A Little Big Thing

No. 104

This week’s article started one night while looking at the little thing that lies at the foot of our bed and then expanded in the way that little things can turn into big things. The little thing that prompted these thoughts is the caramel-coloured furball that jumps up into our bed before we retire for the night. She lies on my pillow until I come to bed. But that little thing becomes a big thing overnight, for when I get up, she wakes up and stretches out her front paws as her body arches over her hind legs. She then repeats the maneuver in reverse leaning forward stretching her hind legs out one at a time behind her. As her stretching finishes, her body begins to wriggle in concert with her wagging tail like an oscillating sine wave. I envy her, thinking how glorious it would be to wake up even one morning a month with the feeling of big joy she exhibits. Yet her big joy is contagious for by watching her it becomes mine for a moment each morning.

This little thing of a dog that stretches into a big thing of joy became a metaphor in my mind as to what this series I write weekly has become for me. Initially starting as something of an experiment with the first article that I published on November 18^th 2022 titled “A Changing Frame of Reference,” the title of the article stuck and became the series title. Every week since that first article was published, I’ve written and published a new article. This week is the one hundred and fourth consecutive week of publishing having done so every week for exactly two years. As you’ve likely noticed the subtitle for this article is “No. 104.”

When I started, I had no idea that this would take place or how far the series would take me. But each week I was compelled to write something else on how my perspective on the world had shifted or had changed how I thought about something at some point along this journey called my life.

For instance, when I started, I had no idea that a podcast—my Better Than Not podcast—would be inspired by it (and to give credit where credit is due, it was my agent Max Tremblay who convinced me to do the podcast in the first place. Episode #60 comes out Tuesday).

I’ve been counselled by some who say I have too much coming out in the series too quickly, describing it as too much to absorb at the rate with which I have released the weekly articles. Some of have commented they didn’t want to think about the things I wrote about. I’ve also likely unintentionally offended some with the subjects I’ve covered including articles on the Bible, the Moon landing, how we live, and who we are.

I started the series, talking about Copernicus being the first to put forth the idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun. That had to be an enormous change in humanity’s frame of reference. Similarly, what I was discovering, whether it be the dramatized Abraham story from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett’s The Bible series (“Things Are Not What They Seem – No. 2”), Graham Hancock’s book Fingerprints of the Gods (“Pyramids and Precession – No. 3”) or even Jordan Peterson’s YouTube series The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories (“The Highest Possible Good - No. 4”), I was seeing a staggering change in my own frame of reference on how I saw the world.

Further, I began to question how I saw the universe, and maybe for the first time, despite my science and engineering background, what it was rather than how its laws and characteristics could be used for humanity sake—for instance, gravity, Newton’s discovery that indeed there was this force. I began to contemplate not only why it was, or how it came about, but that it just was, as with the other three fundamental forces: electro-magnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces (“Very Big, Very Small and What? - No. 9”). Here again, a little thing, the littlest in all of existence and what science tells us began the universe, was an infinitely small particle of infinite density that became the biggest of things, the infinity of existence itself. I also began to understand that if it all didn’t fit perfectly together from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, existence wouldn’t exist—nor would we, to look at, appreciate and be a part of it.

In the series, I questioned that our lives are not our own in “My Body, My Life, My Choice: Is It? – No. 35,” as we had nothing to do with creating them in the first place. I do believe to be fulfilled in this gift of existence of a life time that we can’t do it alone either (“Can’t Do It Alone – No. 46”). Not far from this idea, I wrote about whether we have freewill and that without it whether we could actually have civilization in “freewill, morality, society – No. 33.”

I wrote about two individuals who died since I started the series who had influenced me and my thinking—one I’d known who taught me through his leadership and behaviour, the other I didn’t know at all who taught me through his writing and storytelling—"Mr. Schad– No. 91” and Cormac McCarthy (“Cormac – No. 32”) respectively.

I’ve been profoundly impacted by Apostle Paul’s writing particularly in Galatians (“The Great Second Chance - No. 29”) and Romans (“Apostle Paul’s Romans - No. 74”) with still much to learn, savour and write about. But specifically in Galatians 2:16, “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.“ I explored whether one can truly understand the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 (“Brother of the Prodigal Son - No. 69”) and serving two masters from Jesus’ greatest oration, Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, 6 and 7, without first grasping what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:16.

I wrote on belief and that in seeing our material existence, belief is not required (“Seeing Is Not Believing – No.22”). Belief is not necessary when we can see the existence of the material world. Belief is required when we can’t see it, as in John 20:29, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I wrote of the Egyptian myth of Horus and Osiris in “Chaos Searching For Order – No. 21” and before that of the Mesopotamian myth, Marduk, Apsu and Tiamat in “Chaos Into Order – No. 20.” I remember thinking that the ancient myths were all describing the Almighty’s attempts to figure out how best to civilize his creation. But I’ve since revised my view on this, reversing the positions of God and us to instead be “us” who are the ones trying to figure out the design of existence that our Creator has manifested through His Word. He, who created us in his own image as written in Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” I extended this idea even further when writing about Dr. Hugh Ross and his hypothesis that God created the universe for us in “Created For Us? – No. 30.”

Not only did I write about Dr. Ross and his ideas but also Dr. Stephen C. Meyer who wrote about the Cambrian Explosion and “methodological naturalism” in his book Darwin’s Doubt to demonstrate his thesis of the fine-tuned universe and intelligent design (“Methodological Naturalism - No. 17”). Dr. Meyer’s book was the first I’d read that convincingly illustrates how science demonstrates the existence of God bringing me to my recent conclusion that if we believe in science, we believe in God, whether we realize it or not. I also included Dr. John Lennox in many articles with his recognizing that science had announced that data and information were fundamental quantities in addition to mass and energy, and were in essence the building blocks of existence (“The Word(s) - No. 80”). Dr. Lennox was also one who greatly appreciated the work of C. S. Lewis along with Allister McGrath (a Lewis biographer). Both enlarged my already great appreciation of Lewis’ writing and what has become one of my favourite books The Screwtape Letters (“Are You Fuddled? - No. 83”).

There is so much that has been included in the articles of this series, it’s difficult to capture all of them in one article. But what I’ve come to realize in my own reading is that it takes time to ruminate on things we’ve read especially if they are fundamental to how we think and behave, and help us understand our existence.

Why do we think material existence is everything? Probably because that is what we exist in. We exist here and without input from anything else, it appears—and aligns with what we’re often taught and told—this is all there is. But what happens to our thoughts when we begin to realize that the science we’ve been taught to uphold as truth and not question, tells us that ninety-five percent of all existence is not material (“Darkness To Light - No. 48”? Are we really spiritual beings having a human or material experience? Ninety-five percent of existence cannot be seen and in fact cannot even be detected with our current technology. How do we even understand ourselves when science tells us that all of the material stuff (i.e. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc) that we’re made of comes from the Earth. What makes all that material stuff come together from the moment we’re conceived, in all but unmeasurable amounts, and grows that material stuff into who we become in this material existence. Science has very few answers largely because even looking for answers in the non-material world is intentionally excluded from science. It’s hard to imagine now how we might take Copernicus saying to the world for the first time that that bright orb that rises in the east in the morning and sets in the evening in the west doesn’t orbit the Earth. I can hear myself saying “that’s just crazy talk,” especially when every sunny day I witness in this material existence that the sun I see appearing on the eastern horizon, crossing the sky overhead and disappearing on the western horizon, doesn’t actually circle the Earth. It’s nearly impossible to believe in observation. And the further entrenched these ideas get into our thinking and beliefs, the harder they are to shake.

So, what I’m writing all this to say in this article, my one hundred and fourth of the series, is that I’m going to allow us some time to ruminate or chew on what’s here and what I’ve written. My hope is many more of you will buy a subscription like you might buy a book, and start to reflect on what I’ve written that may have an effect on your own “frames of reference.” My articles will no longer come weekly but be timed more as different subjects present themselves to me. I encourage you to comment and ask questions.

As I wrote earlier about a little fluff ball becoming a big feeling of joy, this series that started as a little thing has become a big thing. Though not necessarily for all of you, it’s been a journey for me seeing things in a new light so to speak—and having my frame of reference change enormously.