Rare indeed is the scientist who has not at one point or other been seduced by the beauty of his own equations and dumbfounded by what the physicist Dr. Eugene Wigner of Princeton once called the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in describing the world. The endless fall of the moon, the fairy glow of a rainbow, the crush of a nuclear shock wave are all explicable by scratches on a piece of paper, that is to say, equations. Every time an airplane safely touches down on time, a computer boots up, or a cake comes out right, the miracle is recreated. “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible,” Einstein said. … Math is the language of physics, but is it the language of God? (03/31/02)
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Jacob Needleman writes: Douglass then called for that rarest of movements a human being can make—a fusion of inner opening and decisive outer action. Feel the truth of what you are, America, and at the same moment act! Risk yourself for what you know is right and true. It was what Douglass himself had done when, as a 16-year-old slave, he committed the unthinkable act of physically turning against his slavemaster. …  The hope of America cannot be renewed without acknowledging the reality of slavery and allowing its consequences to speak their truth to our hearts and minds. Seen in their universal meaning, America’s fundamental failures enable us to root our moral actions in the harsh soil of history, rather than in a vague and anxious self-condemnation or a mindless fog of self-justification. It is by facing our nightmares that we may pull ourselves free from America’s futile dreams of progress and face our role in the barbarism that has so deeply stained the fabric of human history. …  American seekers When we accept these truths about ourselves—both our triumphs and our failures—how will the story of America change? Will our heroes no longer be heroes? Our triumphs no longer triumphs? Not at all. Instead, something entirely new and necessary will fill every limb and cell of the story of America, and that “something” has a very precise designation—humility and remorse. (03/31/02)
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“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This formulation is credited to Jesus of Nazareth who intuitively discovered the synergic way 2000 years ago. He gave us the rules for synergic relationship in his sermon on the mount. “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Ö Go be reconciled with thy brother.” (03/31/02)
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