RESOURCES, NODS, NOTES, AND A FEW SHOUT-OUTS
The Title
. . . is a nod to the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which is his nod to a Raymond Carver short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Hum
The familiar/unfamiliar line echoes Dallas Willard, who begins his masterful book The Divine Conspiracy talking about Jesus and how “presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance.”
The story about Jacob waking up is from Genesis 28.
The Helmut Thielicke quote is from The Trouble with the Church.
For a spot-on analysis of the God problem, see Andrew Sullivan’s stunning essay at www.thedailybeast./newsweek/2012/04/01andrew-sullivan-christianity-in-crisis.html.
God never existed in the first place. In regard to the question “Does God exist?” Huston Smith makes a helpful distinction between absence of evidence and evidence of absence in The Soul of Christianity.
The quotes from Jane Fonda and her interviewer are from the June 2007 anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
Ground of our being is a phrase from Paul Tillich.
If you are new to Banksy, I suggest first you read his book Wall and Piece and then see his film Exit Through the Gift Shop. You will never be the same again.
I’m aware that withness and forness aren’t really words. Until now, of course.
Open
When it comes to the “those things don’t happen” discussion, I suggest Yann Martel’s book The Life of Pi.
I first talked about some of the ideas in this chapter in my 2007 live film Everything Is Spiritual, which you can find at robbell.com.
I. Welcome to the Red Shift
The word universe comes from two Latin words, unus, meaning one, and versus, meaning to turn—that is, “turned into one.”
If you’re interested in learning more about the universe but you want to read only one book, I suggest Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. He manages to make a staggering amount of information endlessly fascinating, which is an extraordinary gift, to say the least, and one that inspired me in the writing of this book, and especially this chapter.
13.7 billion years. It never ceases to entertain me how this number is often stated with such conviction and precision. Not 13.6 or 13.8, but 13.7. What do those equations look like? how big is that chalkboard? (or whiteboard or computer program or whatever . . .)
Jump off the roof of your house. Often when I’m writing I’ll need an example of something and I’ll type the first thing that comes to mind and then later go back and read what I wrote and think to myself, “What? Jump off the roof of your house? Who uses examples like that?” or maybe the better question is “Who jumps off the roof of his house?” the answer is me. I have, on a number of occasions.
Fit in a teaspoon. For more, see io9.com. “What would a teaspoonful of neutron star do to you?”
Black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. See Earthsky.org for a large-scale map of dark matter (January 9, 2012, entry; type “large-scale map” in search box).
“Dancing on the Ceiling”? I have no idea why I picked that song. Discussion question for you and your friends: What is the single most overplayed song from the eighties? “Living on a Prayer”? “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”? Do I hear a “Walking in Memphis”?
No things, no time. For more on the relationship between space and time and how it affects the way we understand work and rest, I highly recommend Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book Sabbath.
Its consistency a persistent illusion is a line from Einstein.
Bendy, curvy, relative. For a mind-bending look at all that curviness, see Leonard Shlain’s Art and Physics.
Just for kicks, go to answers.com and ask, “how much energy does the sun give off?”
My favorite line from Einstein? “I have a few splendid ideas which now only need incubation.”
II. Who Ordered That?
Clearly I’m not a scientist—let alone a quantum or theoretical physicist—so what you find here in this section of the book comes from my having read lots of books by lots of really, really brilliant people. Here are a few I’m most indebted to, both for their insight and their intelligence and, more important, for their ability to make it all accessible to an average chap like me:
Paul Davies for his book God and the New Physics (especially his insights into energy, time, and consciousness)
Lisa Randall for her book Knocking on Heaven’s Door (which includes a fascinating description of the large Hadron Collider in chapter 8)
Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill for their book Quantum Physics for Poets (in which they talk about display windows and toasters, among other things)
Fred A. Wolf for his book Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
Several fascinating Youtube clips along these lines:
• Quantum levitation demonstration at the North Museum (Lancaster, PA)
• Russell Brand interviewing a quantum physicist
Grappling with something bigger is from an article on the Higgs Boson in TIME magazine, July 23, 2012.
22 quintillion. From Dr. Peter Wittich, Cornell Center for Materials Research (see mr.cornell.edu-ask a scientist!)
Toaster should glow blue. this is called the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.
III. You Dirty Star, You
Crowned with glory and honor is from Psalm 8.
A great book about being human: Made for Goodness by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu.
A great quote about being human: St. John of Kronstadt said, “Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him, because evil is but a chance misfortune, illness, a devilish reverie. The very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.”
A great book about the sacred nature of the human body: Echo of the Soul by J. Philip Newell.
For more on hierarchy, see Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything, particularly the first part on nested holons.
For more on what you do with the energies you’ve been given, see Ronald Rolheiser’s fantastic book The Holy Longing. The first chapter alone, about Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, and Janis Joplin, will be worth it.
For more on unfolding consciousness across history, see Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Activation of Energy.
IV. The Sea We’re Swimming In
Two excellent books on the spiritual implications of quantum theory:
Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion by Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson
Quantum Theology by Diarmuid O’Murchu
One extraordinary book on science and the human spirit:
Einstein’s God by Krista Tippett
One brilliant book by a brilliant scientist:
The Language of God by Francis Collins
Principia’s original title was Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
It’s fun to speculate is from Surfer magazine, April 2012, p. 38.
Both
RQ8F7 double-edged Incisotron. obviously I totally made that up. But wouldn’t you love to have one?
I’m not a businessman is from a remix of “Diamonds Are Forever” by Kanye West.
Because it’s there is from “Climbing Mount Everest Is Work for Supermen” interview, New York Times, March 18, 1923.
Where God just was is from Exodus 33.
Saw no form of any kind is from Deuteronomy 4.
Who dwells in unapproachable light is from 1 Timothy. The word unapproachable is the word aprositos in the original greek—from a meaning not, pros meaning to, and eimi meaning to go—that is, “can’t go to.”
Spirit is like the wind is spoken by Jesus in John 3.
On plows and hoes, Ken Wilber does a fascinating bit in his A Brief History of Everything.
Can a mother forget . . . ? is from Isaiah 49.
On a side note, in the Genesis poem that begins the Bible, it’s written that we are created male and female, “in the image of god.” this is important to remember when you encounter churches and religious communities that are run by men and men only, where men do the speaking and leading and decision making. When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god. Interesting to note that in the Catholic Church, with its all-male leadership, Mother Mary plays such a prominent role. Another example of how the sacred feminine can’t be denied; she will express herself somehow. She moves, after all, in mysterious ways. (Cue U2 song.)
For more on paradox, see Parker Palmer’s classic book The Promise of Paradox.
For more on faith and doubt, see Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld’s In Praise of Doubt.
Like a tree is a nod to Psalm 1.
Pete’s quote comes from How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins.
With
For more on the God who is somewhere else, read John Robinson, who writes insightfully about this in Honest to God.
I’m indebted to a number of greater writers for their words about seeing. If you want to read more, I recommend:
Everywhere Present by Stephen Freeman
God Hides in Plain Sight by Dean Nelson
An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
and of course the classic
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
Massive wall of pink and yellow. the installation is by Peter Wegner and it’s called Guillotine of Sunlight, Guillotine of Shade. It contains 1.4 million sheets of paper in 40 different colors. For more about Peter Wegner’s work, go to petewegner.com.
Ruach occurs over 380 times in the Hebrew Bible.
I can’t say enough about Jürgen Moltmann’s incredible book The Spirit of Life, which has been a huge inspiration to me and helped shape my thinking about ruach.
The whole Earth is God’s. Psalm 24.
God renews the face of the Earth. Psalm 104.
On the breadth and power of ruach energy, see Psalm 33.
As long as I have life is from Job 27.
The writer in Ecclesiastes uses these words: “and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the ruach returns to god who gave it” (12:7).
On ruach garnishing the heavens, see Job 26.
On ruach bringing things into existence, see Psalm 104.
Where can I go? is from Psalm 139.
Kavod. The root is K-B-D, and it also means liver or interior or soul or be important as well as heavy. Hebrew words are quite limber like that. I used it here in a positive sense of something that matters, but much of its use in the scriptures when it’s translated heavy is negative, as in oppressive or severe or a burden. When it’s used positively, it’s usually as glory, as in 1 Chronicles 16, where David says, “Declare God’s glory . . .”
Everything is ultimately connected to everything else. For a stunning example of how everything is connected, see The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, in which Wilkinson and Pickett show statistically how the wider the gap between the rich and the poor in a country, the worse off the rich are.
The LORD is one is from the Shema prayer, found in Deuteronomy 6.
Deep calls to deep is from Psalm 42.
Subsurface unity is a line from a commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 2005.
Telos is found forty times in the new testament.
The Office. It’s been fascinating to see the original British series and the arc as it unfolded over two seasons, in contrast with the American version, which in many ways goes the opposite direction.
Seeing and hearing is from Matthew 13.
She has done a beautiful thing to me is from Mark 14.
May the eyes of your heart be enlightened is from Ephesians 1.
For
God loves us is from John 3.
Eight-pound six-ounce newborn infant is from the book of Talladega Nights—“Shake ’n bake, that just happened.”
The poor in spirit / blessing is from Matthew 5.
The nobodies is drawn from chapter 4 of Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy.
Repent is the word metanoia in Greek: meta meaning change (as in metamorphosis) and noia meaning to think or perceive—that is, “to see in a new way, to have a new mind.”
Touches lepers is from Matthew 8.
Hears the cry is from Matthew 20.
Dines with tax collectors is from Mark 2.
Talks with . . . Samaritan women is from John 4.
Came for the sick is from Luke 5.
New wine in old wineskins is from Matthew 9.
First tells his followers that he’s going to be killed refers to Matthew 16.
My god, my God is from Matthew 27 (which is from Psalm 22).
In regard to the early Christians seeing the resurrection as heralding a new era in human consciousness, note that when the apostle Paul writes to his friends in Corinth (1 Corinthians 15), he calls Jesus’s being raised on the third day something of “first importance.”
Jesus talked about . . . fruit draws on Matthew 7 and 13 and John 15.
Fullness of God residing in Christ is from Colossians 2:9.
Causes the sun to rise . . . And sends rain is from Matthew 5.
Ahead
Eye for eye is from Exodus 21.
When you go to war is from Deuteronomy 21. Many thanks to William Webb for his insightful writing on this passage.
There are more than 435 Hooters restaurants in the world.
God calls a man named Abraham. the story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12.
Light to the Gentiles is from Isaiah 49.
Let your light shine is from Matthew 5.
Nuclear weapons. I wrote about this with Don Golden in our book Jesus Wants to Save Christians.
Because he is not one of us comes from Luke 9.
A book about people having their minds blown. See Peter’s vision in Acts 10.
So
I talked about the birth of religion in my 2008 live film The God’s Aren’t Angry, which you can find at robbell.com.
Ripped is from Mark 15.
On the concept of new, direct access to God, see Hebrews 10.
Holy, holy, holy is from Isaiah 6.
The idea that God is confined to a temple. I say this while also acknowledging that these ideas were already present in Jewish thought years before Jesus, like in 1 Kings 8 where Solomon says after building the temple that “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”
We are the temple is from 1 Corinthians 6.
The reference to the human body as a temple is from 1 Corinthians 6.
Accounts of Jesus on the night he was betrayed are found in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and John 13.
For an extraordinary essay on the Eucharist, see http://www .firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/03/do-this.
Ephrem the Syrian prayed in the fourth century:
The spirit is in your bread,
the fire in your wine,
a manifest wonder,
that our lips have received.
Stephen Freeman offers profound insights on the eucharist in his book Everywhere Present.
Moses taking off his sandals is from Exodus 3.
Holy the whole time. the word holy is related to the word holistic, which is connected to the words whole and heal and hale (as in “hale and hearty”). Holiness is the bringing together of things in their entirety, healthy and complete.
Reunite and reconnect us to sacred depth is from Colossians 1, where the apostle Paul writes that through the shed blood of Jesus, God is reconciling all things, whether things on Earth or things in heaven.
As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats is from Matthew 25.
On God as all in all, see 1 Corinthians 15.
On God being through and over all, see Ephesians 4.
Things that were previously thought to be at odds. For more on nondual awareness, read Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now.
For more on my friend Tim Cusack, go to timcusack.com.
When I kept silent is from Psalm 32.
God, have mercy on me, a sinner is from Luke 18.
For a Psalm about destructive impulses, see Psalm 35.
A heart at peace gives life to the body is from Proverbs 14.
What do you want? is from Mark 10.
Splagchnon is found in the New Testament eleven times.
Knew on a cellular level is from an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow in Harper’s Bazaar, March 2012.
Something primordial is from Keith Richards’s autobiography, Life, p. 244.
For more on monkeys and subcortical energy, see Daniel J. Siegel’s great book Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.
Talking about spirit, Christopher McDougall has a quote in his book Born to Run (at the beginning of chapter 30) from the Olympic champion Herb Elliot: “I came to realize that spirit, as much or more than physical conditioning, had to be stored up before a race.”
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Tim Royer and the fine folks at Neurocore for all they’ve taught me about the brain and how it affects every area of our lives.
For more on chairs and windows and sun—on the relationship between architecture and spirit—I highly recommend the following:
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Khan by John Lobell
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick.
Fruit of the Spirit is from Galatians 5.
Complaining is from Philippians 2.
Rejoicing is from Philippians 4.
Grateful is from Psalm 18.
Giving thanks is from 1 Thessalonians 5.
Remembering is from Exodus 13, Mark 8.
God taking great joy in how things look is a reference to Genesis 1.
Epilogue
Began/good work/complete is from Philippians 1.
And now I see God everywhere reminds me of the Jesuit saying “Seeing God in all things,” which reminds me of a fantastic book about seeing called Seeing God in All Things: The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ.
Two Last Notes
Here are some awesome words and phrases and sentences I stumbled upon in my research that deserve to be repeated for no particular reason other than the enjoyment of words and their endless sounds, meanings, and combinations:
relic density
displaced vertex
propensity and power
the history of fishes
the ability of infinity to be boosted in magnitude and yet still remain the same size
a possible planet called Vulcan
the Englert-Brout-Higgs-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble mechanism
superhuman creative restlessness
breathe deeply and unfurl energies
forms and configurations assumed by the divine spirit’s torrent of energy
sounds of all protean creation
planetary regeneration
a radiance which no space can contain
driving vital power
unrestrained speculative exuberance
kinematically
comprehensive reference for life
sensory sociality
permeation of all matter by grace
indescribable elegance
ceaseless becoming
impelling potency
enhanced fluidity