An Image that Stirred Me

During a recent discussion with my family, my sister wondered if God could really hear a single prayer with all the other prayers flying around the world.  My brother then gave an example of two electrons that can now be split by modern technology.  No matter how far apart these electrons are moved, thousands of miles apart, each electron is still somehow "conscious" of the other one, and will still react to whatever happens to its "twin."  If we change the spin direction of one of the two, the other will instantly react and change its spin also.  Amazing science!

The example of the two electrons continues to haunt me, in a good way.  I cannot stop thinking about how each one of us is somehow an "electron" of the Divine Creator.  If we are created in His Image and Likeness, if His breath has given us life, we must also be animated by His Spirit, and He is keenly aware of where we are and what affects our lives.  On our part, we may not be as aware of our other twin, or Partner, but His Spirit in us still communicates with its Divine Counterpart: in Him we live and move and have our very being, Scripture tells us.

The Book of Romans tells us that the Spirit of God prays in us when we do not know how to pray for ourselves -- and moreover, He prays in us with "unutterable groanings."  I have read about someone who experienced the Spirit praying in him and over him when he himself was helpless to even pray for himself.  So, to answer my sister's question, it is not so much a question of God "hearing" our prayer as that He Himself is doing the praying for us and in us.  And it is more that we, like the twin electron, become conscious of what the Spirit is praying in us and respond to His prayer by joining our mind and heart to His intentions.

Einstein said that any scientist who does not believe in God is either a very bad scientist or he is lying.  It makes sense to me that the world God created would tell us a very great deal about its creator, if we only had eyes to see it.  I have been reading lately a book called Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other wonders of the Universe.  The book begins with a quote from Abraham Heschel, one of my favorite authors:  Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.  Then we read this:

Thomas Aquinas said that a mistake in our understanding of creation will necessarily cause a mistake in our understanding of God.  Imagine what that means for us who live in an age in which scientific discoveries have taken us far beyond the truths we held in our youth.

Heschel said that the insights that connect us to God come not on the level of discursive thinking but on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery, in our awareness of the ineffable.  Living in radical amazement brings us into the space in which great things happen to the soul.

Before she entered the cloister at 15, Therese of Liseux traveled with her father to the Alps, because she said that beauty opened her soul and made room for God.  We might say the same for science, if we believe in intelligent design of the universe.