Alternate universes

My friend Bill reminds me of Will Campbell. For most of his life, Campbell was a self-described “deep water Baptist,” as was his father. Campbell asked, “Daddy, do you believe in infant baptism?” Campbell’s father replied, “Believe in it? Hell, I’ve actually seen it.”

This week, Bill and I discussed alternate universes. Not the kind that are explored in physics classes. Both Bill and I would be in “listen only” mode in a science class about the Cosmos. But Bill and I have experienced close encounters with alternate universes of the human kind.

My hunch is that you have, too. Alternate universes can be found on the Internet, in neighborhoods, within congregations, and among family members. We can live, play, work or worship side-by-side yet never connect at a deep level, talking past each other about really important things.

Maybe a starting point is to ask, “How are things on your planet?”

From “‘Alternative facts’ tops list of 2017 notable quotes,” by Rebecca Savransky, The Hill, December 12, 2i017

Mothers’ Day

My late mother, born on June 22, 1924, was the third of seven children. She graduated from high school a month before her 16th birthday and began working at the local telephone company in Jellico, Tennessee. The switchboard was on the second floor of a downtown business. When working overnight, her sister (7 years younger) was sent by their mom to spend the night at the phone company–security in numbers, apparently. By 20, my Mom was married and working (with my Dad) on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. By 26, she was a full-time mom. She re-entered the work force at 33 when I entered first grade. She was a natural leader and one of my best teachers.

A poignant Heather Cox Richardson post about Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) in Letters from an American made me appreciate my Mom more. Howe was the fourth of seven children. She bore six children and in 1870 launched Mothers’ Day as part of the women’s suffrage movement, 38 years before Anna Jarvis began Mother’s Day to honor her mother. To honor my Mom as her 100th birthday approaches, I’m moving the apostrophe. From now on, for me it’s Mothers’ Day. Planet Earth needs more women leaders. Society has too much testosterone and not enough estrogen. It’s killing us, literally. This is how Richardson closed last night’s installment of Letters from an American:

(Howe) threw herself into the struggle for women’s suffrage, understanding that in order to create a more just and peaceful society, women must take up their rightful place as equal participants in American politics.

While we celebrate the modern version of Mother’s Day on May 12, in this momentous year of 2024 it’s worth remembering the original Mothers’ Day and Julia Ward Howe’s conviction that women must have the same rights as men, and that they must make their voices heard.

From “Meeting My Muse: A Switchboard Operators Story,” (an interview with Carol Bartle of the Tacoma Pioneer Telephone Museum), by Julia Levy, April 29, 2022, The Switchboard (Substack)

Beyond ideology

After several months at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and a swing for some hiking through Tazmania, our son Cully stopped to visit on his way home to Maine. Tazmania helped him re-orient to the sights and scents of Fall. An occasional re-orientation helps us move beyond ideology.

William Barr isn’t there yet. When Kaitlan Collins asked why he will vote for Donald Trump, Barr said, “I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”

Justice Samuel Alito seems enamored with making sweeping ideological policy rather than focusing on the specific case before the court, opining that the immunity case can be “one for the ages.”

Our son Rob sent this YouTube link to a poignant 30-second political ad reflecting the impact of recent ideologically-driven state legislation regarding reproduction.

Dartmouth College’s approach to the conflict between Hamas and Israel was the “Last Minute” segment on last night’s Sixty Minutes. Bill Whitaker concluded the segment with, “American education might benefit from a few more Dartmouths.”

From “College campus chaos continues amid anti-war protests,” CBS Sixty Minutes, April 28, 2024

Who are your mentors?

Our son Rob spends most of his available energy doing medical research. He linked me to the best article on any subject that I’ve read in a long time. A post from Everything Is An Emergency by blogger Bess Stillman, “Debugging the Doctor Brain” is good reading if you’ve been (or might be) in an Emergency Room. It’s relevant to any vocation or avocation. Here’s an excerpt:

Do emergency medicine for 80 hours a week for three to four years —the length of an ER residency—and a resident doctor will have spent around 10,000 hours on direct patient care. It’s during those encounters that doctors are (supposed to be) guided towards developing and deepening the fundamental mental models that run in their cognitive background while evaluating each new patient.

Dan Luu’s Why don’t schools teach debugging got Stillman “thinking about the way science and medical education universally teaches the fundamentals: badly.” Stillman wrote, “In medicine, we often mistake the speed of initial understanding with a students’ capacity for mastery.” I believe this is true in every significant human endeavor. Stillman’s post will connect with your life’s experience.

Stillman reminded me of my student pastor days. Years 1-3 were my last three undergraduate years. Years 4-6 were my three seminary years. Stillman helped me see my student pastor time as a “theological residency,” with older clergy colleagues and gracious laity complementing my faculty and fellow students. They were my mentors. Who are your mentors?

From Massachusetts General Research Institute

54 years

Earth Day began 54 years ago in 1970. Heather Cox Richardson captures its historical context in her “Letters from an American” post for today, which notes the bi-partisan beginning of the environmental movement, facilitated by President Richard M. Nixon:

In February 1970, President Nixon sent to Congress a special message “on environmental quality.” “[W]e…have too casually and too long abused our natural environment,” he wrote. “The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.”

Richardson closed her post with a quote from President Joe Biden, who encouraged “all Americans to reflect on the need to protect our precious planet; to heed the call to combat our climate and biodiversity crises while growing the economy; and to keep working for a healthier, safer, more equitable future for all.”

Happy Earth Day 2024.

From “10 Surprising Facts About Earth Day,” by Solcyré Burga and Simmons Shah, Time, April 21, 2024

PI-ME/CFS

The blog page devoted to Post-Viral Disorders was updated today with an addendum about a just-released report from a 2016 National Institute of Health initiative. This has been an excruciatingly long wait for persons suffering with myalgic encephalomyletis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

The 29-page September 21 report, “Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyletis/chronic fatigue syndrome,” is available at Nature.com.

The report begins: Post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (PI-ME/CFS) is a disabling disorder, yet the clinical phenotype is poorly defined, the pathophysiology is unknown, and no disease-modifying treatments are available.

“Post-Infectious” was added to the name of the disorder, PI-ME/CFS. The COVID-19 pandemic may have delayed the publication of this first report. But, the pandemic makes it easier to understand “post-infectious” phenomena. There are similarities between Long COVID and PI-ME/CFS and great potential for collaboration among long-standing ME/CFS researchers and those now studying Long COVID. Our son Rob says we may come to understand Long COVID as a form of PI-ME/CFS.

From “Study offers clues about the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome post-infection,” by Nina Massey, Independent, February 21, 2024

Take your time

The heart surgeon to students observing the surgery: “You have about one minute to perform this particular task, so it’s very important to take your time.” That’s my approach to birthday 73.

Advent began a new rhythm–posting Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday morning I was aware something was different as I scrolled my inbox more leisurely. I read less hurriedly. I took my time.

I’ll read Sean Dietrich more often. If you missed it, I recommend “The Blind Dog.”

Too often I hurry through Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations. An excerpt from “We Are What We See“:

… contemplation is largely about … recognizing the unconscious reservoir of expectations, assumptions, and beliefs in which we are already immersed. … A new idea held by the old self is never really a new idea, whereas even an old idea held by a new self will soon become fresh and refreshing. Contemplation … fills our reservoir with clear, clean water … to encounter experience free of our old patterns.

I took time to check Robert Hubbell’s source for some disconcerting news about a climate conference:

From “Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels,” by Damian Carrington and Ben Stockton, The Guardian, December 3, 2023

Think Big

Many Christian traditions observe today as Christ the King Sunday. This week’s posts will focus on the metaphor of Kingdom, or Reign, asking the question, “Who, or What, is Sovereign?” Jesus, consistent with his Jewish tradition, invited his followers to “Think Big” when considering now far to extend love and how inclusive to be as we “treat others the way you want to be treated.”

Last week, Richard Rohr pointed to a couple of worthy “faculty members” to help us in our journey:

The great chain of being was the medieval metaphor for ecology before we spoke of ecosystems. While it was structured as a hierarchy, with each link in the chain “closer” to God, I view it as a philosophical and theological attempt to speak of the interconnectedness of all things on the level of pure “Being.” Today we might call it “the circle of life.” If God is Being Itself (Deus est Ens), as both St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas taught in the thirteenth century, then the great chain became a way of teaching and preserving the inherent dignity of all things that participate in that Divine Being in various ways. For me, it speaks of the inherent sacrality, interconnectedness, and communality of creation.

From “God is Being Itself,” a Daily Meditation published by the Center for Action and Contemplation, November 19, 2023

How’s the weather? What’s the rush?

My friend Stephen inspires me to be a life-long learner. Yesterday, he gave a sobering but helpful presentation about climate change. Thanks to Stephen’s introduction, I’ve added veteran climatologist Michael Mann to my 2024 “faculty,” and his new book, Our Fragile Moment to my “curriculum.”

Stephen refreshed my memory of the Paris Climate Agreement and how that 2015 agreement fits within the larger context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will hold its 28th annual meeting November 30-December 12 in Dubai.

I’ve summarized Stephen’s broad and deep presentation with two simplistic questions. The answer to “How’s the weather?” is Global warming makes it more extreme. The answer to “What’s the rush?” is We’re living in an urgent, fragile moment. We don’t get a “do-over” on this one!

From Ars Technica

“The rabbi said….”

Rome ruled Levant during an amazingly creative era, which included Rabbi Hillel, who was born around 110 BCE, and became the leader of the Sanhedrin. I’m drawn to Hillel because he is “renowned less for his legal rulings than for his kindness and ethics.” Judaism remembers him as “the preeminent sage of first century Palestine whose name is on Jewish campus organizations worldwide.”

Rabbi Shammai was “a friendly adversary” of Hillel. We live in an era of unfriendly adversaries. Hillel and Shammai offered competing interpretations of Judaism, demonstrating how respectful debate among different viewpoints can be creative and constructive: “With their diametrically opposite styles, together Hillel and Shammai steered the Jewish people through one of its most troubling periods.”

Another rabbi I never met but greatly appreciate was the father of a good friend. Bernard M. Honan died in 2018 at age 90. Rabbi Honan served numerous congregations and two university Hillel chapters over his 67-year career. He lived the tradition of Hillel. From his obituary: “People describe him as a very loving, gentle, kind man, who freely loved, respected and served everyone he met.”

“Many imperial Romans had roots in the Middle East, genetic history shows,” by Lizzie Wade, Science, November 7, 2019