Border crossing

This  video, whose title comes from Walter Burghardt SJ's definition of contemplation, was made by the delightful and talented Mariel Carr to go with a review of Addy Pross' What is Life? I wrote for the Chemical Heritage Magazine. I love the title the editor gave it, "Border Crossing" which certainly described not only the book, but in many ways my life.

Next Tuesday (Nov 18)  I'm giving a talk about living on this edge between science and religion for the Institute for Religion and Science at nearby Chestnut Hill College, but part of me wonders if I can do any better in 60 minutes than this 6 minute film!

Help me prepare to talk at the intersection of science and religion

Tomorrow night, I'm giving a public lecture at the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia (yes, that Franklin...Benjamin, though he is not the founder), exploring the tensions and harmonies between science and religion. (If you are local and want to go, details are here.) It's one thing to profess my faith each Sunday with my parish community, quite another to stand up in front of a crowd that I do not know and do so. But I will. The start of my talk:

"Credo in unum Deum. I believe in God. I also believe in evolution, quantum mechanics, particle physics, anthropogenic climate change and the Big Bang Theory. I don't see these stances as incompatible, perhaps because I'm a quantum mechanic, which requires me to keep multiple realities in mind. Photons behave as particles and as waves. So do electrons, and even things as large as helium nuclei. God created human beings. Human beings are primates, and evolved from older primate species....

Faith cannot overrule science, and the popular view of Galileo notwithstanding, the Roman Catholic Church has not taught otherwise. "The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false." (St. Thomas Aquinas) Just because Genesis says that God told Noah to bring pairs of each animal, male and female, does not mean that each species necessarily has two sexes (worms...creatures that crawl on the ground...do not)..."

Part of the program is Q&A with the audience — if you were in the audience, what would you ask me about the intersections between science and religion?

Two upcoming public talks in the Philadelphia area

If you are in the Philadelphia area and want to hear me talk (Midwest pre-rhotic merger and all), you can here mespeaking at Our Mother of Good Counsel's Lenten adult education series on Women in the Lenten Scriptures — What Women? this Wednesday from 7:30-8:30 in Bryn Mawr (more details here).

And on March 17th I'm giving a talk at the MOM-Heart of the Home day of renewal in Downingtown, PA. (more details here).