Lint, socks, tents, and grace

This weekend is our annual family camping on an island. I've described it in the past, what is is that we do. This year will be the first time that we do it without my sister in law. It was five days after the last family camp that she began to feel nauseous, a terrible Friday night and Saturday morning that my wife, my brother in law, my wife's best friend and I (who were all there) will never fully get over. Nor will the rest of the family and friends, who rushed up to the cottage within hours.

I am not entirely certain how this weekend will go. Since it has been a year, everybody's grief has gone from being an unbearable wound to a constant but manageable ache. But this was the culmination of our year, every year. This event is like Christmas to us, and knowing that our last days with her were spent at Family Camp last year will cast a long shadow over everything we do this weekend. It will be a rite of passage for my brother in law, I am sure. He has crossed all the other important events already – anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas – but this is the first time he crosses our family camping event, the most important event of our year.

My wife internalizes these things too. I know the scope and impact of each one of these journeys crossed without her sister, but she rarely makes it apparent to anyone else (myself included) how much it is affecting her.

But we have been overseen with great care and concern by God. It is difficult for me to explain how present, kind, and loving he was in the aftermath of last year, but I know that anyone who has lost family probably understands what I mean. Grace is not solely reserved for salvation. It is also concerned with the here and now, and we have benefited abundantly. Grace was a lifeline when we were floundering under the waves. It brought a smile to our faces when all we could think to do was cry. It brought laughter, when all we could hope for was weeping. And it brought tears that were like fresh rain, the great relief of crying unreservedly as St. Augustine described the loss of his mother St. Monica.

We will be watched. And my sister-in-law will be with us. She'll be a little harder to see, I know. But I know she'd never miss this weekend. We will laugh with her again.

Big hairy animals - they all look alike, right?

Bison, not Bigfoot, stomped through Canada

The war formerly known as the 'War on Terror'

"The Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (tm) is just not that catchy. I think it might be a good idea if they checked with Prince and see if he's still using that symbol thingie, and if not, could we please borrow it for the now unnamed war?

The 'rebranding' of the war on terror | csmonitor.com

The Iraqi women who fear that democracy will crush freedom

I remember reading in National Geographic about twenty years ago that, whatever other shortcomings Iraq had, one area where Iraqis had done very well were in womens' rights. Iraqi women were construction workers, scientists, doctors.... their rights had progressed as far in Iraq as they had in any western country.

The new Iraq may come to resemble Iran more than itself soon...

The Iraqi women who fear that democracy will crush freedom - World - Times Online

My selfless moment

I am standing in the delivery room. My wife has received an epidural, but it did not come soon enough – she is in great pain. It has happened so suddenly, though she has been here for almost a day now, and her doctor and I have rolled her in here.

Our daughter has arrived in the world, just as Wordsworth says a baby arrives – trailing clouds of glory does she come. She is a blue baby. Tiny, beautiful, fragile. Very, very precious, in ways so profound I already know there are no words for. What am I?

• I am stunned with awe, awe at the profoundly beautiful thing that my wife has just done. It is sacramental and God-giving in a way I'm not sure even a priest could understand.
• I am humbled before God, whose bright love is a blinding thing, and in this moment moment I am as blind and speechless as St. Paul on the road to Damascus, although I have in fact never seen more clearly.
• I am filled to the brim with love, filled far more fully than I believed it was possible for me to believe. I am filled with love, unfathomable tenderness, for this daughter of mine, whom I have never even seen before. I am filled with love, far more than ever before if such a thing is possible, for my wife, who has done this amazing thing before me and included me in it. And I am filled with love for a God that I have never before been fully able to believe in, and to whom I will not come for a few more years yet.

Yet in this moment, I do know that he is here. I know now why a star shone in Bethlehem. If such light can shine in my heart, how could it have done anything but shine like a star when God's own son came into the world?

So what comes after life?

The other day, I reflected on the passing of my sister in law a year ago, as I watched a sunset on the watery horizon of Lake Ontario. As the sun began to go down, I realized that the passing of a person is much the same.

When the sun goes, you do not see it anymore. But you know the sun is still there. At first, the afterglow lets you know this, for the rich red, yellow, and purple echoes of the sun's light deck the clouds and sky out in a superb glory - if anything the sun is more present than ever, though you now cannot see it. (I reflect how many signs we had in those first days, how her afterglow shone with a beauty that made it impossible to believe she was not near in some way.)

But after the afterglow does eventually come the night. However, the sun is still there. As before it remains that you simply cannot see it.

And if you look hard enough, you still see signs of its presence. The tan on your skin when you see the mirror. The light reflected off the moon. The sun's kindred, the stars, proof that starlight always continues.

When a person's sun sets, their light is merely passing out of reach. For how could a person pass out of existence, simply for crossing the horizon?

So what came before God?

I hear this question often. It is a childlike question (I mean that in the best sense), and I heard it most poignantly when my daughter asked it. The answer is very hard to understand, but I think despite the fact that a very complex thinker, Augustine, has the best answer, children have the mental creativity to try and picture it - to a much greater extent that adults do, anyway.

Augustine notes (and modern scientists agree) that time (and anything linear like time) is a property of the universe. You can't speak of a "before" the universe, because the word "before" refers to time, and nothing like time exists outside the context of the universe.

God's "eternal-ness" is exactly that - it is a state of being outside concepts of "before" and "after." I realize how difficult it is to understand that, because we live within time and cannot imagine existence outside of it. But our lack of ability to comprehend should not be conflated with this actually being a problem.

His own words, from Confessions, Book 11

"Those who say this, do not yet understand you, O Wisdom of God, Light of souls. They do not understand yet how things are made, by you and in you. Yet they strive to understand the eternal, while their heart flutters in the movement of the past and the future, and is still unstable... See, I answer him that asks, 'What did God before He made heaven and earth?'...

"Nor do you in time, precede time: for how else could you precede all time? But you precede all things past, by the sublimity of an ever-present eternity; and you surpass all future because they are future, and when they come, they shall be past; but you are the same, and your years do not fail. Your years neither come nor go; whereas ours both come and go, that they all may come. Your years stand together, because they do stand; nor are your years pushed out by coming years, for they do not pass away; but ours shall all be, when they are gone."

I'm not sure if she even remembers my answer, which was just a simplified version of the above. But she seemed satisfied with my answer.

Scotty beams up, one last time

This is very sad. Scotty from Star Trek has beamed up for good. Doohan was a very colourful character, a war hero who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, costing him a finger. I have vague memories of seeing him at a comic festival in a hotel in the seventies, but I don't remember much about it.

In recent years Doohan went from fatherhood to alzheimers in the span of a fairly short time. He got a star put in on the walk of fame, but by this time, he was heavily beset with alzheimers and was unable to appreciate it.

CTV.ca | James Doohan, Star Trek's 'Scotty', dies

Beaming my mindless musings into space?

I have my doubts the aliens will be interested. There are times I have a hard time keeping my kids interested. ;-)

Blogs in space target aliens - vnunet.com

England in the Age of Shakespeare

Something interesting - I've heard about it before. But did you know that in 16th century England, English people didn't likely sound English? It is thought that they spoke rather with something closer to certain American accents than to the modern English one.

England in the Age of Shakespeare

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The real sound of Shakespeare?

A Big Project - concluded

I first learned how to use a computer to record music in April, 2003, after a “surprise wedding” where I’d written one of the songs. I suppose that is not entirely the case - when I was in the recording studio in the summer of 1993, I learned how to operate (to a small extent) the software that studio used to record digitally.

But I first learned how to use my own computer to record music in April of 2003. The first song I recorded was the wedding song, “Among the Lilies”, an adaptation of pieces of the Song of Solomon. I immediately noticed that the results were better, far better, than I could get from my 4-track multi-track tape recorder. In the time since, I’ve written and recorded a number of songs, and gotten better at it with the passing of time. And I’ve gotten a lot of help - my wife, my sister-in-law, and my brother-in-law built me a recording room in the basement, and set up my music gear in it for my birthday in November, 2003. They built a room in my house, and I didn’t notice! Only a combination of my obvious day to day stupor with their quiet and carefully plotted work allowed that to be a surprise. I may tell that story in detail at some point.

For my birthday this past year, my wife got me a bass guitar. It was the missing hole in the picture - to sound authentically like a one man band, I had to be able to add real-sounding bass, and not just foot pedal bass from my Yamaha organ. The only instrument I am really expert at is the guitar, but I’ve mustered enough competency at the other instruments that I can sound like a one man band, when I record all the various instrumental parts - just so long as I keep the guitar front and center, instrumentally.

After a few weeks of furious work, where I’ve been re-recording some of the earliest songs that have some recording flaws, I’m done this musical project that has been gelling in my head for a while. And now that I am done, I have to decide what to do with it.

In short, I am thinking of putting out a CD. I’m far enough along in my thinking that I’ve even thought up cover art. The group I was in back in 1993, you see, had begun recording a second album in 1994. Already distraught with my spiritual state, I had poured my agnosticism into song, and had written a concept album about this agnostic state. In one song from the recording, I wrote:

I make my living as a musician
A doctor to the soul if you will
But I’m not sure that I’m much of a physician
Cause I’m not that sure there is a soul to kill

This was the monster under the bed - is consciousness, is the soul an illusion, as some Buddhists might say? Was it a simple reality that life, in all its apparent meaning, is really an illusion in the chaos? I titled the disk “Body and Soul” and had designed a cover art motif, a world hanging in space, with a happy face spray painted on it.

I am using the same art as deliberate irony today. No longer in any way agnostic, I’ve truly recorded the songs I am happy to call “Body and Soul.” Instead of tracking my journey in the Dark Night of the Soul, they begin with my emergence from the dark night (which I chronicle in a song called “Leave the Light On.”)

The darkness leaves no place to hide
From the monsters in my mind
But this blue light sketching shapes on the bed
Tells me what I need to find


And then I sing with everything I have bathed in that light. I wrote the song over a Pentecost experience, one of many such blessings I’ve enjoyed in which swirls of blue light lit up my bedroom one night when I was alone, and filled the room with a soft glow and bathed me in light and love. I know that the clouds pass over this light from time to time, but I know they are clouds of my own making. The Light has always been there, and the darkness will never prevail over it.

Plamegate

I've heard a lot of spin dropped into the ether in the hopes of protecting Karl Rove's career. One is the interesting assertion that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was "not really" undercover (that gem comes from G. Gordon Libby, who'd probably also like to assert there "wasn't really' a break-in at the Watergate hotel.)

Sorry folks. Valerie Plame "was really" undercover. And exposing her also outed a front company - the lives of who knows how many agents were put in danger by that.

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm (washingtonpost.com)

...to the New York islands.... hey, what'd I do?

Disclaimer: I've never even seen this game running, let alone ever played it.

Clinton wants inquiry into Grand Theft sex | CNET News.com

I'm willing to bet she wants the inquiry in order to find out if Bill's involved. ;-)

Bloggers learn price of loose talk

I guess bloggers have to watch what they say. Mind you, I'm not planning on running for public office. :-)

Bloggers learn price of loose talk - Breaking - Technology - smh.com.au

My brother's party

My brother threw a party this weekend, at his “ranch” as he calls it (which is actually about 70 acres of forest by a lake, a segmented-off piece of my parents' old farm.) It was nominally a fishing tournament, which sometimes I think would be better known as a drinking tournament.

My cousin was booked into the B&B, too. My parents brought her, actually, with my daughter, as they had picked her up from the train in Kingston. When they passed by in the car, and I saw her, I knew she had some of the family resemblance in her. But when she got out of the back seat with my daughter, my jaw dropped – she looks like my daughter's doppleganger. I no longer have to wonder, really, what my daughter will look like when she's an adult.

She's also a fascinating person – recently finished articling, about to be admitted to the bar. My wife and I agreed that she was so sweet, you'd get diabetes if you spent too much time around her – she is just so interested in what others have to say, so polite, so courteous and considerate. My wife sat on the dock with her, while I went swimming with my daughter. She told me that Nan (my mother) had taken her horseback riding again that morning – the princess had been spoiled rotten. (My parents had called this the 'royal visit.')

My brother has built a large stone wood burning grill, which will eventually become the center of the house he is planning to build. The wood burns in a section that looks like an old wood-oven used in 19^th century bakeries. You then drag hot ashes and coals over from the oven to underneath the grill, and cook the food over the wood coals. He cooked a couple of salmon over this, and it was the tastiest and most tender salmon I've ever had. He's an olive oil fanatic, too – he was broiling sweet peppers on the grill, and kept pouring olive oil onto them, until a distressed woman finally came over with the barbecue brush, and marinaded them that way – she just couldn't stand watching all that expensive oil pour into the fire. :-)

At dusk, I dragged out my guitar and started singing all the songs I know by heart. It had gotten dark, so I couldn't read anything out of the songbook. My cousin joked that she now expects to retire comfortably off of my rock star earnings. :-) The mosquitoes had also decided to spend some time by the campfire, and I furiously contorted myself in such a way as to make it difficult for them to get me. My wife laminated me in bug spray and they more or less went away.

When we finally got back to the B&B, I suggested to my daughter she check the bed and see if there was a pea underneath the mattresses. Bonus points if you get the reference.

The Flypaper Theory

Using the Iraqi people as bait to attract terrorists obviously isn't working, according to Arianna Huffington.

Arianna Huffington: London: Bush’s “Flypaper Theory” is Blown to Pieces - Yahoo! News

British Tough

If Osama thought he could scare the "soft, decadent" British with his signature coordinated attacks, it is because he and his operatives know famously little about London or Britain. During World War II, yesterday would have been a relatively calm night. During the Blitz, Londoners were being bombed night after night. They toughed it out - taking to the subways, blacking out their windows, they turned in one of the most heroic turns of any civilian population - ever.

That London, British tough, is showing itself today. Roller bladers are skating, commuters are incredibly riding the re-opened Tube lines, and tourists are hopping on double decker buses. They are not, perhaps, acting as though nothing has happened. But the steely resolve to live everyday lives is not an act - it is the natural ability of a Londoner, as my grandfather witnessed during the Battle of Britain. Hitler threw a lot more at them than you will ever be able to, Osama. You're going to have to pick a softer target closer to home, I'm afraid, for this particular one will not be fazed by your impotent terror. You do not - and never have - understood enough about Britain to harm it.

Relief

My brother has a retail clothing store in London, and all of his staff are safe and accounted for. I am grateful for that, but grieve for all of those who are injured or worse, and their families. To hear the attackers claim to do this in God's name is obscene. God is not a monster, and does not command the will of monsters!

USATODAY.com - 'Al-Qaeda' group linked to London blasts

When someone desperately wants a war, they often get it - "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," as Shakespeare put it.

USATODAY.com - 'Al-Qaeda' group linked to London blasts

God help us all. :-(

"She has loved much, for she is forgiven much"

There's nothing more instinctive in a being designed for altruism than judging. If you think about it, evolution nearly demands it - how can you be a community of intelligent beings who share the life of your community if you don't have:

- a means of distributing the work as evenly as possible;
- a means of ensuring social order, through customs, laws and punishments (for their breach)?

I suppose in this, I regard Jesus as the next evolutionary step: the step beyond a human way of creating order, to the divine way, which consists of:

- The labourers all receive the same wage, no matter how long or hard they toil;
- Forgive everyone

There was a saying in the feminist circles of the sixties - the personal is political. I consider that a very important truth, but it is only half of the truth, for I would also assert that the communal is political. There are times, to coin Captain Kirk, when the needs of the few, or the one, outweigh the needs of the many. And there are times when the reverse is true, as Mr. Spock originally proposed.

I can't say I've ever been a blindly obedient Christian, believing as my bishop tells me just because he tells me. I have to come to believe what I believe for myself, via the exercise and formation of my conscience. (Even then, I must confess, I don't always obey my conscience, but that is the sad awareness any Christian has, I suspect.) I've wrestled with the great ethical questions that have come to the fore, some with more difficulty than others.

On the question of life, when it begins, and what reproductive choice means, I have not had the luxury of simply listening to church men. In my life, I've known people with harrowing stories of decisions they've come to, experiences they've had, each adding a new layer of meaning to my quest to understand what I can never truly know - what is it to become a mother? I know a woman grateful to be alive for she is the result of a rape. I know another woman who wept herself to sleep at night because a likely congenital defect in her child caused her to make a decision that she told me was in no way an easy one. All of my inquiry did lead me to fall into the Pro-Life camp. But I realized I could do this without judging anyone, without finding fault, without accusing anyone of moral laxity, or wishing for their prompt jailing. I could do this and hear what the other side had to say and know that much of what they have to say (for example, the accusation that pro-lifers lose interest in babies once born) is an accusation that is not unfair.

On the other hand, in the latest debate, gay marriage, I found the personal overriding the communal. I did fret (validly I think) that the changes here in Canada no longer place the one naturally generational institution without a state of exaltation or primacy - a fertility rite no longer about fertility. But then I thought about the many gay friends I've had - who did they most resemble? And I was forced to admit, they most resemble me. Those in their twenties went through the same heartbreak, ecstasy, and more heartbreak that love in the twenties is for anyone. Those in their thirties and forties worry about the same things I do - how to get from paycheque to paycheque, what house to buy, how to arrange the mortgage payments, when to schedule time for vacations. And I remembered the elderly couple of men down the street who just loved walking their dogs - every day they walked those dogs, they were their pride and joy. They resemble me. My resolve to stick with the church on this one is shaken by the ordinary experience of everyday life.

But in all cases, the simple path is not to judge, and to forgive abundantly when there is cause to do so. I have much to be forgiven for, and like the woman washing Jesus feet with tears, I remind myself that my need for much forgiving must inspire me to much loving, which he commended her for. Too often, the harshly formed views Christians sometimes have of others that they do not approve of is too rigidly formed by legalism, and insufficiently informed by Love.

May I always love much.

Interest

For the very first time, we will be staying in a Bed and Breakfast this weekend. We will be heading to my brother's "ranch" as he calls it for his fishing tournament, where my parents will be bringing my daughter back to us. I'm not entirely sure she will want to come back.

My cousin will be there. I've never actually met her, in fact. My brother established a relationship with her about three years ago, and I've just never been there when he has had her over. I used to be somewhat afraid of family - people who in theory you are supposed to be close to because there are blood ties. But I find there's no natural inclination to be friendly and sociable with people you haven't established a friendship with.

But as I've gotten older, I find myself echoing Fr. Henri Neuwen's journey from hostility to hospitality, developing as my first response towards people a charitable disposition. I do not necessarily find it easier to spend time with relatives that I do not know, but I feign it more ardently, and then my feigning becomes real as those first few tentative questions reveal an interesting person, waiting to be discovered by more conversation.

The simple fact of the matter is that most people are interesting in some way - their hobbies, their talents, their personal history, the lessons they've learned from a tough road. That I think leads to the benefit you reap from a charitable disposition - you find out just how intruiging different people can be.

I have friends who are artists, musicians, poets, carpenters, ex-politicians... I have friends who have lived everywhere from Namibia to Mexico... I have friends who've seen the world, and painted it, photographed it, or written about it. And I would never have learned about any of it if I hadn't asked, and I hadn't listened.

I put my daughter on a train...

...and sent her to my parents today. I am very nervous. This is my younger daughter. She has never gone anywhere without us before. I am anxious, and I miss her already. I know how much fun she will have, but whatever will I do with myself the next week? She's always been the one who'll play at the park with me! :-(

Interview with Karla Homolka

In a pretty stunning turn of events, one of Canada's most notorious
convicts agreed to be interviewed immediately after she got out of jail
yesterday, on the French news channel, Radio Canada. Back when the Green
Ribbon task force was trying to catch the mysterious killers, this
province was traumatized. And then when they were caught, and the sordid
details of the husband/wife kidnappings, assaults, and murders were
revealed, that traumatization became worse - a province collectively lost
some of its innocence.

I have to admit that it took courage for her to do this interview. And I
am somewhat more convinced than I used to be that she no longer represents
a danger to society. In fact, that's what she asserted just after I tuned
in and after her lawyer introduced why she was doing this. She insisted
she was not going to be a danger to anyone's children, and I found myself
giving this the benefit of the doubt - her pathology was always different
from her husband's. He was a garden variety pervert. Homolka? We've never
quite figured her out.

She claimed in the interview to have been a "follower," and yet she
displayed the same feistiness and combativeness with the Radio-Canada
presenter as she did in court, testifying against Bernardo. When she was
asked about having taken up with another murderer while in prison, she put
her foot down and said, "I'm not here to talk about anyone I was in prison
with; I'm not prepared to talk about that yet." And even though this is
probably the most contentious thing about her release, earning her 801
Criminal Code post-sentence supervision, she demonstrated quite clearly
that when she wants to, she takes the driver's seat. She is certainly no
"follower."

Nonetheless, when she talked about her involvement in the death of her
sister and how that has affected her status with her family, she seemed to
me to have genuine remorse, a thing she is not often said to have. She
says that she wants to "remake her life" in Quebec, hopeful that Quebec is
a society that will forgive her more easily than Ontario, where her crimes
were committed. And I found myself hoping that she can - she is out, and
no revenge can bring back the dead. Can she remodel herself as a citizen,
one who contributes rather than destroys? In that, my hopes are with her.

--

Happy Independence Day

Although it might at first seem odd that one of the Fourth of July traditions is setting off fireworks (Chinese rocketry), in many ways that speaks to the true greatness of America. It is a land of many people, people who have come from far and wide and brought the best of the world with them. Happy 4th of July!

The worst part of high gas prices

This weekend, the lake should be packed full of sun-seeking cottagers. After all, the weekend is a long weekend, book-ended by both Canada Day and Independence Day. But I've seen maybe five boats all day, and the cottages are silent - no sound of happy children splashing in the water. It is one of the less consequential results of high gas prices, or at least less noticed - but people are giving up vacations over them. If anything can be regretted, surely it is the loss of any opportunity to slow down the pace of life.

The geometry of lawnmowing

There is a certain way you are supposed to mow lawns. You go around in a square, slowly mowing inward into a smaller square. However, mowing the lawn here at the cottage this morning, I can't help but wonder who thought this approach up? A cottage lawn, certainly, is never square. I ended up mowing shapes that looked to have been designed in AutoCAD by a half dozen engineers. They certainly weren't square. :-)

Killer Karla

Infamous Canadian Schoolgirl killer and rapist Karla Homolka will be freed by Monday, after a twelve year sweetheart deal that saw her sentence reduced to manslaughter in exchange for her cooperation. She has been desperately seeking an injunction to prevent any media or Internet coverage at all of her release, even though she she is a completely unrepentant offender under a rare order to keep reporting to police as she is considered an ongoing danger to society.

She is worried, terrified that somebody will kill her when she is released, and that is why she wants an unprecedented order muzzling everyone, even the public. But while society may have an obligation to protect her from harm from theoretical (and unproven) murderers, it has a greater obligation to let the fourth estate help protect society from a narcissistic killer who has hooked up with another murderer much like the first one with whom she committed her crimes. The rest of us are not like her - human life may mean nothing to her, but it does mean something to us. Ordinary people may not like that she's free, but we will not do to her what she and her odious husband did to her victims.

In fact, I can't help but ironically note that as she begs for relief, Karla lacks any of the courage or dignity of Kristen French, her last victim.

Return of the King

I have been reading a book about the history of Europe, something I used to love doing as a kid. I've always found reading about Europe's past to be an astonishing journey into the psyche of the human creature. For instance, it is incredible how quickly the French revolution moved from fraternite, liberte, egalite to anarchy, then the execution of Robesepierre, and then finally back to dicatorship under Napoleon. Idealism became murderous frenzy and then turned back into cynical regal politics in the span of two decades.

One of the interesting features of Napoleon's century was the rise of atheism as a respected outlook. Few atheists today would be willing to acknowledge it, as they view their belief (or lack of belief if you prefer) as the natural evolution of the human mental prism, but atheism's heyday was not today, but the 19th century. While not declining in numbers, atheism has certainly declined as a serious philosophical proposition.

Part of the reason for that is the remarkable adaptability of religion to the circumstances it finds itself in. The rise of Martin Buber and Jewish mysticism helped innoculate Judaism from accusations that it was no more than a cult of archaic ritual law. Serious scriptural study of the Bible as more than a historical document began to transform the church. So did a heartfelt focus on getting to the essentials of Christian practice (from the Anglican Oxford movement, to C.S. Lewis' philosophical constructs in 'Mere Christianity', to finally, Vatican II in Rome.) And the arrival of Pentecostalism showed how 'feeling' religion could be.

But ironically, one of the things that reduced the impact of atheism was science itself. Although Darwin's Origin of the Species had given unbelief a significant boost (thanks in no small part to Christianity's petulant response to Darwin's challenge), Darwin himself suggested there was no reason evolution should give rise to disbelief. Still, those who had come to doubt seemed to take heart in a scientific theory that displaced the mythology of Genesis.

But with the arrival of the 20th century, science did something else: it discovered the universe was finite in both space and time. Atheist cosmology essentially demands a steady state universe, because the alternative leaves a gaping causal hole. And with the work of Einstein and Hubble, it soon became quite apparent that gaping hole was definitely there. The universe had originated in space in time, and was not eternal. Furthermore, its origin as a humble singularity no larger than a grain of dust made the universe a far less potent thing than the 19th century's philosopher kings would surely have hoped.

The Catholic Church, in the fifties, rushed to endorse the Big Bang theory, as it would come to be called. Further scientific development, such as the Anthropic Principle (in its weak, strong, and final variants), re-established that mysterious and inscrutable character of the universe that had led to religion in the first place.

That's not to suggest that faith is not still faith - it surely is. A few circumstantial hints of God's existence is not proof of even Deist conceptions, let alone specific creedal beliefs. But religion has regained a respect it once lost, as both a serious investigation of that eternal question "Why are we here?" as well as a comfort to those who need something more than chaos.