.  I hope you take something away.

The Past: The Earth Was

There are two ways in which the Earth has a "was". Way one is that time is cyclical and progresses in an endless loop. This is one argument that physics is attached to. That there was no beginning and there will only be an "end" when the universe reaches maximum entropy and collapses upon itself starting the process again.  This might be the first or the 50th cycle.

The other way is that the universe has a beginning and an end. This way has two interpretations. Way one is the interpretation of science that says one can never know if there is a deity and, because a deity is an unnecessary complexity, its existence can be ruled out. Way two is the idea that there exists a being outside of time that created the entire concept of time, added rules and said "go."

God may be an unnecessary complexity but I believe that God's existence more fully explains the theory of a beginning and an end. It answers questions that science cannot because it steps less than a second in time beyond our understanding.  Science can, through curiosity and questioning and deeper thoughts than I will ever consider, tell me what happened fractions of a second after the Big Bang.  It cannot; however, tell me what happened one second before that.  Science has limits.  Our insight and intellect has limits.  Scientists push those limits all the time and I believe it to be a noble effort.  There are physical limits to our humanity and that does not mean we stop pushing.  I cheer on science as its movement forward moves forward my understanding of the universe and the creator.

God Created

God created is a theological statement. The Bible is clear that it was through God's action that the Earth, the universe and people were created. It doesn't go into detail about the cosmos, the methods or the ways. It is left as a divine mystery in the same way the miracles are presented.

My understanding and love for science augments and enhances my trust and belief in God. Science is not a threat to God or his existence. It is only a threat to literal interpretations of scripture and what a threat that is.  I want to posit that a literal interpretation of scripture limits God and then define a God who is not only unlimited but wider than I could ever have imagined.

An Unlimited God

I love Rube Goldberg machines.  If you haven't, go watch some YouTube videos of these machines.  They're amazingly complex and at the end produce a very simple result.  It starts with a single action, a marble rolling down a hill.  Pretty soon, there are contraptions flying here and there and in the end, a match is lit. So much process for such a small result.

Which creator more fully demonstrates creativity: The one who uses the side of a matchbox to light a match or the one who sets up a system the size of a warehouse and ends up striking a match?  When I look at God through a deep love of science, I see a machine so beautiful in its complexity and simplicity that I cannot help but wonder if, when time was set in motion, a marble rolled down a hill and now I'm looking at some lit matches and ignoring the process because the result is clear.  Science starts with the marble moving and can explain every step in the machine.  My faith answers the question of why the marble started moving in the first place: God created. Faith also answers the question of why it came together: God created.  The mechanism is fascinating and it's not bigger than the maker.

Literal interpretations of scripture start with a burning match and ignore the process.  A theology of an unlimited God coupled with an understanding of science enables me to see the motion of the act of the marble, the machine in motion, the match being lit and fit the pieces together.  It's flawed, clearly, but it fits.

Multiverse

One of my beliefs, backed up by some science is a belief in the multiverse.  That there exists uncountable universes that are parallel to this one.  It's out there but there are serious scientists who believe it to be true.  I'm in their camp for now.

I am going to take a theological leap and connect that belief to the sin-act of Adam and Even in the Garden.  I believe that sin was humans taking on the ability to create deviations in space and time and see the past and future of those deviations: knowledge of good and evil.  That sin is not just a separation from God but a separation from the timeline that God created.  Billions of years, billions of people, decisions by the second, leading to innumerable splits.  A multiverse torn to minuscule shreds by our own decisions.

Tears and Knits

And I believe that across all those innumerable splits, one act: the death of a person chosen to be the spark that starts the reversal.  In this timeline, his name is Jesus.  I believe that by participating in that sacrificial act, by choosing us over me, by choosing love over hate, I participate in that initial act of knitting together the fabric of space and time, torn since the first act.  I participate in unifying those disjoint threads.  I still rip, to be sure, but my motion of knitting is far more powerful than the motion of tearing and echoes further through eternity.  The knits are strong, the splits are weak and momentary.  Injustice anywhere rips this fabric everywhere.  The arc of the moral universe is long and it bends towards the timeline of God through my chosen participation.

The Present

The question remaining for me, if I profess Christ and adore science is how do I participate, in small and in large ways, in knitting space and time back together? In unifying the split past into a future?  This responsibility is not to be taken lightly.  It also means that when I rip, I have a choice to mend or to tear further and reconcile the split.

The Future: Heaven

Finally, I want to end with a brief discussion of an idea of heaven.  Heaven is a single timeline where the rips in the fabric have been repaired and I have memory of all the me's that ever existed.  The me who made the right decision and the me who made the wrong one.  The me who experienced tragedy and the me who was never born.  This is why I do not worry about being left out or missing out on something.  Somewhere there is a me experiencing that.  I can visit them in my mind, in my imagination, and someday we will embrace and become what God made me to be: in His own image, living in His timeline.  As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.  Amen

Grace

I sit on the annoying side of this disease.  Schools, businesses and public spaces closing down.  I will not set foot in church for a few weeks.  This is annoying.  This has yet to become the problem it may become.  I sit on the annoying side of this disease.   Hoping this is the only side.

"T'was grace that taught my heart to fear"

I never understood that phrase until I realized that it's only because I see where I could be that I recognize, clearly, the gap between those two spaces.  And the chasm of luck/grace/context/moment/je ne sais quois that covers that gap.  My soul has been taught to fear the closing of that gap.  That the difference between me, sitting on my laptop healthy and sound, and someone on a ventilator has very little to do with things within my control and very much to do with whatever it is that created the gap.  I'll call it grace.  It has taught me to fear.

"And grace my fears relieved"

Relief is a funny word.  I sometimes use it when I am not late to a meeting due to the speed with which the train traveled one day.  But it is closer to the boys hearing on the radio that their unexpected trip halfway around the world had ended and they will no longer need to patrol a jungle.  Or the children hearing the trucks which bring rice.  It is not the end of fear but the end of the lack of hope.  Grace does not remove my fear.  It takes my fear and says "The gap is small but there is hope even if it closes."  It is the "maybe..."  Or the ellipsis.

"The earth shall soon dissolve like snow"

This is not a lyric sung most of the time but it is good.  The gap is small.  Closing.  Closing faster than we imagined.  But it is also expected.  The heat death of the universe isn't that far away.  The glaciers will be gone.  Life is a mist, an illusion, a small collection of CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen) arranged in a masterful way.  From CHON have I come and to CHON I will return.

"But God who called me here below"

I do not claim to understand or have a monopoly on what happens after death.  What I do believe, fundamentally, is that life (human life, especially) has reason.  I believe in God not because I have hope in a divine spaceship that I will go to after death.  I believe in God because when I look around me at what exists that is beautiful and hard (community, society, marriage, parenthood, communication, friendship, ad infinitum) I cannot help but see something larger.  It is the mythical oneness of creation which I have chosen to see as directed and not accidental.  The part of me that breaks when I see what is happening in Italy and what could happen in the US.  The part of me that has broken as I unpack my family story and find slave owners and a woman who came and discarded her identity to become a servant in a home.  The part of me I didn't have any part in.  The grace that taught me and relieves me. Indeed.

"Will be forever mine"

I don't know how long my forever will be.  My psychosomatic cold could be the onset of something bigger and I could be ash in an urn within the year finally knowing the answer to the deepest questions of my soul. I could outlive the airline industry.  No matter the outcome, I know that

"Grace has brought me safe thus far.  And grace will lead me home."

Rage

Rage Against the Machine, in the running as my favorite band of all time, has announced a reunion tour with Run the Jewels.  Available tickets in Chicago are pushing $300 for nosebleed.  By the time the show hits, I expect to pay (if I decide to pay it) close to $500, maybe more, for a single ticket.

There's a part of me that's really mad that I'll have to spend so much to go see a band noted for their anti-capitalist stance.  I want to decry their hypocrisy for not playing a cheaper show or a bigger venue to allow the people who want to come see them go see them.  But then I think a bit....

Those who need to hear their message the most are the ones who can afford a $500 ticket.  The poor and the marginalized don't need Rage to tell them to "Wake Up" and see that the systems and structures aren't for them.  They know that.  That is their lived experience.  The Black and brown people living in a police state don't need to be told that "Some of those that work forces are the same that burned crosses."  They know the KKK member police officers by name and face and know how to avoid them.  Moms and dads who lost their kids in perpetual war and now watch as they struggle with heroin addiction and lack of access to medical care don't need to hear that most people have a "yellow ribbon instead of a swastika."  And the people dying at the border under Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump era neoliberal policies of free trade and closed borders enable corporations to take what they want from local populations don't need to hear that "every official that comes in cripples us and leaves us maimed" they know this.

These are the messages of Rage Against the Machine and the pastor won't be preaching to the choir.  They'll be preaching to us, the privileged, about those who do not live as we do.  And the question on our minds as we walk out will be "Are we going to Rage Against the Machine or just accept that this is the way the world operates and say we have no power here?"  Their message is one of warning and the warning is clear in "Township Rebellion":

Lord, I wish I could be peaceful
But there can be no sequel
In Johannesburg, or South Central
On the mic, cause someone should tell 'em
To kick in the township rebellion

Rage is telling us, those who can afford $500 tickets, to pay attention.  This may be the final warning of the death knell of the republic.  We either bring justice and equality peacefully or wake up one day to active rebellion.  It is our choice.

On Kneeling

A few years ago, a homeless lady asked me for some money for lunch.  I was not in a hurry and had been praying recently about what my time should look like. Kimmy, my wife, was out of town and I knew I'd be at the office late that night so I had some time to spare. I told her I wouldn't give her cash but she was welcome to join me at McDonald's.  We talked for awhile about work and her life and where she lived.  A conversation I've had with dozens of homeless people over the years.  She was homeless but had some skills and had her associate's degree.  She seemed like a good person and I gave her my card because my company is always hiring.  I also got her a McDonald's gift card. That was Friday.

On Monday my work phone rang (Kimmy was still out of town) and it was the homeless lady. She said she hadn't eaten in awhile and it was like 8:30 PM and I hadn't either. We decided to meet at Al's Beef by the Brown Line. We ate dinner and had a good chat. She told me about her poetry and other stuff. Then dinner was over and I decided to walk to the Brown Line to take it down to the Blue and go home. As we walked she asked me for some money. I had just given her a gift card and bought her lunch and in my dealings with the homeless in the past, I knew that if it was going to be a friendship, you had to say no at one time or another. So I said no. She got pissed. She was 5'1 or so and maybe 115 and I'm about 5'11 and north of 200 pounds. She threw her drink in the trash and starting asking if we were really friends. I said yeah but friends need boundaries. This went on for another few blocks with me now realizing that meeting a homeless person after dark (I think it was February) in a mostly abandoned part of the city was a bad plan. We kept talking (she's yelling, I'm talking) and she says "just you fucking wait." This goes on for a block. I'm freaking out but I'm not going to run.

Now I'm realizing that she could legit say I tried to rape her and I would be in trouble. We walk up the stairs at the Brown Line (well, I walked up the stairs. She tried to block me but I figure more people = more safety and she's not big enough to stop me) and she's threatening me. I figure I'll tell the cops the truth and probably spend a night in jail. Lesson learned. We get to the top and she starts screaming at the attendant that I stole her money. Thankfully the homeless are less logical and more worried about the immediate than the long term damage. She's screaming and I'm just standing there sheepishly. At this point, the attendant has locked herself in the booth and is calling the cops. The lady grabs a broom and tries to break off the handle but fails and starts swinging it around. At this point I'm trying not to laugh at the absolute absurdity of the situation.

She's yelling that I stole her sixty dollars and says if I don't give it to her she's going to hit me. I say OK. So she cracks me on the knee. It hit right behind my left knee about an inch up and hurt like hell and left an awesome bruise (a picture of which I no longer have on my phone as this was a couple years ago). Thankfully I have an OK pain tolerance and my adrenaline is flowing so I'm mostly immune. Even so I don't want to get hit anymore so I give her the $60 thinking she'll leave. Now she starts screaming I stole her $80. She then says shes going to hit me in the head. So I say "OK, you can hit me in the head, just let me take my glasses off." I take my glasses off, get on my knees in front of her so I'm in a non-threatening posture and say "Hit me." At this point the Brown Line shows up and people get off.

And there's a 5'1 homeless lady swinging a push broom at a 5'11 guy who's on his knees in front of her and an attendant with the door locked. And you know what these people on the Brown Line do? They walk around us. I'm looking at them pleadingly trying to figure out why they care so little when trying to help got me into this position. About a minute after the people leave, the cops show up and the homeless lady sees their hats coming up the steps and bolts.

I tell them the story and they question my sanity, as I do sometimes. I leave and I think of all the homeless people who I've sat down with at McDonalds and not have something like this happen. And my heart breaks. Not for my leg, that hurts, not for my safety, which was only kind of in danger, but for that homeless lady. Who doesn't know what love and friendship are. Who views people not as humans but as things to take advantage of. I feel sorry for the people who walk through life protecting themselves from a situation like that. And even when they see it in front of them, they pass it by without a second glance. I walk from the Brown Line stop, alone, through downtown and call my wife and tell her. She's proud of me. And I'm proud of me.

And then a few years later a man kneels on the sideline of a football stadium and I remember kneeling in front of the lady.  I remember kneeling at the altar with my mom when I wanted to drop out of college and move to California to be with my girlfriend.  I remember kneeling while praying in a hospital for a person who had cancer.  I remember kneeling with my wife at my wedding.  I remember kneeling in front of my grandpa's casket.

I remember the awkwardness and unnaturalness of kneeling and I wonder at what drives a man to kneel when everyone else is standing.

And I remember the lady and the people on the Brown Line who didn't want to get involved with the person kneeling.  So I researched more and I prayed more and I asked myself what it means to kneel when everyone around you stands.  

And I'm boycotting the NFL this year.  Maybe it's a White Liberal gesture of insanity and a meaningless assuagement of the guilt I feel.  Maybe I'm in solidarity with my Black and Brown brothers and sisters who deal with things I don't even comprehend.  Maybe it's more complicated than that.  I don't know.

But mostly, it's because in all my instances of kneeling the one thing I didn't want to do was kneel alone and, in my heart, I'm taking a knee as well.