Listen to Learn

Here’s a quick story to let you know I’m aware that I have much to learn in the way of connection, but I’m trying out my skills in real time conversations.  Here’s a potentially controversial topic.  I drop it on people all the time.  One, because it’s a topic that has no verifiable answer.  And, two, because I believe it to be true.  The mystery found in religion and science are the same.  Boom.

I brought the topic up at a family breakfast.  To me it feels earth shattering.  Never do I feel closer to God than when I’m in nature.  It’s as if He created a natural sanctuary for us to worship.  His magnificence does not live in a box.   It’s all around us and we can barely see the wonder.  We forget to revel in nature’s infinite possibility when we start to label and define all of its pieces and parts.  We get lost in the forest and we can only see the trees.  We so desperately need to assign meaning and purpose, we barely have time to recognize the abstraction of our existence or the purpose.

I am curious like a scientist, when it comes to creation and how our species have evolved.  I’m curious about religion and where the stories of humanity originated.  Even when you produce a document or a fact or a proof, I will never stop wondering what I don’t understand.  I believe my human understanding is limited.  I will never have the answers, but I will never stop wondering.

When I stand in the forest, I know anything can happen.  Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.  I cannot get over the purpose of pine needles and how they relate to the forest floor and how that informs the chipmunks and what my walking over the log will do to the balance.  In the forest I’m aware that all eyes are on me, but I have no idea why animals approach some people and not others.

The conversation went like this:  I believe religion and science are the same.  But you can prove gravity exists.  Yes, and, I will always be curious, even if it is proven gravity exists I will want to know something more about it.  I will never believe that I fully understand gravity.  Conversely, I will always believe in a higher power even if you tell me it is not proven.  I will never stop being curious about what I know and don’t know.  He sighed and said I’m not explaining it right.  And I sighed and said, I hear what you’re saying.  I understand what you’re trying to tell me.  That was it.  He stopped and said I hear what you’re saying, too.  We didn’t need to reiterate or elaborate or convince each other.  We only needed to listen and learn from each other.

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