One related experience that stays with me was when I visited a Sunday morning Quaker Worship Meeting (which mostly takes place silently). About twenty chairs were arranged in a circle. But, it so happened that one, with a cushion on it, had already been occupied – by a cat. During our hour of reflection, this unexpected visitor spent much of its time purring, contentedly! I discovered later that during that hour, as had happened with me, most others had found their thoughts directed towards the implications of this. After all, the cat clearly resonated with whatever spirit it detected in that room. 

However, its intellect was presumably oblivious to matters of science, religion, and the Divine, as well as questions related to where such things as life, love and loyalty come from. But how much further along this intellectual track than the cat are we? I suspect that our human brains are also still scratching the surface in understanding the big questions, let alone the answers. 

In the silence, my mind wandered towards the 13.7 billion years that it took humanity to come into existence. Also, that when our Solar System, and all earthly life with it eventually explodes to extinction, the universe is thought to be going to continue - not for billions, but for trillions of years! And it is estimated that in the universe there are presently about 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (two hundred sextillion) stars. Heaven knows how many planets. The time and physical immensity of all this are mind-boggling. And, what are the implications? Did God really make this vast universe and dimensions unseen, largely for the benefit of us humans? People who lived two thousand years ago, and whose words are translated into the present-day Bible also had no conception about such matters when writing about Jesus’ ascension to heaven.  

A little pause for thought

Another question – asked by daughter Karen, aged seven:

“Daddy, did Jesus think the earth was flat?” We were chatting about the bravery of people like Christopher Columbus who, despite thinking the earth was flat and they might fall off the edge, sailed off into the unknown. A very good question. Did Jesus understand Quantum Mechanics and other such scientific complexities? And if so when did this understanding come to him?