Leaps of Faith | God Immensurable | 'Life is a series of Estimates'

Friday 29th February. Another leap year, another 'correction' in our faulty estimate of 365 days in a year. We thought perhaps the Universe should have given us tidy integers, orbits that ran to exact days, but the closer we looked, the further away our measures got.

The 4-yearly leap day is an attempt to get our solar clocks back in sync., but even this is slightly out. So we have to have leap seconds too. None this year, the last was in 2005. We'll have to adjust our watches again soon though.

Problems of time and measurement. When is now, and how far away are you? Both incalculable. We zoom in, micro, nano, pico... only to find at the last a haze of leaping particles, refusing to be pinned and bound and ruled. Life, in other words, is a series of estimates.

As is faith. The strangeness of God is parallel to that of particles. The energetic scientists go off in search, determined to nail down truth, demanding we nail our colours and beliefs to their masts... Only to find that bodies nailed to masts die; the life slips from them mysteriously, to rise elsewhere.

And this, in the end, is the problem of theology. It can never be the measure of God, nor provide for us an accurate rule. Instead, we must open ourselves to these divine corrections, these leap moments where we have to adjust, and humbly admit we are not this spinning Universe's pivot, but part of an irrational orbit among myriad other heavenly bodies.

Technorati: Leap Year | Time

Comments

[jovial_cynic]

This is beautiful. That the universe can't be pinned down is similar to an idea I had several months ago -- relationships can't be pinned down either. There is no box with the correct dimensions.

http://newprotest.org/details.pl?879

"And perhaps that's the hidden truth behind the Song of Solomon. The central story is of two lovers who desire one another, shower one another in praise, and have sex. It's simple. The rest is vague and difficult to pin down, and just as in any biblical relationship (husband/wife, parents/children, Christ/church), any attempt to create a list of what it means to love in this context only results in greater confusion. "

[P3T3RK3Y5]

"There is no box with the correct dimensions." or maybe there is no box with enough dimensions.

Kester, love your stuff here.