Advent Singularity

Today’s post comes from Don Poole.  Don is a teacher period.  In the classroom with students in his science class, or teaching other teacher how to teach around the world Don loves to share knowledge.  In retirement he still teaches because that is what he does, and this usually means that many of us go home and order more amazing books because Don’s thirst for knowledge is contagious.  The following is a reflection that Don shared as a devotion for our December leadership team meeting.  He follows his devotion with a poem he wrote.  It is a really wonderful way to see science and the literary arts come together.  So without more yammering from me here is Don’s devotion to get us thinking in a new way about what is to happen in a few short days:

Singularity… This is an event that happens only once. I have two types that I can distinguish.  The first are events that happen to this world only once (that we know of).  For example the beginning of life on this planet.  Scientists can trace back to the beginnings, but only guess at what happened to form the first self-reproducing organism. They can only guess at what happened. In my book, this is a singularity.  Another singularity is the big bang.  That happened, we think, to the whole thing we call the universe. We know it happened just once, of course many scientists think there may be more ‘universes’ (How that can be plural by definition I do not know). What I know is that ‘our universe’ (the one I live in) had a beginning.  There is another singularity that we talk about in the Christian Church called the ‘incarnation.’  The incarnation is the event that we celebrate this time of year called Christmas, or the birth of the Christ Child. This person was in the form of a baby named Jesus. He was a once in a world event.  A singularity in time and space. Christians believe he was born in Bethlehem to a very ordinary person named Mary and her husband Joseph.  His birth was hidden from the eyes of the powers that were in control of the ‘world’ at the time of his birth.  In fact this singularity was announced to some of the most ordinary types of people of that time, the shepherds.  Which brings me to the more common types of singularities; you and me. We are singularities too, since we have our own unique DNA and our own unique set of experiences, thoughts and sequence of events in our lives.  There is and will only ever be just one me.  Just one you.  Just one Jesus of Nazareth.   We were born to ordinary people like Mary and Joseph, Louise and Donald, Matt and Heather and on and on.  But the important thing is that we realize that we are singularities.  The world needs us, like it needed Jesus to be the beings God created us to be.  I know, that Jesus’ role ended up being a lot more significant than mine or yours could ever be, because He was a part of God.  We believe He was God.  God as a singularity in our lives,  A God who became one of us. We call that Emmanuel.  God with us.

I wrote a poem to express my thoughts on singularities. Here it is in all its scientific details. Before you read it let me explain a couple things that are in it. In the history of life on this planet there have been several extinctions of many forms of life.  One is referred to as the Permian (time period) extinctions, another is an asteroid strike of the planet that is visible today in rocks, called the KT boundary. The last ‘science idea’ that I need to mention is the Cambrian Explosion. That is a term used to describe the seemingly sudden (in geologic time) explosion of life forms during the Cambrian time period.  If you are interested you can Google them. Here goes:

 Singularities

The Big Bang

Expanding just right

For all to be,

Then came life

In a moment geologically.

Permian extinctions

At an alarming rate;

85% of life met its fate.

The Cambrian explosion all phyla secure

Life as we know it would now endure.

Then an asteroid crater so huge

The KT boundary shows the deluge.

Then a God conscious being

From the mammalian line.

We call them Adam and Eve

Conscious of the Divine.

Then it happened

No fanfare, not bother

The Incarnation from our Father.

One unique act to get us to now

A resurrection complete,

One final bow.

BUT

In the final act

A new creation

Completely intact!