We are all connected. A butterfly
flapping its wings on one side of the world affects the lives of those on the
other side...hum, something to give serious thought to-but how is this all
possible. We are mere dust? Or is the thought now, we are mere Stardust? Connected
cosmologically by matter to our ancestors, to our future, to our heritage??
What does all this mean? My being, my physical being is made up of other
particles, connected by a heart that is unique. What does this have to do
with my faith, my religious beliefs? How I live in the world?
“From a scientific perspective,
evolution is the way nature works. Physical reality is not composed of fixed,
stable structures but a flow of information and energy organized forms that
interact with other forms and their surrounding environments.” Again, we are
all connected, but how? “Nature is more like a dance or a community at play
than a clockwork mechanism. Today we know that evolution pertains to all
aspects of human life including culture, religion, and economics.” Traditional
theology allows for the “new creation” and understands divine creativity as
sustaining the world continually. It has been in the twentieth century that the
notion that the universe is historical with an ongoing story, that begins in
earnest to reshape the minds and imaginations of not only scientists but
theologians. Two known individuals who made the connections of theology and science are Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
and Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). “Teilhard wrote that the human person 'is
nothing else than evolution becomes conscious of itself.'”