Introduction and Aspiration

Introduction and Aspiration

by Peter Shikli
5 May 2004

Scientists seek the meaning of things by understanding and explaining them. Artists seek the meaning of things by capturing their wonder and beauty. Spiritual people seek the meaning of things through faith in the all pervasive goodness of things, alias God.

Scientists often see artists and spiritual or religious people as incapable or unwilling to see the world the way it really is. Artists often see scientists and spiritual people as too regimented or inhibited to see the world the way it really is. Spiritual people often see scientists and artists as looking in the wrong places and thus unable to see the world the way it really is.

All libraries place great divisions between the three, ostensibly to maintain order but possibly to maintain the peace. Even universities that teach all three will put them in different buildings around campus, as a sort of apartheid of world views. Not to say the three don't get together on race relations day or in classes like philosophy or ethics, but even there, we try to mark the borders between logic, feelings, and beliefs.

Peculiarly, many universities try to field graduates who are well rounded in all three. But like parents who make sure their kids eat from the three wholesome food groups, they rely on the kids mixing it together in their own stomachs for a good outcome. Forbidden from religion for good reason, public universities deliver two out of three and hope students find the missing ingredient outside, like vitamins.

Consider how a physics teacher may answer the question, "Why is there quantum mechanics?". If he answers, "To reflect in a particularly elegant way the beauty and wonder of our world", he may be branded silly, at best profound but useless. If he answers, "To provide a way for the hand of God to affect our world", he might be branded a fanatic. In a public school, he may have violated the law.

We see the three communities sending search parties on occasion to their neighbor’s territories, but carefully and on the lookout for ambushes. When scientists find it unbearable to stick to what they can touch, when their spirits seek to see what is beyond what they know, they escape to science fiction. There a thousand what-if scenarios are played out -- what we may find on Mars, if we go faster than light, fall into a parallel universe, but rarely what would happen if we ran into God. Almost as if they don't want to get anyone mad by describing the wrong person’s God.

What of a seminary student seeking to explore what our souls may be made of, perhaps some unknown energy, a link to another universe, a type of temporary matter that we oscillate in and out of as predicted by string theory. His learned fathers are likely to call back that search party, telling the seminarian good naturedly that he will gain all the necessary insights into his soul through prayer.

What if one were to intentionally seek out a place in our minds shared by all three, to examine our thoughts about the meaning of life from the perspective of all three, for support or skepticism. Perhaps like the shaping of a theory or a sculpture by a team of three, we could gain perspectives difficult for either alone. By forcing the participation of all three, perhaps one could add what has basis to all three and take away what is contrary to any of the three. Of course there will be anarchy since the three are not often on speaking terms, but some of the most interesting thoughts are disorderly.

Whether by nature or nurture, we seem to have a capacity in one of the three more than the other, although this can change at various points in our lives. My father spent much of his life an engineer, a scientist looking for the logic behind everything. In his latter life, he shifted to art and wood carving, compelled by a force he saw no need to understand -- very unscientific. Others I've known had the traditional epiphany that turned them to their spiritual side.

Or did they make a conscious, private decision to refocus on a neglected leg of the tripod that supports them better as complete human beings? Perhaps they didn't want their lives to run out without exploring all the rooms in the house we all live in.

Taking my own inventory, I see plenty of scientific dots on my early resume, and I know I at least paid attention during my religious upbringing. The business of life has brought an unexpected surge in the artistic side of my current endeavors with photography. I seem poised for insights from the trinity as never before. That is why I have started to write these journals and intersperse my favorite pictures. Because writing is the best way to examine our thoughts, and perhaps it can also be the rope that binds thought to feeling to spirit.

Reader's Caveat

Much of my writing begins on solid foundations, with blocks then added of conclusions, and then assumptions, and then fantasy. Even though I try to show connections, each layer becomes steadily less sound, like the argument string of a garden-variety crackpot. The difference is that I realize I am drifting from facts to blue-sky imagination as I go, but I will never betray my scientific origins with unfounded conclusions just to support an opinion. The world can be just as full of wonder and epiphanies if we just follow the evidence and logic.

In my case, science led me closer to my faith in a benevolent God who loves us as a species and as individuals.

I invite readers not just to argue my conclusions but to be mindful of the transitions as my writings progress, and to come up with their own what-if branches as we fly higher away from the shackles of facts.

If I fumble a transition, don't just pounce on the ball. Pick it up and run with it in your own what-if direction. That is the purpose of this type of writing.

Where I hope to differ from my father and many others is that I will not shift so much from one world view to the other as much as try to encompass them all. Through an act of will and the crutch of my writing, I plan to expand into all three.

Huston Smith, one of America’s leading mixtures of scientist and spiritual person, makes a plea for us to work diligently to break through the wall that separates those two. Curiously, he also found writing as the artistic mechanism to accomplish this. His best seller “Religions of the World” is an inspirational web of analytical thinking and a common-sense explanation of the world’s religions, which he calls wisdom traditions. My grandiose goal would be to stand on his shoulders and also incorporate the artistic world view. More than just ambitious, considering how little I know of art, but I have a few miles left and plan to go far before my gas runs out.

Groping for role models to follow beyond my father and Huston Smith, I stumbled upon someone else, also conveniently divided into three, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Mapping them to my current endeavor seems fairly straightforward.

The Father, like many fathers, stands for thought and wisdom, a scientific foundation upon which was built a meaningful world. The Son came to feel this world, to become part of its beauty and wonder, a hands-on artist of the human condition. And the Holy Spirit, of course, is the spirit.

Their perfect unity is the goal within ourselves, to unite the three facets of our being into a higher life form. Buddha says the goal of life is to become one with God during our lifetimes, perhaps getting a jump on what Christians say happens to the righteous after death.

That then would be the lofty goal of all this rambling with the written word.

More ramblings like this: www.shikli.com/blog

Peter Shikli is CEO of Bizware Online Applications. You can view his bio and contact him at pshikli@bizware.com.