Now, quantum physics, or Quantum mechanics, is the science of the very small. It studies the behavior of atoms, which are the basic building blocks of matter. An atom itself is made up of three tiny kinds of quantum particles called subatomic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and the neutrons make up the center of the atom called the nucleus and the electrons fly around above the nucleus in a small cloud.
Quantum physics explains the behavior of matter and its interactions with energy on the scale of atoms and subatomic (smaller than atoms) quantum particles, which can't even be seen by the naked eye. But scientists learned along the way that they had to be very careful how they conducted their scientific observations of quantum particles.
Early in the 20th century quantum physicists discovered a mysterious phenomenon they called the “disturbing observer.” They had learned that merely observing a quantum particle changes it in unpredictable ways. As a result, scientists have had to develop elaborate methods for their experiments to compensate for the changes their observations cause. (from "Take Time for Faith," May 7.)
I call God the Ultimate Disturbing Observer. Merely through God's loving gaze upon us, God can change our minds and our hearts - if we gaze back at God. Psalm 139 describes God's ever-present, all-encompassing gaze upon us, and, if we are fearful of God, or aren't used to intimacy, this closeness of God can disturb us, disorient us, in more ways than one.
"Yahweh, you examine me and know me,
you know when I sit, when I rise, you understand my thoughts from afar.
You watch when I walk or lie down, you know every detail of my conduct.
A word is not yet on my tongue before you, Yahweh, know all about it.
You fence me in, behind and in front, you have laid your hand upon me.
Such amazing knowledge is beyond me, a height to which I cannot attain.
Where shall I go to escape your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence?
If I scale the heavens you are there, if I lie flat in Sheol, there you are.
If I speed away on the wings of the dawn, if I dwell beyond the ocean,
even there your hand will be guiding me, your right hand holding me fast.
I will say, 'Let the darkness cover me, and the night wrap itself around me,'
even darkness to you is not dark, and night is as clear as the day.
You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother's womb.
For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders. You knew me through and through,
my being held no secrets from you, when I was being formed in secret, textured in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes could see my embryo. In your book all my days were inscribed, every one that was fixed is there.
How hard for me to grasp your thoughts, how many, God, there are!
If I count them, they are more than the grains of sand; if I come to an end, I am still with you...
God, examine me and know my heart, test me and know my concerns.
Make sure that I am not on my way to ruin, and guide me on the road of eternity."
In this psalm, the psalmist is not afraid of God's gaze. He - or she - is praising God for God's constant care, constant intimate involvement in our lives. Can we trust God? Can we trust that God's inner attitude towards us is always loving, a love that encourages us to grow, to open up like flowers? Can we feel secure knowing we are constantly living in the Light of God's Face?
God's wondrously disturbing observing of us centers us, holds us securely, even in the most desperate circumstances of our lives!
However - we also are Disturbing Observers. "What is true at the quantum level of reality holds true at the visible level as well, only the effects are much more subtle. In other words, your attitude toward a person or event has an unpredictable effect on what you perceive. Today, be aware that what you observe is partly of your own making. Are you judging or loving?" ("Take Five for Faith," May 7.)
If we have already pre-judged someone, we will automatically "see" in them what we expect to see. If we believe already that all blacks are untrustworthy, or all gays or lesbians are "weird," or all priests are predators, then when we meet people from these groups, we'll not be able to see them clearly. We'll misinterpret their words or actions, or "see" something that isn't there.
And, depending on our inner attitudes towards the people we are in contact with, our gaze affects others, for good or for ill. Surely we know this already from our own experiences, from our memories of the gazes we have received from others in our lives. We tend to live down to or up to people's expectations of us.
Do you remember shriveling up protectively inside yourself, feeling like nobody, when someone's look at you was cold, judging you harshly? Or. even worse, their gaze was blank with unseeing indifference?
Do you remember opening up like a flower in the sunlit gaze of someone who accepted you with kindness? Someone who may have noticed your flaws but who loved your fragile heart?
Mother Teresa understood this very well. She knew people can sense our attitudes towards them, attitudes that can be lethal or loving. She knew that in order to affect people positively, we need to be attentive to who they really are inside. Attentive as God is constantly attentive to us!
Poet Mary Oliver understood that, above all, we need to be lovingly attentive to all life, approach all creation as being sacred. This kind of loving attentiveness is the essence of prayer, the essence of devotion. Oliver preached this in all her poems: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” To look at all reality with the all-loving Gaze of God! Christians believe that only through seeing everyone and everything clearly - without prejudice or pre-judgement - always with Christ's mind and heart - can we learn how to truly love.
Oliver learned, as Mother Teresa learned, that total attentiveness takes us deep into the heart of sorrow and tragedy. But - Love needs to go there as God goes there. She begins "Lead" with "Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing?"
In a piece for "The Atlantic," (May 19, 2019) Franklin Foer comments on Oliver's insistence that attention is the beginning of devotion. "The unnoticed can’t possibly be loved. Certain critics liked to trash Oliver as unsophisticated. But her simplicity was naked display of the elemental:... a world worthy of attachment exists outside ourselves, and the alternative is numbness and narcissism." I'll use her poems to speak for her.
Do you bow your head when
you pray or do you look
up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don't worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
Even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise,
God is surely listening
and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof
of the soul.
But isn't the return of spring
and how it
springs up in our hearts a
pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God's silence
never breaks, but is
that really a problem?
There are thousands of
voices, after all.
And, furthermore, don't you
imagine (I just suggest it)
that the swans know about
as much as we do about
the whole business?
So listen to them and watch
them, singing as they fly.
Take from it what you can.
In the north country now it is
spring and there
is a certain celebration. The
thrush
has come home. He is shy and likes
the
evening best, also the hour just
before
morning; in that blue and gritty
light he
climbs to his branch, or smoothly
sails there. It is okay to know only
one song if it is this one. Hear it
rise and fall; the very elements of
your soul
shiver nicely. What would spring
be
without it? Mostly frogs. But don't
worry, he
arrives, year after year, humble and
obedient
and gorgeous. You listen and you
know
you could live a better life than you
do, be
softer, kinder. And maybe this
year you will
be able to do it. Hear how his voice
rises and falls. There is no way to
be
sufficiently grateful for the gifts we
are
given, no way to speak the Lord's
name
often enough, though we do try, and
especially now, as that dappled
breast
breathes in the pines and heaven's
windows in the north country, now
spring has come,
are opened wide.
Praising God was the center of Mary Oliver's contentment. She saw God's wondrously disturbing, attentive Face shining His Light on her throughout the many facets of Nature - and she was always obediently attentive to His Face, His Voice. And so the often tragic circumstances of her life did not define her - God did. Her joyful, luminous devotions draw us into experiencing the world in a new way, a way to find God's disturbing, attentive Face present there, so that Face can change us, transform us, as well - and we too can praise Him.
Are you threatened by God's disturbing, attentive gaze? Or do you drink in this loving intimacy with Him, allow His constant Light to shine into the depths of your soul? Allow the Truth that God knows when you sit and when you stand to enrich you, cause you to examine how you live, not out of fear, but out of ardent love?
Can Mother Teresa inspire you to be lovingly attentive to the beauty and the needs of others, instead of mean-spiritedly judging them? Can you too gaze on others with God's Disturbing Gaze so that they open up like flowers, joyful because of your love? Can you allow Mary Oliver's understanding that attentiveness is the beginning of devotion increase your devotion to nature so as to enrich your own spirituality? Can we all pray our prayers of praise with her because "There is no way to be sufficiently grateful for the gifts God gives us, no way to speak the Lord's Name often enough....."