My blog has been silent since July. As I predicted in that post about Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race, political tribulations have consumed way too much mental and emotional energy for all Americans. At this moment, uncertainty and fears remain. Right now, I’m rejecting those inklings of the future to live in this moment–the only time (if there is such a thing as time) where I can actually do something. Like write a blog post.

This morning, I read a thoughtful essay by David Brooks about his journey into what might be called Faith. You can link to it here:

His reflections, and the writers and thinkers who inspired him, coincide greatly with my own lifelong adventure in faith, spirituality, organized religion, atheism (about ten minutes), and current experience of that for which we use the (problematic) name GOD.

You may have noticed the uproar of the worldwide tsunami called Artificial Intelligence (AI). You’ve probably made use of it by way of ChatGPT or Hey Siri or that “person” on the phone who helped you sort out your health insurance issue. Perhaps you’ve read about a vulnerable young person seduced online by a charming ChatBot, unable to believe she wasn’t real. Indeed, what is “real” becomes more and more difficult to determine for any of us, when facts and photos and opinions and reports swamp our minds with information we can’t check out. So we do “check out”–give up caring–to save ourselves from a darkness that leaves us speechless, as I have been since July.

But here’s something else. I have long believed that the universe listens to me. Humorous (and spooky) evidence of this is the way my thoughts (“I need a pair of house slippers”) seem to translate into a succession of house slipper ads on my Facebook page, although I have typed not a word about my wish into an actual computer.  I didn’t ask Siri anything! But somehow, some online retailer knew.

We’ve all had the experience of remembering “out of the blue” an old friend. As we are merely thinking the thought, the text pings or the email drops in or the phone rings, and it’s them. I enjoy small world encounters, as when I meet up at an airport or a restaurant or some unexpected place with a person from my past. I keep my inner antenna extended day by day. As such things seem to happen more and more often, I feel mysteriously connected and also cared for. Is the “universe” looking out for me? I have deeper desires and wishes than house slippers.

Today’s physics offers more and more proof, in its way, of the energy field at the limit of our current knowledge and experience of creation, evolution, and consciousness. Occasionally, unexpectedly, that energy breaks through our personal limitations with a gift of WOW!!

That’s what Brooks was talking about. That’s what I remember happening in my own life. That’s why the chaos of current events seems like a silly thing to fear.

In his letter to a troubled people, one of the heroes of the religion I practice offers this assurance:

I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths–nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8: 35-39

You don’t have to be a “Christian” to share the humanity revealed in Jesus as the love of God. When that Love bursts in on you from time to time, you know it. May it be so in 2025.