"The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos"

Tuesdays: April, 2001

“It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in-between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be, and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we do not know the new story.” ... -Thomas Berry

Swimme, a scientist with Ph.Ds in applied mathematics, gravitational dynamics and the structure of the universe is one of the directors of the California Institute for Integral Studies in Oakland, California. A handful of us at St. Joan’s are getting to know him and becoming acquainted with his ideas through a three part video series that we have been viewing for the past three Tuesdays in a school classroom down the hall from the gym. What Swimme tells us is so grand, so awesome that it’s hard to wrap our minds around it all. But he tries.

To give us an idea of where we are, and therefore who we are in this picture, Swimme tells us to go out at dusk some night, or at dawn, and imagine that we are riding on the back of a gigantic whale (Earth) who is swimming within the galaxy of the Milky Way. He tries to give us different ways of thinking because living within the culture that we do, we tend not to think much about the universe. Imagine, he says, that we are peering down into the night sky.

A recent scientific discovery is that the galaxies are all moving away from us. This is called the expansion of the universe. To illustrate that idea, Swimme gets us to imagine we are in a loaf of raisin bread that is baking. Each of us is sitting on a single raisin. As the bread bakes, all the other raisins appear to be moving away from us. Lights go on for us students, and we get that concept.

Another idea that he wants us to understand is that everything, everything that is, had its beginnings 15 billion years ago in a “vast and mysterious eruption of being,” that formed the galactic systems, the stars, planets and life itself. All the elements of the Earth which are duplicated within our bodies came out of the stars. Swimme calls this another “fundamental discovery.”

There is a wonder and a mystery about it all, even for the scientists who are making these discoveries. They are finding that not only is there an order about it all, but that there is evidence of the a ability of the Earth to organize its own development, for instance, to adjust to temperature changes, without which there could be drastic, even fatal consequences. In other words, that there is a living intelligence in place within the universe which we can only approach with awe.

On the last night of our study, we try to grasp Swimme’s thoughts as he explains that the base of the universe boils with creativity that brings forth being from a non-visual reality. “Even if you could cup your hands together and fill them with air which contains innumerable, unseen particles, then rid them of those, there would emerge from that vacuum something new, something never known before.” In other words, out of the all-nourishing abyss there is a continuing generative power that replenishes the universe in surprising ways daily. “Creativity suffuses the world,” he says.

This is all pretty heady stuff, so I ask Katie Johnson, our facilitator and long time student of Swimme’s, what it all means for the ordinary person. Where does God come into this picture? Our faith?

She explains that if we can grasp the fact that we are part of something so grand, so extravagantly generous that all we can do is bow before it, then we are on our way to understanding. “We are not the pinnacle of creation as we’ve been taught all these years,” Katie states. As for God, it is Katie’s belief that when Swimme says “Universe,” he means “God. ”What we need to know is that we are connected to everything that is, and as such we have obligations to every other living thing; obligations that include caring for and about the earth and everything it contains as well as each other.

Swimme says that as a society we have been taught greed instead of gratitude. Contemplating the vastness and beauty of the universe can open our eyes to all kinds of possibilities, not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. “To become human,” he says, “one must make room inside oneself for the immensities of the universe.”

Here are some of the reflections of several participants in this class:

• Florence, “Even though I can’t understand it or explain it, it touches me deeply.”
• John: “All of this doesn’t fit in with the God I was taught to know.”
• Katie: “We need images that jog us out of our traditional track.”
• Shirley: “Some people on the East Coast never see the Milky Way.”
• Noel: “You get a spaciousness within yourself when you contemplate the spaciousness of the universe.”

Jo Youngren and her husband,Dave, have been members at SJA for a little over a year now. However, about 20 years ago Jo was a member and worked with Harvey Egan and Cy Speltz for 4 years. Her first husband, Jack Welch, was buried from there, and later Jo and Dave were married in what is now The Itaska, but at the time was a warehouse with a large gathering of SJA folks attending and Fred & Anna supplying the music - the church in a slightly different setting at the time giving us their blessing. Jo and Dave have been married for 19 years and back in Minnesota for the last 13.

Swimme gives us an image of this awareness in these words of his from the video:
“Human generosity is possible only because at the center of the solar system a magnificent stellar generosity pours forth free energy day and night without the slightest hesitation. This is the way of the universe. This is the way of life. And this is the way in which each of us joins this cosmological lineage when we accept the Sun’s gift of energy and transform it into creative action that will enable the community to flourish.”

Another group of SJA'ers tackled Swimme's video last year. Read that report.

Katie Johnson, facilitator:           "A point I like to stress with Swimme is that, to understand the macro-level (outer) is to understand the micro-level (inner) because not only are they connected but they are mirror reflections of each other. The immensity of the macro universe is reflected in the immensity of our micro (think 'inner' or 'spiritual') universe. They more we understand the one, the more we understand the other."