Wednesday May 3, 2006
Fixed focus…
I\’ve been watching an old stump rot.
Before you protest that I need greater stimulation in my life, let me explain. Since we moved here 13 years ago, I\’ve walked our dog along the waterfront almost every day. This particular stump stands where the dog expects to receive a treat. So I rest the leash on top of the stump while I dig a cookie out of my pocket. This gives me ample opportunity to observe the stump\’s progressive deterioration.
The stump\’s outer layers have been cracking and flaking off. At the same time, its inner core has slumped. What had once been solid wood right across has sunk almost an inch. Someday, that core will collapse and leave only a shell standing upright.
Someday, even that shell will disintegrate. Eventually, only a soil analyst will be able to determine that a tree once grew there.
Limited attention span
That old stump reminds me how restricted our sense of time is. If I had not been going past there, day after day, year after year, I would see that stump as an immoveable object. Generally speaking, if I can\’t see something moving – in the few moments during which I pay attention – I think of it as fixed, permanent…
But over 13 years, I have seen that stump changing. Impelled by the laws of gravity and entropy, it is evolving – in bits and pieces, but still evolving.
It makes me wonder how many other things I think of as fixed and immoveable are also changing, if I had been paying attention.
I think of glass as solid. But my chemistry professor assured me that glass will sag, if left alone for long enough. It\’s actually a very slow-moving fluid.
I think of rock as solid. But when I hike in the Rocky Mountains, I can see how layers of rock have been folded and twisted over eons.
I think of humans as having been around forever. But in the history of the planet, we have existed for no more than a single tick of a clock. We assume, also, that we will be around forever. But that too may be no longer than another tick of the clock.
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For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to [email protected].
It\’s also worth pursuing Richard Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
In a larger time scale, it seems, nothing remains unchanged. Even the universe, the oldest thing we can imagine without somehow stepping outside the universe itself, is constantly in flux. We know that now; we didn\’t know it a few centuries ago.
Why, then, would we cling to a belief that God must be unchanging?
Perhaps we make a sacred/secular division – we expect the divine to differ totally from everything else that we know. Or perhaps we\’re convinced that people who knew less about the universe must have known more about God.
I prefer to find terms that mean more to me, at my stage of life. A friend referred to the unfurling of the seasons as an “endless miracle.” That concept appeals to me much more than “unchanging.”
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Copyright © 2006 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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