A Pathway to Wonder

When Albert Einstein was a boy or a young man, he remembers imagining traveling on a beam of light or something of the sort. This thought was far fetched, of course, but it revealed the beginning of his rumination on spatial concepts. Fast forward ten years, he is developing those concepts into the general theory of relativity. Ten and twenty more, and those concepts are being applied to change the world.

Einstein's commitment to challenge the status quo is both an inspiration and a warning. Without his re-imagining physics in light (slight pun intended) of new data, modern science would never have understood the power of the atom or how light actually reacts to gravitational fields. Scientists would have remained mired in justifying the existence of 'ether' (an immaterial substance supposed to exist in the transmission of light). Challenging the status quo allowed Einstein to explore the dynamics that actually existed in electromagnetic waves and at the subatomic level.

The warning from Einstein's life comes in the form of personal shortcomings. All the while busy with science, it seems he paid little attention to his family or faith. Having held only nominally to his Jewish religion, it remains questionable that he maintained a relationship with Yahweh by loving the Lord his God with all his heart (Deut. 6). Remarkably, Einstein does maintain the Creator's role in the universe, unlike many scientists of his day and ours.

I am indebted to my reading of Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe for stretching my mind to walk a renewed pathway of wonder at the physical universe. I am amazed at the existence of light and the physical realities that occur to create what we take for granted as 'vision.' A light/energy source produces powerful waves of photons, traveling at enormous speeds, passing through vacuum and atmosphere to reflect off other simple collections of atoms, all to eventually be interpreted as color and shape by our retinas. In other words sun light bounces off a leaf to be seen my be as a wilting maple on 100 degree day.

What a day earlier was a mere convenience to my sweaty self became the wonder of reality. The wonder is not so much how it happens, though that is interesting, too. The wonder is that it happens. My son, who is six months old, looks at leaves with wonder. He has never seen them before. He is intrigued by a tree, especially one moved by the wind. There is no need for thought about the intricacies of the tree to appreciate it. He sees it and is captured. "What is that?" might be his thought, or "Look at that!" or more likely, just plain staring. Rendered numb by years of viewing, I don't even pay attention. Seen it all, I think.

Fortunately, the eyes of Micah and Einstein both rouse me from wonder slumber to appreciate not only that light happens, but why light happens. Light was the third invention by the Greatest mind ever-

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:3-4)

Why do we have light? God made it. It is an entity separate from darkness. He evaluated light and judged it good. Since then, it's existence has made the rest of creation observable. The volume of light will one day increase, as darkness vanishes and as God himself becomes observable. Somehow He will eventually reveal himself as the source of all light.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 22:4-5)

Have you paused to appreciate vision and the realities of the physical universe today? I am grateful to Einstein's grappling with these realities and new appreciation I have for things seen. I give credit to a glorious God who made these realities and has hidden them from us, that we might, by searching, studying, postulating, testing and discovering, live in the wonder of the world around us.