Two interesting quotes: I just came across two interesting quotes regarding personal spirituality. The first one was in a NY Times article about physicist / astronaut John Grunsfeld, who is going up on the Space Shuttle next month on the last repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. Grunsfeld has been on four previous Shuttle flights to the Hubble Telescope, and he played a key role in reversing NASA’s previous decision not to go back to the Hubble. (That thing is what they call “high maintenance”, even though it has returned a lot of good scientific data.) This last mission will give it a few more good years, although it involves some danger given that two satellites crashed into each other a few months ago and the resulting space junk is whirling around in the vicinity of the Hubble.
Obviously, Mr. Grunsfeld’s spirituality is centered heavily around science (and so is mine, to a certain degree). As with many other science people, the God-centered religions such as Christianity, Judiasm and Islam didn’t interest Grunsfeld; but Buddhism held some attraction. Earlier in his life, before pursuing his PhD, Grunsfeld got a job in Japan working with an X-ray researcher at the University of Tokyo. At the same time he lived in a Zen monastery, participating in the meditation life of the community. Wow, sounds great! But according to the article, Grunsfeld came home early one day and found the monks playing baseball. For him, the “spell was broken”; he left the Zen life and went back to the USA to earn his doctorate in physics and to fully immerse himself in science.
Zen monks playing baseball — what was so wrong with that? For Grunsfeld, it was obviously like coming home early to find your husband or wife in bed with someone else. This guy obviously has high standards. Hopefully, the baseball monks prepared him for what he would later experience with NASA, which people used to see as a paradigm of science and technology. In reality, NASA is now just another swamp of federal politics and big business contracts. He obviously stuck with the Shuttle program, despite the two fatal failures it experienced when its managers were swayed from pure scientific thinking by political and financial concerns. He’s still willing to put his life on the line for NASA, despite the imperfections. He’s obviously older and wiser now.
Zen masters are known to teach their young followers with brutal slaps in the face. The baseball game was the reality slap that they gave to Grunsfeld. He seems to have learned the lesson well, as he’s still doing good things with NASA in spite of all the corruption involved. I hope that Dr. Grunsfeld has a good mission and manages to keep the Hubble up there observing the heavens for a few more years.
The second quote was in the April 2009 edition of “Friends of Silence”, a very nice letter that comes out every month or so, filled with thoughts and quotes centered around a spiritual theme. The April theme focused on Spring and Nature, not surprisingly. In the introduction paragraphs, publisher Nan Merrill sings the praises of Nature’s beauty, but also ponders the fact that Nature isn’t always very kind with us. Quote: “She [Nature] weeps with those who bear the brunt of Her inevitable storms and droughts that are but terrible wake-up calls to every one of us”.
I found that apologetic interpretation of nature’s brutality to be just a bit over-the-top. The next time I’m stuck out in the freezing cold and dark of winter, I don’t think it would help much to know that Mother Nature regrets my discomforts and inconvenience. And as to the real suffering, e.g. hurricanes that reek havoc as in New Orleans, tidal waves that kill thousands, cruel diseases that waste millions of lives — does it help the victims to imagine that Nature weeps because of this? And that it is somehow a “wake up call”, implying that disasters are all somehow the fault of humankind?
Let’s keep it real here. I think Lord Tennyson had Nature’s number when he said, in his famous poem “In Memorium”:
Man, her last work, who seemed so fair
Who trusted God was love indeed
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With raving, shriek’d against his creed
The natural world is a lovely thing, and humankind needs to deeply consider its ways and its wisdoms. We all depend upon it for survival, and so a cooperative attitude is much better than the exploitive approaches that are used so often here in the industrialized western world (and increasingly in the eastern world too). But at some point, we humans need to depart from the “natural world”. At some point we need to question it, to challenge it, to seperate ourselves from it, to do better than it. As people such as John Grunsfeld have done. That’s the human legacy.
Nonetheless, I still highly recommend “Friends of Silence”. A reasonable donation, say $10 or $15, will get you on their mailing list: FRIENDS OF SILENCE, 11 Cardiff Lane, Hannibal MO 63401.
Jim,
I found myself wondering about Mr. Grunsfield and his spirituality. Is he saying he’s way more spiritual than the monks who were playing baseball? Something is wrong in how he perceives the “spiritual.” Another question: Is he presuming that anybody who is “spiritual” or searching for “spiritual” things is no longer human?
Such an attitude would bother me as I have some experience with a spiritual approach that excludes the human: It does not fare well for the spirituality of the person. One way or the other the human will force its way thru.
And then I found myself wondering about why the beauty of nature is not considered “spiritual.” Example: The other night I was watching a PBS program on the volcanic eruptions recently taking place on Hawaii. It showed in some detail the “making of new land” as the program described the magma in the ocean and how it formed new land. Eventually, if the eruptions continue new islands will be added to Hawaii. It was awe-inspiring. I also found myself saying, no wonder the Hawaiians made a Goddess out of the volcano(es). No wonder, indeed.
Then too, what about the beauty the astronauts must experience: of seeing the earth itself from space.
And on a much broader scope, the beauty of the universe we are seeing thru pictures from the Hubble telescope. (I think they are from the Hubble.) Fascinating pictures, absolutely beautiful galaxies, nebuli, etc.
Why the need for “high standards” of “pure scientific thinking”? Certainly, I understand the elegance of pure mathematics or the elegance of any really well-thought-out problem and its solution; but that beauty is simply one kind of beauty–even in scientific circles.
Even the violence of nature–and here I think I speak somewhat from experience. Back in 1967 I missed by less than 5 minutes the tornado that wreaked havoc on the South Side of Chicago and its suburbs, leaving a swath of damage that was again awe-inspiring in its scope.
I must say I was scared being so close to and in that storm; yet as I think back on it I was filled with awe, mouth-hanging-open awe. I had a crying, terrified child at my side; but still as I look back, I think my initial reaction (while attempting to comfort and protect the child) was awe.
And then there is the beauty of watching seeds sprout after one has planted them. And I could go on and on.
Spirituality that is purely scientific? Well maybe for a little while; but I don’t think I’d give up the “beauty” aspect of the spiritual.
MCS
Comment by MCS — April 16, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
Jim,
I found myself wondering about Mr. Grunsfield and his spirituality. Is he saying he’s way more spiritual than the monks who were playing baseball? Something is wrong in how he perceives the “spiritual.” Another question: Is he presuming that anybody who is “spiritual” or searching for “spiritual” things is no longer human?
Such an attitude would bother me as I have some experience with a spiritual approach that excludes the human: It does not fare well for the spirituality of the person. One way or the other the human will force its way thru.
And then I found myself wondering about why the beauty of nature is not considered “spiritual.” Example: The other night I was watching a PBS program on the volcanic eruptions recently taking place on Hawaii. It showed in some detail the “making of new land” as the program described the magma in the ocean and how it formed new land. Eventually, if the eruptions continue new islands will be added to Hawaii. It was awe-inspiring. I also found myself saying, no wonder the Hawaiians made a Goddess out of the volcano(es). No wonder, indeed.
Then too, what about the beauty the astronauts must experience: of seeing the earth itself from space.
And on a much broader scope, the beauty of the universe we are seeing thru pictures from the Hubble telescope. (I think they are from the Hubble.) Fascinating pictures, absolutely beautiful galaxies, nebuli, etc.
Why the need for “high standards” of “pure scientific thinking”? Certainly, I understand the elegance of pure mathematics or the elegance of any really well-thought-out problem and its solution; but that beauty is simply one kind of beauty–even in scientific circles.
Even the violence of nature–and here I think I speak somewhat from experience. Back in 1967 I missed by less than 5 minutes the tornado that wreaked havoc on the South Side of Chicago and its suburbs, leaving a swath of damage that was again awe-inspiring in its scope.
I must say I was scared being so close to and in that storm; yet as I think back on it I was filled with awe, mouth-hanging-open awe. I had a crying, terrified child at my side; but still as I look back, I think my initial reaction (while attempting to comfort and protect the child) was awe.
And then there is the beauty of watching seeds sprout after one has planted them. And I could go on and on.
Spirituality that is purely scientific? Well maybe for a little while; but I don’t think I’d give up the “beauty” aspect of the spiritual.
MCS
Comment by MCS — April 16, 2009 @ 7:38 pm