Working through some thoughts on faith and purpose

"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones." - Phillips Brooks

I’ve been thinking about the words of Phillips Brooks for some time. It’s amazing how an Episcopalian minister from 19th century Massachusetts can still touch lost seekers.

There is nothing I have found from science that compares. Science can provide drama, mystery, and grandeur, but it, and its practitioners, neither acknowledge nor touch the soul.

I love my former colleagues, more than they will ever know. That is why it breaks my heart when I consider the cynicism, the hate, and the fundamental fear that stems from the denigration of faith in general, and Christianity in particular, that I witnessed. And that is why I found comfort on Sundays at church.



It was not for the faith of St. Paul that compelled me to return to church. It was an overwhelming desire to nurture the part of me that needs to feel part of something greater than myself. It was a need to be a better man, and to be with people for whom that was their first, and final, thought, who are eternally struggling with that moving target, yet have the courage to struggle. The best did it in a way that elevated all of us, bringing some daylight and hope into our private worlds of worry.

There were glimmers of this, at times, in my brief apprenticeship in science. There were people possessed of great charisma, great voice, and great heart. There were fundamentally good souls working to expand the frontiers of knowledge with one hand, and embracing their students and colleagues in affection with the other.

But never enough, and never for long.

There’s no reason for this to not be possible from a scientist. But I have no advice to provide on how it’s done; I am between worlds as well as between jobs. Science itself ought not be a faith; yet it is a shame, for science and for us all, if individual scientists cannot touch the essence of our humanity as priests, and poets, and musicians do.

I have tried to believe in God. I have tried to disbelieve in God. I have failed at both. But always, I return to that undefined shared something that I need more than anything else.

A visionary pastor, or a visionary friend, can make one feel at once grateful for, and worthy of, both great kindness and high expectations. They reach, with eyes, with words, and with outstretched palm, past all doubt, all despair, and touch you – the real you, the you you thought was dead, or outgrown, or forsaken.

I know that I have longed for this my entire life, and have been grateful for experiencing it a few times.

But only recently has it become clear that I have a need to become this kind of person.

I see it as necessary to be the kind of friend, the kind of citizen, the kind of lover that I know I can be, and know I must be. For, if at the end of it all, I can’t probe the depths of intimacy and faith with someone, sharing in silence, hand in hand, what generations of poets and ecclesiastics have struggled to articulate, and say, at the end of it all, “I love you, and that will never change,” with confidence and unrestrained emotion, then I believe I will have failed as a human being.

We cannot live for great moments. God knows I’ve tried, and found that, when waiting for greatness, the good passes one by; it is expecting without living. Maybe we can only live in small gestures, in small spheres of ambition and hope. And in so doing, we can build greatness, piece by piece, secret and secure, and revealed only to the few that we choose to share it with, in silence, in tears, in shared prayers whispered under stars that are cold and distant, but are ours.

There is no great battle, no Armageddon to arm for. Waiting for it, we lose our substance, corrupt our integrity, and forget our humanity. Even the intense culture wars, for which I’ve been standard bearer, Benedict Arnold, and reluctant soldier, seem to fade, leaving only a bitter taste and longing for a weakly defined “something else”.

There is only you, and I, under a moonless sky, sharing not everything, but everything that matters. It is a dream, and it is destiny, if courage is awakened, and desire great enough.

I am learning to not worry so much about the words. They will be forgotten. What will not will be what they stood for, and who shared them.

So take my hands. Eden was never ours. But we will build a Jerusalem for two, and maybe two hundred. We do not know how, but we will teach each other. We will try, and finally live.