THINK LONG & HARD
but above all
THINK FOR YOUR SELF
It is said that Isaac Newton carried out 'thought experiments' in the realm of the mind. In the 1660s he was confined to his mother’s home for two years and it was there that his genius came to fruition. I read that his notebooks 'throb with energy and imagination but yet convey the claustrophobic air of a man completely wrapped up in himself, whose only contact with the external world was through his books'. (Dr. Whiteside). A recent TV programme celebrating Einstein, who died fifty years ago and who one hundred years ago published five papers which changed the way we understand our world, depicted him in his last days, still concentrating his efforts to understand yet more as he scribbled down scientific equations in his notepad. In both cases the scientific search for laws of this universe was a deeply religious quest. The bedrock of their creative genius was underpinned by thinking long and hard and although genius at this level is confined to but a few people throughout history their legacy has percolated down with their ideas influencing the way we construct a coherent religious understanding and world picture for ourselves.
Without specialists to translate the various discourses and language most of us I feel sure would be hard pressed to understand in detail great scientific discoveries expressed through mathematical language, or philosophical and sacred texts as they were originally written. I for one am delighted to be a beneficiary of the many popular science and anthropological programmes on television and radio which facilitate entry into the world of scientific and religious endeavour. To discover a human heritage beyond any one specific tradition gives much food for thought. It is this feast of ideas that makes our age an exciting one to be pursuing a religious path. which like all religious endeavour, must be coherent and universal.
We can't shirk the effort needed to think long and hard just because we're not a Newton or an Einstein, a prophet or a philosopher. What’s more, we have to think for ourselves and we have to keep doing it and that means the internal thought process and external dialogue is forever being created anew as we all contribute to the feast of experience and understanding. Listening to and having dialogue with other Unitarians who think long and hard about religious ideas is life enhancing and an important aspect of all our religious journeys. How many times though do we find this important part of our religious life being 'squeezed out' by the demands made on our time by organisational and administrative matters?
After the thinking and the dialogue though comes the time for emptying the mind, to go beyond thought and allow the mind and body to assimilate all that has gone before, a time to be 'thoughtless', but more of that next time.
The Unitarian - May 2005 - "Thought for the Month" by Joan Wilkinson