HUU Sermon Archives

The Greatest Miracle or Old Man Potpourri

By Jim Geary
February 3, 2002

Do you love the stars? I do. They provide me with . . . well, call it spiritual insight. I like to contemplate them, try to imagine their unfathomable distances from earth and from each other. And, I just like to look at them.

Many years ago I went coon hunting in Franklin county, down next to Roanoke. Franklin is the preeminent moon shining county in the United States. So, as we started off we had to pause at an outbuilding for our polite guest shots of white lightning. Then we went tramping through the woods following the hounds baying somewhere off in the distance. It was now hours later, probably about one A.M. on that sparkling clear October night.

I need to go back a bit. I had graduated the previous June from the University of Virginia where I had just taken a course in astronomy. I fell in love with the Constellation of Orion and the several brilliant stars surrounding it —— Sirius, that blue diamond gem, the brightest of all stars; and the Gemini; Procyon; Taurus; and Capella and her kids. But those are winter stars, and I had not seen that lovely part of the sky for many months. And then, suddenly, that October night, as we came up over a hill into a clearing, there they were, rising beautifully in the east. It was like embracing a loved one after a long absence.

Was there evil there that night? Is there evil in the world?.Of course there is - in our human society - because we have created it. There is no Satan; there is no evil lurking out there in the void. There is no evil in the cosmos, in the stars, in the galaxies. There is no evil in the rest of the animal world. It is not evil when the lion crunches down on the wildebeest's neck, or when the eagle grabs a fish or unsuspecting bird. They are just doing what comes naturally.

But anything outrageous or violent against our person, our family, or our nation is evil, because we say it is. That is our word for it. The notion of evil is a human concept. It doesn't exist anywhere outside of our human society. People ask: why do bad things happen to good people? That's no mystery to me. Because in Nature's eyes there is no bad and no good. There just is. But of course, to survive and live in relative peace, we have to combat those things we call evil.

I may say things that some of you may not like. I hope you'll forgive an old man for shooting off his mouth. I don't have many years left to do it, you know. But I guess honesty is the best policy, especially intellectual honesty.

I remember my friend Ed. He was a handsome red head, hard drinking and irascible. He said I was his best friend, probably because I put up with his egotism and arrogance. But I loved him. I loved him because of his honesty. To me he saw the world the way it is, not through rose tinted glasses. He called a spade a spade. He hated anything phony.

A quick side story about Ed. He met Martha when he was taking a graduate course in journalism at Washington and Lee. I was a senior at Virginia. Martha, just 19 and violet-eyed, had already been married and divorced. She had rejected her over-sexed state trooper husband, and she had also rejected a baby girl whom she had borne. And she had tried to commit suicide. She was sort of mixed up. Ed and Martha would come down to the University of Virginia, drink a lot of whisky, and then, after Martha had flirted with every man in sight, they would shack up in some student's room - not mine.

After about three years they were married. Ed's social elite friends, who didn't like Martha, said the marriage wouldn't last six months. When Martha died of lung cancer some 35 years later, Ed was devastated. He worshiped her. During that period they raised two sons.

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I have a fascination. I am fascinated by babies. I can't take my eyes off them. It is supposed to be women who gather around and ooh and awe over babies. Well, I don't ooh and awe; and my fascination is philosophical and spiritual. In fact, babies may give me more spiritual insight than the stars. I look at one of those big eyed bundles of protoplasm, and I wonder what the adult will be like and what will happen to it. Will it be a corporate president, an artist, a dancer, a bum, a derelict, a schizophrenic? The potential for whatever, is all there, wrapped up in that tiny babe. A baby represents the greatest miracle, not just the miracle of life, but the miracle of evolution, of nature's greatest achievement to date, the human being, the human brain. In all the long history of our earth, there has never been anything like us..

So where did we come from? Where did life come from?

I don't think I believe in God. I don't think I do. But let me tell you something. I would just as soon believe in God as believe in what our astronomer friends are telling us. Have you ever held out a 16 pound shot. It's pretty heavy. It takes 2000 pounds to equal a ton. Well the earth weighs 6.58 sextillion tons. That's six with 21 zeroes after it. And the earth is so little. Our sun, just an average star they tell us would hold more than a million earths. Now our galaxy the Milky Way has a billion or so stars, or suns.. But again, it is so small. Why, out there in space, they tell us, are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. That all adds up to a pretty hefty weight, I'd say --- wouldn't you.

Now where do our astronomer friends tell us this all came from. Why it came from the Big Bang. It all came from something the size of a pinhead; even smaller. Maybe nothing at all. Yeah! So what was before that you ask? Well, Stephen Hawking tells us that Einstein's theory of relativity breaks down there; so that is when time began. Come on! Let's get real. Try to imagine that, if you can. I don't think Hawking or any other mathematician or astronomer, with their limited three dimensional human brains, can imagine anything like that. It's all blackboard stuff, you know. Well, there is something wrong with their mathematics. They need to try again

Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-science. I do believe in most of what scientists tell us.

- -

I find some things about Buddhism attractive. All is emptiness, they say. Well, I can get an inkling of what they mean. And I can understand that in the universe as a whole there is no such thing as an individual. Everything, including us, is changing from moment to moment; even the mountains. But in our human world everything is made up of individuals. We classify our world that way - the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean. Individuals??.

I certainly don't embrace Buddhism's main contention. The Buddha left his princely home to seek nirvana, to escape from what he said was the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death. What a sick outlook on life! Where is the joy, the happiness, the ecstasy that comes with the birth of a child, the love of another person, the winning of a football game or an election, or the sudden appearance, after an absence, of your favorite stars.

The Buddhists, like Jesus, preach compassion, as, I understand, do all the great religions. The Dalai Lama says compassion is the only road to happiness. It's a nice thought.

My philosophy arises from my wholehearted belief in evolution, the Darwinian school of evolution - survival of the fittest. Greetings survivors. Late this past October Pat and I went to the beach to enjoy there the wonderful Indian summer --- remember?. We sat on the sand and watched the gentle surf. There at the seashore is the real story of life. It is teeming with life. I watched as some 30 or 40 pelicans, my favorite bird, were wheeling and diving in the sea. It was fascinating, beautiful. They rose from the ocean, wheeled and dived again, their wings held straight back, and they would hit the water with a splash.

But I don't imagine it was beautiful for the fish. They were being eaten. But that's the story of the seashore and the sea. It's not so much eat or be eaten; it's eat and be eaten. Because everything living there is going to be eaten sooner or later. And it is not just the sea; that is the story of life on this planet, including those babies that so fascinate me. Maybe they won't be eaten; maybe they'll be cremated. But that's a small difference.

At the seashore one sees lots of flotsam and jetsam, lots of living and lots of dead. And that is what we are, flotsam and jetsam on the seashore of life.

- -

        We live in a wonderful, almost unbelievable world today when we compare it with ancient times, or even with the 19th century, or even with the first half of the 20th century. Think of the scientific advances of recent years. Think of our medicine today, what miracles it is capable of,. We truly live in a world of technological magic.

        But those of you who know me well, understand that I believe it makes little difference in what age we live so far as happiness and unhappiness are concerned. In Greek times, Roman times, even in Medieval times, I think people were as happy and as unhappy as they are today.

Nevertheless, I am glad I live now. I'm so glad I have lived, not just in the 20th century, but have survived through the last half of the 20th century - the age of the moon walk, of the Hubble telescope, the computer. I relish living in a time of great, well-researched documentaries, of marvelous photography, of close-ups of birds in the nest, of lions and eagles, of mice and scorpions.. I'm even glad I live in the beginning of the age of genetic engineering, even though I don't approve of some of the things they are doing in their labs.

I rarely read fiction, anymore. I don't have time. The real world is more interesting, more dramatic, more magical, more filled with miracles if you have the eyes and the imagination to see them.

I'm glad I live now because I am curious about the world we live in. We have had more than two thousand years of writing, of record keeping, of scientific probing since Greek and Roman times. Because of all the accumulated knowledge, I can get a better picture, one more in focus, of the great pageantry of human history. I can get a better picture of how you and I fit into the over-all scheme of things, who we are in time and space. I can understand better how we came to be --- for a little while at least --- at the apex of the animal kingdom.

        I 'll make a confession to you. In April 1940 the so-called "Phony War" in Europe, in which nothing much happened after the fall of Poland, suddenly came to an end with the German invasion of Norway and Denmark. World War II was under way in earnest. I remember riding to work on the street car and reading about it in the morning paper. And I remember thinking to myself, it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

        I hope I don't sound callous and cynical. But that is the way I view history, and that is the way I view the present. To me it is a fascinating story of the human struggle for existence - the wars, the commerce, the philosophies, the religions, the science, the different morals. It is all part of the picture - Egypt; Persia; Alexander the Great; Rome; the rise of the Catholic Church; the cruel, murdering Anglo Saxons; the sweep of Islam; the cruel murdering Crusaders; Ghengis Khan. Also in the picture are Plato, St. Augustine, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Madam Curie, and yes, Stephen Hawking. And yes, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Osa . . .I'd better not touch that one. But lets not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

        It would appear that the brotherhood of man is not yet. Perhaps in another millennium. If it happens it will be within the framework of human nature, which is not going to change much in the short span of a thousand years. It will still be the animal heart that will be organizing our human society.

        Perhaps there is hope. There is compassion in the animal make-up. It's compassion for one's young, for the animal family. Well, we humans, being social animals, have extended that. We have embraced the extended family of the clan, mostly people related to each other. We did it for practical reasons of security against warring neighbors, security against famine, and for greater prosperity - all selfish reasons. We extended it to the tribe for the same practical reasons. Then we extended it to the nation for the same reasons. Finally, we have extended it to combinations of nations, allies in war, or cooperating entities for greater commerce . Wars come and go, but commerce goes on forever.

        So maybe, just maybe, for those same selfish reasons, we will have world-wide peace and cooperation some day, a thousand years or so from now. Don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, for whatever time I have left, I am going to enjoy the pageantry of the human struggle. I am part of it, of course. I have to struggle; my loved ones have to struggle, my wife, my children, my grandchildren have to cope with life's ups and downs. There will be life and there will be death. But there is a part of me that can step aside and view it all as an interesting part of the over-all human panorama.

There is lots of downside, of course.. I don't like some of the genetic engineering we read about. I hate the trend today of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It means trouble ahead. I abhor the rape of the environment, as well as the rape of women, and of young boys and girls. I think war is the ultimate madness of humankind. And terrorism is an unspeakable human evil.

But I don't let these things dominate my life. It's all part of the picture. There is no need to rail against it. If you don't like a trend, vote against it; join a group to oppose it. But don't gnash your teeth and flail your arms, and lose sleep over it . Whatever happens, it is part of the picture, part of the pageantry, part of the awful, the senseless, the wonderful, the magical history of our species.

Some Christians believe that all the universe and all of life was created just for humankind. I have never been able to see any purpose to life. To me life just is. Purpose is another of those strictly human concepts. It only applies to human desire and human vanity.

I look at life as a balance of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of happiness and unhappiness. I think we should accept life for what it is. It's wonderful, it's magical, it's the greatest of miracles.

Well, there you have it. For better or worse, that is the way I view the world and my place in it.

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