I heard the
erudite and delightful Ilia Delio, O.S.F., speak at Boston College last
Saturday, her topic "Evolution and the Primacy of Love." Many of her ideas grow from the writings of
Teilhard de Chardin, twentieth century paleontologist and priest, who believed
the human race is in self-conscious evolution. The nature of the universe is undivided
wholeness. The fifth force of the cosmos is love.
Today,
however, I recall someone quoting a sign on a display of the development of man
in Paris's Museum of Natural History:
"The evolution of hominids is largely complete. The evolution of human beings has barely
begun." What can I do as my heart
drops again into that hollow place of helplessness. I don't know how to pray any more.
Last week
in response to events in Nice the author of the blog Sicut Locutus Est reran a posting from 2005 after the
tsunami. Watching news coverage, she
heard a reporter ask some survivors when a muzzein
calls, "Are you going to prayer?" While some do go, one man who lost 24
members of his extended family shakes his head.
Through a translator he says, "No, not now. Now I do not have it in me to
pray." The author looks for hope in
the mourner's key word, "Now." But, she says, in times of terrible
tragedy, especially those perpetrated by man on man, "we often overwhelm those great human
questions---those vast empty spaces and terrifying silences----with hope-filled
murmuring about God's love...." She
finds she can not reassure even herself.
On the other
hand, Delio reminded us of recent proof of "non-local action," responsive
action between atoms, molecules, the tiniest bits of cosmic matter, separated
by huge distances. She quoted Henry
Stapp, who says not just our actions, but even our thoughts do something. Perhaps it is enough today
if I can turn my thoughts from disgust and sorrow at man's misplaced anger and
our seemingly ubiquitous insanity. I can
send thoughts over great distances to join those men and women who embraced one
another sobbing in Dallas, to the young woman in Minnesota who filmed her
fiancé's death next to her in their car. I can imagine myself huddled next to a
grieving figure in the street in Nice, waiting for the light.