America is Diversity

Do you have friends/acquaintances that are unhappy with how things are going in the US? You may know someone who mentions secession as an option for correcting the country's ills. Here is a short list of questions.

How would you make the U.S. be just the way you want it? Who could/couldn't live here? Who could/couldn't work here? Who could/couldn't vote? What laws would there be? Who would enforce them? Would there a job for everyone who wants one? Would there be a federal government? How would it be formed? What religion(s) would be prescribed or proscribed? Would there be taxes? Who would pay them? What relationships would we have with other countries? Who would decide? How would you prevent crime? How would you create justice? What would you do about the poor, homeless, and sick? The list of questions could go on and on.

What I want to understand is: if you could create the ideal USA, what specific things would you do? Not just "throw the bums out"; "follow the constitution"; "quit being socialists"; or, "close the borders". Anyone can complain about stuff they don't like. What solutions do you have and how do they all fit together? Paint the picture; don't just throw paint on the wall.

There are about 365,000,000 people living in the US. I imagine that nearly every ethnic group, nationality, language, religion, political philosophy, economic theory, and belief system that exists on earth, exists in the US. Sure, there may be exceptions - the language spoken by 10 inhabitants on some atoll in a remote ocean, for example. Generally, though, I bet that if humans are involved in it somewhere, it is also represented by someone here in the US. Hate diversity? This may be a tough place for you.

No other country in the world is like the US. There are places with less of a mix, but nowhere has more of a mix.

When did that begin? Roughly 500 years ago. An Italian, sailing under Spanish colors, with a crew of who knows what origins came to an island just a few hundred miles south of the north American coast. That coast may have been visited by Vikings and that island was inhabited by people whose forbears migrated from Asia - hundreds, or maybe thousands, of years before. You want homogeneity? Good luck. Try Outer Mongolia, maybe.

The US is, and arguably always has been, the definition of diversity.

Space May Be the Final Frontier

Music is the space between the notes. - Claude Debussy

It's the silence between the notes that makes the music. - Zen proverb

The space between us, is it a space that separates us or a space that unites us? - June Singer

Captain James T. Kirk spoke the opening words of the original Star Trek, "Space: the final frontier." 

I hear those words now much differently than I did as a teenager. What once I understood to be literally true, now is meaningful to me on another level.

The space between us is the final frontier. There is vast unexplored and unconquered space between us. There are enormous gaps in our understanding and comprehension.. Individually, corporately, nationally. We are so near, yet so far away from, each other.

Still, we are bound together across space by all sorts of things. The list is practically endless. And, we are more alike than we are different. It seems, though, that we spend almost as much time peering and shouting across the void that separates us as we do immersing ourselves in the unseen energies that attract us and allow us to connect.

Why is that? Is it because dust is blocking the light, causing huge dark clouds like the Horsehead Nebula? Is it because we only look into the space from one angle and see red? Or from another angle and only see blue? 

We get red sunsets and blue skies from the same source of light.

Science and Religion

I love science. I'm not a scientist though. Never found any discipline that I was very good at. I like physics. Really liked chemistry, especially the stuff that exploded or caught on fire. Was never that fond of biology in school, except for dissection. Maybe because where I went to school, science wasn't hands-on enough. Too much memorization and dry, boring reading. My avowed love of science has come later in life.

One thing that disturbs me though is how smug some people are when it comes to science. You know an armchair pseudo-scientist or two that expounds on how much is known (and secretly revels in telling you how much they know). They have the last word in all that is rational. And, to them, all is rational or will be soon. We have an arrogance that laughs at the superstitions of the past, sniffs at the beliefs of the present, and is wary of any future challenge to our facts.

There's no room in their world for the spiritual, the inexplicable, the ethereal. To some of these folks, if it can't be measured, then it doesn't exist. Yet, the history of science is about knowing that which was unknown; measuring that which was unmeasurable; and, seeing that which was unseen. Sometimes things are believed long before they are known. The new discovery is used to explain away the spiritual, irrational beliefs. Science is used to debunk belief.

On the other hand, some of the most profound scientists and great scientific minds leave room for phenomena that are outside their understanding. They grasp the physical, but appreciate the meta-physical as well.

A simple model that helps me is that science points us towards understanding the what, how, when, where, and (sometimes) who questions; religion helps us understand the why question. For me, neither one can do the other's job. When we try to make science tell us why or religion tell us how, then we get ourselves into all sorts of problems.