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Dear Friends, As I write this I can switch on the light in my office. Wow! I hear you say, isn’t that amazing? No, okay, it isn’t, but I have spent the last week without the glare from the strip-light overhead. It so happened that the light, I felt quite vindictively, decided to short- circuit every other light and electrical appliance in the rectory every time it was switched on. Sticky plaster was placed over the light switch – I am, correctly as it turned out, considered incapable of remembering not to automatically press the switch. Lamps were installed to enable work to continue. They created a cosy glow. It made the office far more intimate and ‘user friendly’, to use modern jargon. Unfortunately I couldn’t see very well and seemed to spend more time than normal shuffling through papers to find what I was seeking. At least the dust and cat and dog hairs weren’t as visible as they usually are on the black surface of the desk. However, that is not to say they’d gone away, just lay there waiting eagerly for the next allergic person to arrive. It set us to thinking about the ‘romantic’ past when candles were the main source of light. We often yearn to go back to a simpler past, but I think we’d soon get frustrated with it, after modern living. So many things we take for granted would have to go. This roundabout route leads me to tell you about a seminar I attended last week. It was given by Arthur Peacock. He spoke of his life as a distinguished scientist and as a priest. He had worked nearby to Watson and Crick when they discovered the double helix of DNA. I find the world of theoretical physics utterly fascinating – don’t ask me to explain quantum physics though. I read these things and think ‘that’s amazing’ and even grasp the main points of what it’s all about. By the next day, however, it’s all a bit hazy and thereafter descends into a greater murk than my office, minus light. I have never understood people who find a contradiction between science and theology. The more we discover about this remarkable world we inhabit, the more we learn of God. If our science and theology do contradict one another, we’ve got one wrong and need to think again. So often we descend into dogma and ignorance and create false dichotomies, when arguing these matters. The more we learn about the way the world is constructed, ourselves included, the more we are aware of the immanence of God in it. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. Dawkins’ reductionism does not work when you take the more complex organisms and try to break them down to the simplest. All of which leads me to speak of the Light of the World, in the form of Jesus, whose presence with us we celebrate at Christmas. God in Jesus illuminates the darkest places in our souls and in our understanding. That illumination gives us the light to discover more about who God is, about who we are and about the physical world around us. Never be afraid of the light or desire to retreat into darkness. Janice |