What I learned in graduate school in theology...

Crash (wandering into sunroom, pencil behind ear, paper in hand): Can I ask you a quick question about Catholic moral theology?

Me: There is no such thing as a quick question in Catholic moral theology.

Getting down in Chicago style

Q. When quoting from Scriptures, which are often interpreted as God literally speaking, is it grammatically correct to say “Psalm 1:1 reads” or “Psalm 1:1 says”?

A. You’re confusing grammar and theology here. Both sentences have perfect grammar; the choice of what to imply about the words’ origins is yours.

From the Chicago Style Manual, where I also learned that "down style" (which I prefer) is to eschew initial capitals for such things as College (when referring to a particular College). I wonder if this is related to my tendencies toward a low Christology?

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photo credit

Oprah's take on quantum mechanics - and mine

I was checking my stats (read seriously procrastinating folding the laundry) and noticed that one of the search terms that was sending surfers my way was "Oprah's take on quantum mechanics". She has one?

I promptly popped it into Google to see what would come up. I had to know.

I found out. The Law of Attraction. Think and you can change what happens. Proven by quantum mechanics. The Quantum Cleanse. (Don't ask - you don't want to know.)

Somehow the word "quantum" manages to sound simultaneously mysterious and scientific, and so people attach it to things that they want to sound simultaneously mysterious and scientific. Like diets and the power of positive thinking, or even theology.

I named this blog "Quantum Theology" as a play on the two fields I'm trained in: quantum mechanics and theology. Recently a friend of almost forty years wondered just exactly what was quantum mechanics - just what do I do for a living. Repair broken quantums?

To a physicist or physical chemist, a quantum is a fixed portion of energy. (The word was coined by Max Planck in 1900.) Quantum mechanics considers the interaction of energy and matter on the atomic level. What happens when light hits an atom? Why is it that only certain amounts of energy can be absorbed? How is it that matter can behave as a particle, and as a wave?

When I say something is quantized, I don't mean it's mysterious, I mean that only certain values are allowed, and nothing in between. A good everyday example is your shoe size. You are a 5 or a 5 1/2, but never a 5 1/6. Off the rack shoes (are there any other kind these days?) are quantized.

Evidence that matter could behave like a wave suggested to Erwin Schrodinger that he could write an equation to find a mathematical description of this behavior. (There's a steamy Oprah show for you - about Schrodinger, his mistress, the twins he was tutoring in physics, the pearls he put in his ears - and the development of wave mechanics!)

So what is it I actually do? I use quantum mechanics — specifically solving Schrodinger's handy little equation — to predict the structures of molecules and their energy, then use that information to think about what molecules might exist, or how hard it would be for them to react and what products are likely to form. Right now I'm exploring molecules that are uncomfortably twisted - and topologically "interesting" (Moebius strip molecules).

Want a bit of quantum theology? One of my Jesuit friends asked me a few years ago how I could manage to reconcile the idea that an electron could behave like light and like matter. "The same way I can believe that Christ is both God and man." It's rare you can render a Jesuit speechless.

Ignatian Principles

I left early Friday morning on a train to New York City -- with plan to see my brother midday (and give the lunch talk where he works), then out to Fordham for a weekend conference on Ignatian spirituality - organized by the Jesuit Collaborative. I elected the theology track, the focus of the conference was on the Foundation and Principle, which more or less frames Ignatius' pre-requisites for giving the Exercises.

Four hundred people came, three hundred and ninety eight strangers and the director who gave me the Exercises - who walked in the door of the registration area right after I did. I had no idea he would be there (though in retrospect I might have expected it), and with so many people and so many possible tracks, I might never have seen him otherwise. On the other hand, when quite a few in the crowd are trained spiritual directors, adept at making people feel welcome, it's hard to remain strangers - I left knowing far more people than Jim Carr, SJ.

I enjoyed the talk by Ed McCormack from WTU on the mystical underpinnings of Ignatius' spirituality most of all - it made me miss my theology courses (though not quite enough to sign up for one!). The conference was bilingual, and it was nice to realize that I would respond in the right language in the elevator. The oddest thing was to share a suite with two other (I presume) women - neither of whom I ever saw. Our schedules were totally off. (The first night I crashed early - Barnacle Boy had been up the night before with a bad asthma attack, so I too, had been awake.) The boys teased me about traveling light - "you are a woman of the Exercises" they joked. My bags for the weekend are in the photo - there would have been a bit less if I hadn't talked at DESRES.

My favorite translation of the Foundation and Principle is the one by David Fleming, SJ from which this excerpt is taken:

We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, success or failure,
a long life or short one.
For everything has the potential of calling
forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.
Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening his life in me.

- St. Ignatius as paraphrased by David L. Fleming, S.J.

Models of Church

The City and The World has a post about Cardinal Avery Dulles, who wrote "Models of Church". I tried this quiz to find out where I fell on the continuum. And where else should a sacramental theologian fall??

What is your model of the church? [Dulles] created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Sacrament model Your model of the church is Sacrament. The church is the effective sign of the revelation that is the person of Jesus Christ. Christians are transformed by Christ and then become a beacon of Christ wherever they go. This model has a remarkable capacity for integrating other models of the church.