Heaven & Earth
The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
Albert Einstein
For three weeks I had the privilege of sharing a stage and giving talks around Scotland and England with Bishop Chris Toohey from Australia. Bishop Chris is Chair of Catholic Earthcare Australia, a part of their Bishops’ Conference that specifically deals with environmental issues and awareness; there is no other Catholic environmental organisation like it in the world and it is a beacon of hope to the rest of the Catholic world.
It was a privilege not only because Bishop Chris has much to share about meshing faith and the environmental movement, but perhaps even more so because he brings a much needed sense of what Albert Einstein knew was the source of all great thinking – awe and wonder. In this day and age when consideration of our earth is soaked in a marinade of despair, angst and worry, it is a joy to hear someone put those things temporarily aside and bring back to centre stage the basic truth that this earth is extraordinary, unique and utterly precious in a vast, inhospitable universe. Recognising that truth, brought to us through science, and truly focussing on what that means, allows us then to move the problems back into the spotlight and view them in a different frame of mind – a mind imbued with the wonder of God.
Bishop Chris is an astronomer; he has his own observatory in his back garden but also spends many hours at a huge radio telescope situated in Parkes in his diocese in the outback of Australia. His whole outlook is shaped by his awe of the universe and the sheer audacity, power and exuberance of the God who created it. Only a God of awe and wonder would create on such an unimaginable scale and yet delight in the tiniest speck of watery grit that teems with life, the only speck of life in the whole universe as far as we know. To put into context just how special the earth is Bishop Chris often quotes a stunning statistic. It is thought there are as many stars (like our sun) in the universe as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world, plus all the sand at the bottom of the oceans, plus all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world, multiplied by 10; and our sun is only one of those stars. It is a small, middle-aged and not especially exciting star, sitting on the outskirts of an arm of a galaxy that is itself nothing special amongst millions of galaxies. The small planets that whirl around our sun (or star) are weird, awesome but utterly inhospitable, apart from one. There is no other planet like earth, no where else with the right conditions to support life, no other planet that is even statistically likely to have undergone the right journey through time to allow it to support life. We seem to be unique and entirely alone in a universe that we can’t begin to comprehend.
It is often said that the mark of great poetry is that it allows you to have your head in the stars but your feet on the ground. I think that is the mark of great religion too. And this is exactly what Bishop Chris portrayed in his talks and homilies around the country. People who put their faith in the author of the universe don’t have the head-space for petty quarrels or greed or self centeredness. Their mind is on the preciousness of life, the goodness of God and the purpose of being.
On the other hand, bad religion makes people insular, defensive, judgemental, and extreme. It creates divisions, views humanity as all-important and creates a distorted worldview whereby it is impossible to feel humble and full of grace. Good religion brings to the fore true humility, respect, awe and wonder, yet at the same time a groundedness that keeps us concentrating on life on this earth. Time and again I saw that realisation materialising in the audiences that came to hear Bishop Chris talk. Many of us had forgotten our true place in the universe and forgotten what the words of the creed really mean: We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
Bishop Chris came to the UK to help launch Sound of Many Waters, a year long series of events from Clifton Cathedral in Bristol that help us focus on different aspects of our relationship to the natural world. It is so important that the Catholic Church reconnects with the life around us and begins a process of reconciliation with a troubled world. Bishop Chris brought another dimension to this initiative that enhances again what was already planned.
This year marks 50 years of humanity’s exploration of space. In 1957 Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the moon and in 1969 we landed on it and walked, for the very first time, on the surface of another part of the solar system. The awe and wonder felt by the hard men of science that carried out those first missions into space is something we need to listen to and absorb. Only by opening ourselves to the fragility of humanity, that they experienced firsthand, can we start the process that will lead us to a way forward in today’s ecological crisis. There is no doubt we are suffering now from pride, greed and arrogance; from total and utter disregard for the preciousness of the earth and all that it can offer. We need to draw back from the brink of an abyss, in the words of Pope John Paul II, and look to a future that is grounded in love for the earth and the universe of which it is a part.
An alliance of science and true religion is, for me, the only way we will found a new civilisation. For too long, when considering the ecological problems of the earth, we have disregarded the fruits of a deeply spiritual approach to life and instead set our hopes on science and technology alone. I agree whole-heartedly with Bishop Chris when he calls for a partnership of science and religion that will listen and learn from each other. It is a world I would like my children to live in and believe it can and will become a reality. To finish the quote from Albert Einstein:
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of our religiousness.
Mary Colwell
