121723 Agnostic Advent: Myth #17: "I understand science now that I don't have theology as a narrative."

 Physics, Chemistry and Biology were not classes I fared well in High School.  Let's see what I can remember from three years of these three classes from a Saskatchewan Lutheran boarding school.  

 - the assignment was to drop an raw egg, and however you wanted to package that egg, off the third floor fire escape of the girls dorm and it was to remain intact at the bottom.  (Physics) 

 - Dissecting a rabbit that one of our classmates killed.  This was not a class assignment, but a voluntary after-class exercise...  I was the only girl who showed up to the lab with about four other boys.  (Biology) 

 - Our Sciences teacher blowing things up ... to entertain us, more than educate us.  (Chemistry) 

I didn't have much interest in pursuing Science because I wasn't asking any questions that Science could have answered for me.  I don't remember in all of my education needing answers to things that were already provided for me in an "Omni-Everything God".  

I'm in my fifties now with less interest in periodic tables, sound waves or molecular structure.  Some might figure that since "God" isn't the answer source for me anymore that I now have to go find answers in science.  I do enjoy a good Youtube video that deals in some of the rhetoric of science, but more often than not, if the conversations don't include Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry or Tim Minchin, I am hard pressed to hang in there for long.  

I find beauty and amazement in the stars.  I can get lost in the magnificence of a visible galaxy in the night sky at my Mom's farm.  I feel drawn into light in the darkness without needing to know how many stars there are, how old they are and how far away they are.  Those details aren't important in that moment.  

I collect rocks.  I understand they are much older than I am, but I don't need to know how old to connect and feel grounded to the earth that sustains me.  I invite them into my garden as beauty and a reminder that are like distant cousins, maybe coming from the same stardust I am told I come from.  

I am a gardener, a lover of flowers.  I can't tell you the details of the process of photosynthesis, like I was expected to know back in grade school.  But I breathe in the oxygen the plants provide for me and I express my gratitude to them in poetry and care for their wellbeing.  

I'm making up my own stories now as writers and poets often do.  I don't find the need to impress them on others or explain why they inspire me.  I just let things speak to me in my own time and space and, for me, that is enough.  

I can enjoy ancient stories and myths, but they don't define me anymore.  I can enjoy the wonder found in scientific facts, but I have no need to understand them or promote them beyond simple inquiry.  I can drive my truck and be okay not knowing how to fix it when it breaks, because there are other people who do. 

(written December 17, 2023)