Dark Matter | Wayfarer

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:17 (NIV)

Wendy and I have been watching an entertaining British mystery series on PBS of late entitled Professor T. The show revolves around a quirky character with an out-of-control case of OCD who happens to be a professor of Criminology at Cambridge. The good professor has every one figured out but himself, and as the series progresses, we begin to learn the childhood events that helped to produce his quirks. We’re really enjoying it.

As I’ve progressed in my life journey, I’ve come to appreciate the powerful fragility of childhood memories. On one hand they are incredibly powerful because they are what I remember. On the other hand they are incredibly fragile because what I remember is through the narrow, largely uninformed lens of a child. As I wrote in the chapter-a-day trek through Job, “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

In the same way, I find that my understanding of Jesus has changed over the years, and continues to paradoxically move towards the infinite unknowable. When I was a child, my perceptions of Jesus were simple and child-like. After 40 years of relationship as a disciple, I find my knowledge and perceptions have expanded greatly. I find it fascinating that Jesus told us that salvation requires the simple faith of a child, and that Paul said that spiritual maturity requires us to put away childish things.

In Paul’s opening chapter to the followers of Jesus’ in the town of Colossae, he addresses the believers with the cosmic Christ that he met on the road to Damascus and has continued to know as he paradoxically moved towards the infinite unknowable. Christ is, he explains, before anything ever was, and in Him all things “hold together.”

I love that physics had taught me about Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which theoretically constitutes 95% of the universe but we really don’t know how to detect it or observe it. We all learn in school that atoms are made up of these protons and neutrons spinning, but to spin you have have space, so there is space in matter and a force that keeps the protons and neutrons in their orbit within the space that’s within matter. We’re in the dark.

I personally think Paul was on to something. He had progressed to a point of knowing in the infinite unknowable.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself enjoying a bit of awe and wonder. I find that I do that more and more the further I get in my spiritual journey. The more I know Christ, the more I know that I don’t know. This leads to the awe and wonder, which leads me to His holiness.

After the second season of Professor T., the good professor has learned that his snatches of childhood memories are small pieces of a larger puzzle. Wendy and I are looking forward to the next season to find out, along with him, what the larger puzzle looks like.

Today, I head out to spend the day, and then the evening, with my client. It’s day 20,983 of my earthly journey. As I walk to the conference center this morning, I’ll ponder these things in awe of Jesus, who is so much more than I knew when I began to follow Him as a child, and yet there is far more about Him that I don’t know than I can possibly know.

But, I know that He is holding everything together.

I still have that child-like faith.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

…in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:2 (NIV)

I woke this morning remembering that it was time to choose which book in the Great Story to trek through on this chapter-a-day journey. There has never been much rhyme or reason to where the journey goes next. At this point, I believe every book has been blogged through at least twice with many having been revisited four or five times.

So why keep going?

When Jesus was tempted by the Prince of this World, He compared the Great Story to spiritual bread. It is basic nutrients. It is sustenance. It is a foundational, life-giving staple. When Moses commissions Joshua to be his successor as leader of the Hebrew people, he tells Joshua, “Always keep this book of the Law [the only written pieces of the Great Story at that time] on your lips; meditate on it day and night, and be careful to do everything written in it.”

That was the first verse I ever memorized. It launched my perpetual reading, meditation, and study, and it has never gotten old. In fact, it only gets deeper and more fascinating for me. Why?

First, because every time I trek through a book again I am at a different place on the journey. My perspective from this waypoint in the journey changes what I see, hear, and receive in spiritual nutrients and sustenance. It’s like going back to a favorite restaurant and having your favorite meal off the menu after not having tasted and experienced it in years. It is the same meal, but you experience it differently.

Second, with every step of my life journey, I acquire new information, inputs, and experiences which lead to greater insight into the stories, episodes, lyrics, and poems as well as the Great Story as a whole. Metaphor is layered with meaning, and the more experiences I have in life the more I see layered in the Message, and the more connections I make the text, both to other pieces of the Great Story and to other pieces of my life.

Third, I have found it to be exactly what Jesus said it was: foundational, life-giving, spiritual staple. It centers me at the beginning of the day. It informs my thoughts and meditations for the day. It reminds me how to think, speak, act, relate, and live this day. It often gives me an encouragement to inspire, a promise on which to cling, or an affirmation to comfort.

And so, a quick perusal of the latest chapter-a-day treks by book revealed to me only a couple of books missing from the list referred to as New Testament books. The first one I noticed missing was Hebrews. So, here we go…

Since the last time I’ve made the chapter-a-day trek through Hebrews, my dear friend sent me a personal essay about Pierre de Chardin that has greatly inspired me to learn more about this 20th century Jesuit priest, mystic, and scientist. His writings were banned, his teaching was censored, and he was silenced by the institutional Catholic church. History teaches me that this is always a credible sign that he was on to something true. In particular, Chardin’s thinking around “the Omega point” had a huge influence on both the worlds of science and art in the 20th century. In short, “the Omega point” theorizes that everything in the universe is connected, and just as the entire universe sprang from the explosion of a tiny point of matter (I guess that’s the Alpha point), so it will eventually collapse and return to a tiny point of matter: the Omega point.

As I launched into the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews this morning I only had to get to the second verse before I ran into something I’ve never seen in my reading of this text before.

“...in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son [Jesus] whom he appointed heir of all things...

The heir receives the inheritance. If Jesus is the heir of all things then all things eventually return to Him. He is the “Omega Point.”

and through whom also he made the universe.“

Jesus was also the “Alpha Point.” And, the author of Hebrews goes on to state in the next verse, Jesus is “sustains all things.” In this letter to the followers of Jesus in Colossae, Paul states that in Jesus “all things hold together.” Therefore, I am reminded this morning that Jesus is the “Alpha Point” from which all things spring, the “Omega Point” to which all things return, and also what science ironically refers to as “dark matter” which holds everything together.

So, what does this have to do with my day today?

My meditation on Jesus being the “heir of all things” leads me to conclude that nothing I think I own or possess is truly mine. I will die and it will be passed onto others (who will also die) and/or it will erode, decay, or be destroyed to eventually flow back to the Omega Point. Makes sense, then why Jesus would tell His followers not to worry about, or invest in, the things of this world. He sees the bigger picture. He’s looking in context of the Great Story in which all of creation Jesus “will roll up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed.” And, if Jesus is the sustainer holding all of creation together, then how ever-present and accessible He is. He’s holding me together in ways I never consider.

In the quiet this morning, I head into my day considering everything in my temporal life in the context of a much larger reality. This is what I find Jesus constantly teaching His followers: “Break out of the crimped tunnel vision of this human existence. Learn to see as I see! Step back and see in the context of Alpha and Omega, inter-connectedness and omnipresent sustaining. Then you will see each day, each moment, each interaction with hope and possibility!”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.