Faith and Going Beyond What We Know

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.

To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

--Thomas Aquinas

Copyright © 2019

by Ralph F. Couey

In the 1989 period action film, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," the shared quest between the eponymous Jones and his father comes to a point of crisis.  Dr. Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery) has been shot by the villain and lays dying in the cave.  Indiana now has to complete three challenges in order to retrieve the Holy Grail, the sacred Cup of Christ and bring it back filled with the sacred water that will save his father's life.  The third challenge has stuck with me since the first time seeing the film.  The clue from the Grail Diary states, "Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."  At that moment, Indiana finds himself standing on the edge of an apparent abyss staring at the other side.  Re-reading the clue, Jones then wills himself to believe that there will be a bridge when he takes that fateful step.  He raises his foot, steps forward...upon a rock span that to this moment remained invisible.  Making a long story short, he crosses the abyss, gets the cup and water and with it saves his father's life.

It's a marvelous moment that to an extent reveals the meaning and power of faith.  

We are a pragmatic people, driven by curiosity but demanding unchallengeable proof for everything we experience.  Faith is therefore difficult for us because at its roots, faith is the complete trust and confidence in the unprovable.  This is usually attached to matters of the spiritual, but even science engages in a form of faith.

Dark Matter is the term scientists have arrived at to explain the missing mass of the universe.  When all the galaxies and their constituent stars, planets, comets, asteroids, etc., etc., etc. were measured, it was concluded that there wasn't enough mass there to explain the amount of gravity that was present.  Dark Matter is invisible, undetectable by any sensor, technological or organic.  Therefore, it cannot be seen, felt, smelled, or measured.  The only proof of its existence is the effect it has on the objects around it.  

9/11: The Fading of Remembrance

The 9/11 Memorial in New York City

from CitysightsNY.com

"If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, 

we learn that life is short

and there is no time for hate."

--Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl

Copyright © 2019

by Ralph F. Couey

It's hard to believe, isn't it?  Eighteen years have passed since the day that changed the world and defined the generation who lived that day.  Children born that year are out of high school and either on to college or starting that long, hard road we call adulthood.  But when that amount of time passes, even an event so life-altering as 9/11, memories begin to fade. We don't forget, mind you, but the years have taken the edge off those recollections.  

Every year, I ask myself how many people will have to be reminded when the anniversary day arrives.  Certainly, there are those whose personal or political agenda is perfectly at home with forgetting altogether.  But all you have to see is what happens in New York City when an airliner or other large jet makes a low pass over Manhattan.  In a word, people freak. In the Big Apple at least, 9/11 is still an open wound.

So many things changed, not the least was the feeling that because we were Americans, that nothing bad would happen to us.  Sure, we saw television news accounts of terrible terror attacks in far-off places such as Israel, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, and the Middle East.  We took comfort in the idea that we weren't a primary target, and that the mighty shield of law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the military would protect us.  That proved to be a delusion.  Since then, there have been attacks on our soil, but almost all by unaffiliated lone wolves, the psychopathically homicidal.  The terror groups are still out there, and they're certainly making efforts to hit us, but  haven't succeeded. Instead, the fear of Jihadist terror attacks has been largely replaced by mass shootings.  I am darkly amused by the statement always issued by law enforcement in the wake of these tragedies:  "Not terrorism related."  As if that somehow makes it better.