Lincoln, Darwin and Unemployment

Unemployed at last! These are the famous opening words of Tom Collin’s classic Australian novel, “Such Is Life.”

Unemployed at last? It seems insensitive to say these words at a time when global unemployment is expected to hit 50 million in 2009. How could losing your job be such a moment of glee and relief? It’s like saying, “Ah, finally my bank account is empty, or at long last my hips are arthritic.”

I don’t expect its true for everyone, but I keep meeting people who announce their lay off with a sense of cautious optimism. I can understand joy at good news. The fact that January retail sales rose by 1% is cause for cautious optimism. But I don’t immediately understand the joy of being laid off.

I look to Darwin and Lincoln for the answer. They both share today as a birthday, and they share much else in common. They were both heretics in the truest sense of the word. They chose to follow their own intellect and wisdom even when it meant being unpopular. Like other fine heretics, Jesus and Einstein, St Francis and Galileo, they promoted the idea that all things are related.

This was a radical departure from the worldview that they (and many of us) inherited. We were taught that life is like a pre pay phone card. The beginning and ending is pre-determined. In this analogy the phone company is God. God made the world with an order that we are not to mess with, lest we breach our contract.

The truth of evolution is so liberating. Even death, especially death, is necessary for natural selection. Without huge amounts of death, nothing changes. Without huge change, nothing new can emerge.

And this doesn’t have to compromise religious beliefs in any way. If God is the source, evolution is the process. If God did it, Darwin described it. Or maybe to continue the phone analogy- Evolution is God’s way of doing upgrades.

While some find a manual for pre-pay creationism in Genesis, I see Genesis as free form brilliance. It is ancient poetry describing evolution before they had words or science to match. It is camp-fire story telling with the intention of praising an unseen order to which they felt intimately related. This unseen whole grounded them as it does us, no matter what name you call it. It gave them a moral compass, as it does us. It gave them a sense of wondrous kinship, as it does us.

I’m excited about Darwin’s birthday. I’m excited to be part of a community that embraces the best of science without fear. I hope to alleviate any anxiety about embracing evolutionary theory, and to show the spiritual liberation that evolution points to.

And now I get it. Unemployment, no matter how death-like it feels, is a natural selection for new possibilities and growth. Unemployed at last. Such is evolutionary hope.


NB I ran my thoughts by our resident physicist Howard Van Till (another fine heretic) to make sure I wasn’t committing any scientific blasphemy. He replied with a nice description of genetic variation and natural selection. He said I could include it here

Spontaneous genetic variation is the way that Earth's ecosystem explores new possibilities for life forms. No exploration = nothing new to look forward to. Thank "God" for genetic exploration.

Natural selection = go with whatever happens to work best at this time and place. That implies that the future will be interesting but admits that the details are yet to be worked out. This approach preserves the possibility of surprise. Thank "God" for surprise.


One last note- I LOVE this Darwin quote on attention.

“Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.” Darwin Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals p. 278

Wonder Unites Science and Religion

The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose. Lord Byron


It’s that time of year again. Darwin’s day is just around the corner, and evolution’s sibling rivalry (science and religion) is back on the agenda. Science generally deals in what we know to be true and the truth needs to be tested. Religion generally deals in what we need to be true and the truth needs to be trusted. Science looks for what can be seen. Religion looks beneath the surface for things that can’t always be seen.

The psychiatrist's secretary walks into her office and says, "Mr. Matthews is in the waiting room asking to see you again. This time he claims he's invisible."
Without hesitation, the psychiatrist replies, "Tell him I can't see him."

Science and religion don’t necessarily have to clash. Religion can embrace the advances of science without fear. Science can embrace the experiences and poetry of some forms of religion without defense. It does require religion to take a decisive and deeply humbling step; recognize that religion is a human creation and therefore it is open to critique and revision.

This isn’t new. Religion has slipped back into dogma, after Immanuel Kant, and Frederick Schleiermacher had solved the problem back in the 18th century. The scientific advances of the Enlightenment made a mockery of superstitious religion. Kant and Schleiermacher said that while you can’t say for sure that the invisible guy in the waiting room exists, you can describe your experience of the invisible man. You know what you experience. You know what you like. You know what moves you.

They don’t seem to have this problem in India. Maybe that’s because Hinduism has intuited so much scientific truth in its ancient wisdom. A 4,000 year old verse from the Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text says “O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect, You enlighten us through the right path.”

It’s a curious irony to westerners that the first Indian moon landing took place in 2008. A week before the launching, millions of Hindu women fasted until the first sighting of the moon’s reflection in a bowl of oil. They do this to safeguard the welfare of the family. The magical qualities of the moon don’t seem to be compromised by getting up close and personal with the giant ball of silly putty in the sky.

In the west, much scientific advance chips away at religious doctrine, like thinning slices of a fading moon. Christianity struggles to hold the magic of heaven within, once the certainty of heaven up there is questioned. Once the curtain of religious wizardry drops to reveal that religion is actually a human construction, devised, revised and organized in the human brain, many feel the lure of flatland secularism.

Consider taking a cue from India. Affirm both the curiosity of science and the imagination of religion. The moon is its own metaphor for the relationship between science and religion, with its yin yang shades of light and dark, receiving and reflecting the sun’s rays. Her front porch is lit with guiding light, while the inner parts of the house are in deep darkness.

When the child sees in the moon a giant rabbit standing over a kitchen table, maybe the child is intuiting something about the parent like power of the moon to affect human mood and behavior.

Shine on you crazy diamond. Fill us with the light of your lunar wisdom. Teach us to bask in the beauty of it all, scientific curiosity and religious wonder alike.

At C3 over the next 3 weeks, we are paying homage to wonder. With no need to fear science, we will discover that all of life has a unity. Each moment is filled with enough beauty and mystery to keep our attention locked in wonder’s gaze forever.

Wonder is a uniquely human trait. It allows you to suspend habitual thinking, and consider new possibilities. Wonder has the ability to dethrone your well laid plans in preference for some well laid mindfulness.

Wonder allows you to see (experience) the world in a new way; with fresh, unprejudiced attention. It’s a sight that is akin to the Hindu notion of “darshan”. It is the ability to see divinity in all things, if divinity is the highest and widest of human ideals.

Wonder is seeing divinity within; the universe of consciousness that resides within you.
Wonder is seeing divinity between; the joy of crossing galaxies to touch the moon is matched by the joy of crossing the street to bring muffins to neighbors, touched by love.
Wonder is seeing divinity beyond; the discovery of a connection between yourself and all else.

The prized gift of wonder is the ability to see yourself as a participant in a greater whole. You are a player on life’s stage with a love so large it can travel to the moon and back, shedding beauty and softness on the whole, and never lose its luster.

Both science and religion can embrace wonder. However wonder should not be confused with knowledge. The scientist must be able to acknowledge that the world may be more wonderful than current theories can account for, and religion must be able to acknowledge that its truth is poetic and not absolute.

Wonder unites the science of curiosity and the religion of imagination. In the words of the classic 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life, wonder “throws a lasso around the moon and pull it down, then you can swallow it…and then moonbeams shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair.”

“God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” Dag Hammarskjold

Australia The Movie

My life began in a rural Aussie town not unlike “Faraway Downs”, the mythical outpost in the movie “Australia”. My birth town was Mullewa, an Aboriginal word meaning “place of fog”. Mullewa is a dustbowl of a town, hot as hell and as dry as a dead dingo’s donger (to use a crude Aussie euphemism).When I was born in 1968, Mullewa was still swirling in a fog of racial ignorance. I was born in a two bed hospital. The other bed remained empty, while an Aboriginal baby was born in an outside shed. At least that’s how the family legend rumbles around my memory.

The Aboriginal baby was one of the famous Dingo clan. Ernie Dingo is now one of Australia’s most distinguished actors. I would have liked to see him in “Australia”. I like to think that Ernie’s success is an indication that the fog has partially lifted on Australian race relations. The recent apology to the stolen generation by the newly elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is another indication of progress and healing.

The myth around my rural birth (my family moved back to the city when I was six months old) has always fired my imagination and a sense of justice. It was my nativity story, except unlike Jesus and his family I was the privileged one. There was ample room at the inn for me. There was no hasty escape from a tyrant for me and my family. But then again, I never walked on water either. Hugh Jackman on the other hand……….

It’s the recalling, and retelling of stories that instills a sense of wonder in me. This sense of wonder makes me believe in the strength of the human spirit to overcome adversity and injustice. I imagine the same is true for the people of Darwin. Darwin was named after Charles Darwin who visited the town in 1839. If only they knew then how poignant the name would be. Talk about survival against all odds. Darwin was bombed mercilessly by the Japanese in World War 2. Darwin was then slammed senseless by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. The surviving population was evacuated both times.

Australia is a large place, and Darwin is small and remote. Its survival, let alone its rebirth after tragedy, is itself a miracle of Darwinian proportions. The pub scene in “Australia” after the Japanese attack is profoundly moving. Hugh Jackman, the benevolent “drover” goes into the “whites only” pub with his best friend, an Aborigine named Magarri. He demands that his friend be given a drink. They drink together, and amidst the rubble of a broken town, a small victory of human justice is won.

“Australia” is an important story, and it’s told well. I wish it had been called “Darwin” as this is only a snapshot of Australian life, a play within a play. In any case, I’m thrilled that the rest of the world is invited into the story of Darwin. “Australia” portrays an aspect of the complex triangular relationship between England, a maturing Australia, and the traditional Aboriginal people. Nicole Kidman plays “Lady Ashley” who arrives from England with no clue about life on the land in Darwin. Her eyes are quickly opened to the reality of a young “half-caste” boy named “Nullah”. The police are constantly trying to “steal” Nullah to place him in one of the church run institutions to “breed the black out”.

Stories such as this need to be told, even when the stories are a blurring of fact and fantasy. Half caste kids were still being stolen when I was born in 1968 and into the 1970s. Racism in Australia mirrors racism all over the world, and if awareness and horror are heightened through movies such as “Australia” then they achieve a noble purpose. Ultimately, however, it is the honoring of the human spirit that inspires transformation and justice.

“Australia” offers plenty of that. The droving scene at cliff’s edge is heart stopping. Nullah’s bravery, Dover’s humanity, and Lady Ashley’s determination, are all awesome and inspirational. The scenery is breathtaking, and the desert appears endless. The movie appears endless at times too. But the movie does end, as the desert ends. The Japanese do leave, and people do repopulate Darwin. Racism and hatred do ease, and if nothing else, stories such as this remind me that all things are in constant flux. There is a way of living that rolls with the cyclones, dwells in wonder and offers the type of imagination and determination that helps to lift the fog.

My favorite theme running through the movie is the tension for young Nullah. He is constantly called to the land, feeling the lure of his ancestors. I wonder if it would have been more powerful to keep a veil of mystery over his grandfather, King George, whether he is real, or is an aspect of Nullah’s imagined world. What is real anyway? If I have learnt anything about Aboriginal spirituality, it is the blurring of fact and fantasy, dreaming and waking, present and future.

King George is the sorcerer, the Wizard of Aus, who wants to help Nullah find himself. Maybe Nullah finds himself much like we all do; by seeing all things as mirrors, by realizing that all is part of us and we are part of all that is.

As Joseph Campbell said, "All the gods, all the heavens, all the worlds, are within us." Maybe Nullah had to go walkabout to learn this from the land. Maybe the world needs to retell stories about racism, and cyclones and injustice in order recognize the goodness, the anger and the courage that is within.

Maybe stories such as “Australia” dislodge the screen that shields the Wizard of pretence. When the screen is removed, the truth is revealed. In the words of the Wizard of Oz, “I have been making believe.” Australians, English, Aborigines, Japanese- we are all related. We are kin. We are one at heart. All the divisions, the hatred and the rivalry are just make believe.