A Lay Definition of the God Particle

I spent a few hours reading about the confirmation of the God Particle’s existence this week, trying to understand. As one who performed below average in physics classes, I had plenty of difficulty. Nevertheless, I gave myself an A for the effort.
by Charlie Leck

I’m copping an entire Letter to the Editor – as a matter of fact, the Letter of the Day – from today’s issue of the local paper (StarTribune). I hope I don’t get sued for copyright infringement. If I do I’ll plead stupidity and ignorance; and there will be many readers ready to bounce up and support me on that claim. [Here’s where you can find it in the paper.]

The letter, written by Margaret Deharpporte of Eden Prairie, is just too lovely not to be shared. After reading it, I just sat back and said “Amen!” The epistle represents Margaret’s reaction to this week’s news about the confirmation of the God Particle.

I find it somewhat amusing when terms such as "God particle" and "dark matter" are thrown around by physicists ("New evidence for the 'God particle'," July 3) and "Yes, scientists exclaim, there is a 'God particle' Thursday, July 5). It is my guess that such terms mean little to the average person, and I have taken the liberty to use them differently:

Dark matter: Includes all those things that reek of darkness and negativity -- wars, injustices, prejudice, poverty, murder, intolerance of differences, sickness and a lack of reverence for our Earth.

God particle: That spark of decentness in humanity that often is what allows life to be endurable when up against dark matter.

I do believe most persons might relate to those definitions.

MARGARET DEHARPPORTE, EDEN PRAIRIE

I like that. It’s worth thinking about. Thanks to the StarTribune and to Margaret. I wonder if Margaret reads the Margaret and Helen Blog. She should.

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Afterword:
I chose to use this famous Michelangelo work as an illustration for this blog post; and, in doing so, I came upon a little blog (http://blog.sciencemusings.com) that made this remarkable little comment:

“And besides, it is not Adam or God that is the attraction of Michelangelo's painting. It is the gap between their fingers. Michelangelo could have had God touching Adam's finger. He did not. And all these centuries later, it is the gap that draws us to the painting again and again, and compels our fascination. Although both Adam and his gray-bearded Creator have lost their literal significance, the gap between their fingers -- between the human mind and the unnamable, unknown agency that creates and sustains the universe -- remains as real and as important as ever, even to the most unmystical and atheistic scientist.”
                                                                                   [Chet Raymo]

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Adastra

Well, they picked a good name for it, anyway!
by Charlie Leck

A South Carolina friend and high school classmate tipped me off to this one. There's not much to say about it because it takes my breath away. This is a new yacht created by John Shuttleworth Yacht Designs. Her name is Adastra.

If you want to read more about this extraordinary beauty, you can go to this spot on Yahoo News.

I have no intention to chat with John Shuttleworth about his choice of a name.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

A Quiet, Lovely Giant

A quiet giant has moved gracefully out among the stars and I bid her the fondest adieu!
by Charlie Leck

The kind, quiet, sweet and gentle cleric who married Anne and me has gone to her rest and slipped out among the stars of heaven to enjoy the bliss of eternity. What a sweetheart she was and I know of no kinder person who has ever entered my life’s realm. Adieu, dear Elaine, adieu!

“Prenez avec vous notre plus tender pensées et remerciements les plus sincères!”

Elaine Marsh was one of the ministers at Plymouth Congregational Church when Anne and I met and began dating back in 1977. A few of those early dates, before we got serious and moved beyond an elementary friendship, were simply going to Church together. It was a tremendous opportunity to measure our friendship. We enjoyed the fantastic music of the Plymouth Choir and the enormous and challenging thinking that came from that liberal pulpit. It was during that time that the two of us got to know Elaine and we eventually asked her to marry us.

She was not a great preacher. Her voice was soft, gentle and calm. It took some commitment to listen to her. When one did, one realized the thoughtfulness of her mind. She had important and meaningful things to say, but she wasn’t going to shove it down your throat. You could take it in if you wanted, or leave it unsampled and untested.

I was startled into a strange quietness and calm when I opened the paper over lunch yesterday and saw her obituary. I never really go the death notices in the paper, but, because of murmurs about bad weather moving in, I was really looking for the forecast, which is only one simple page away from the obituaries, when I saw the headline: ELAINE MARSH, AESTHETIC, FEMINIST MINISTER.

It wasn’t particularly surprising. Elaine was 92. She and her “significant other,” Alice Huston, had moved to England in the mid-80s, going into semi-retirement. Elaine accepted an invitation to serve as the interim pastor of a small, but very old and historic Congregational Church in Chulmleigh, Devon. She remained there, as the pastor, for nine years. She liked the way the English did things. She and Alice were very happy there. Alice, we heard, died a few years ago.

Elaine was a progressive, liberal thinker. Her faith was huge, but it wasn’t simple and cuddly. She believed deeply that churches were community institutions and ought to be active and working for the improvement and good health of their communities. She was a vigorous proponent of women’s rights long before it became popular. She believed that women could test themselves and prepare themselves for community and business leadership within the policy-making structure of the church. She worked to make liturgical language gender neutral. She founded a Woman’s Coffee House at Plymouth Church and made it into a gathering place for women who were working through a variety of issues in their lives. It was an idea, I am proud to say, that she said she took from my community organization work in a neighborhood just south of the one in which she worked. There is a simple, but extremely beautiful stained glass window at Plymouth Church that is called “Women in the Ministry.” It was dedicated to Elaine. Our church library is also named for her. She left a huge imprint on that congregation and its work.

I remember attending an Adult Learning Class that Elaine led about the expatriate writer, Gertrude Stein. I had carefully read a good deal of Stein’s work and thought I understood her. Elaine opened windows upon windows for me that looked out on to things I never, never understood about Stein.

Back in ’78, Anne and I decided to get married like a thunderbolt had struck us. Suddenly aware that we were going to be life-long friends and partners, we couldn’t wait to make the contract and utter the promises. We sent out telegrams to our friends, giving them only a two-week notice. We called Elaine and asked her for an appointment at which we told her we would be pleased if she married us. She wanted to know if she should do something contemporary.

“No,” we told her, “we’d like the very traditional language, pledging our troths and all that.”

My guy-friends began calling in a frenzy because our chosen Sunday wedding date was the day when the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers were meeting on the gridiron. We’d set our wedding time for three o’clock and surely the game would be over by then. I promised them all that the TV would be on and that they could come early and the wedding would NOT begin until the end of the game. Whoever dreamed there would be a tie and a play-off period and that no one would score in the extra quarter and the game would run on until well after 3:30. The string trio we’d hired played on and on while the guys, and some of the women, were all gathered around the TV out on the porch, screaming and cheering like crazy.

Elaine wasn’t amused, but she understood about my promise. She thought it was such a waste to leave these incredible musicians unattended. She closed her ears to the screams and groans coming from the other room and concentrated on the music.

It was a crazy wedding that also featured a wedding cake that was dropped on its top by the delivery boy. Elaine laughed hysterically when it was brought out following the ceremony, somehow recreated by my sister with flowers she took from various bouquets around the house. It seemed some strange counterpoint to our bizarre wedding to hear the very traditional language of the aged wedding ceremony… “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish her? In sickness and in health? For better or for worse? Until death do you part?”

“Indeed! And I also pledge to her my troth!”

We were sad when Elaine decided to leave our church and also that she would leave our community. Yet, we were excited for her and the new adventure that she and Alice were embarking upon.

Elaine was born in West Virginia. Her father was an oil worker who soon moved the family to Oklahoma and then to Kansas. Elaine attended a Quaker college and went on to Hartford Theological School and then got a master’s degree from Berkeley Baptist Divinity School. It was at this latter school that she met the love of her life, Alice Huston. She and Alice lived in Montana and Iowa before they ended up at Plymouth Church in 1960.

She’s not famous. She wouldn’t want to be. Nonetheless, she’s a giant of person in my life and I’m so grateful that I knew her. I went outside this morning, while it was still dark, so that I could look up into the stars and, perhaps, see one twinkling especially bright because of its new visitor. However, the snow was falling hard and beautifully and there were no stars to be seen. It was so quiet and so peaceful. I blew a kiss up toward the heavens.

Rest sweetly, dear Elaine – rest sweetly!

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To the Stars

Enough people suggested I rename and update the design of  my blog, that I finally just did it!
by Charlie Leck

"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I have been blogging here, at this site, for exactly one year now. In that time I've faithfully pounded out a lot of well-meant and sincere words and thoughts. There are well over 150 blogs archived here and several dozen more were written on a former site and were not transfered to this spot.

So many of my readers – mostly neighbors, family and friends from around the country – suggested I give my blog a more distinguished name and a more contemporary look, that I just went ahead and did it. This current look is the result of extensive market tests by a distinguished New York consultant and is the work of a Chicago design firm – JUST KIDDING!

The idea is all mine. Ad Astra is Latin for “to the stars!” It is my ultimate destination and it seems the ship of life, piloted by Kilgore Trout, is right now moving at extraordinary speed toward the outer edges of the universe and then we’ll be released to go beyond. These blogs are my musings – my reminiscences, rants and raves – as this journey proceeds toward its ultimate destination.

I’ve explained here previously, these are for the record – a record by which my grandchildren and their grandchildren may know their old and odd grandpa. If others get some enjoyment from these along the way, or find them informative and interesting, so much the better.

I want to make sure I leave a rather crucial message for my grandchildren. It came first from the mouth of Elliot Rosewater and the pen of Kurt Vonnegut. Rosewater, one of Vonnegut’s glorious fictional characters, and certainly not a cleric, was asked to baptize two babies. He objected, saying that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t have the right. The mother pleaded with him and he relented. Rosewater’s wife was aghast when he told her; and she asked him what he said. His reply is my message for my grandchildren:

“'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
[Vonnegut, Kurt: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater]

I’m pleased that several hundred people come here from time to time to read these ramblings. I’m even more pleased that I’ve made so many good friends among the blogging community. There are so many good amateur bloggers out there that it astounds me. When I read some of their excellent writing, it gives me hope that we might indeed be moving toward a more decent and rational world where kindness, justice and peace will rule the day. It will not happen in my lifetime; however, from out among the stars I will be paying attention and will rejoice when the world decides to turn away from madness and toward hope. My constant prayer is that my grandchildren will know a world devoted to kindness.

END

About Kurt Vonnegut
One of my daughters teaches English at the college level. She is quite astounded, I think, when I list Vonnegut as one of my favorite writers. As Vonnegut, himself, might have said: “So be it!” Of course, I read Slaughterhouse Five first and that hooked me. I simply waited for everything else to come out after that and grabbed hold. I’ve read all his published work since then, except for a work that was recently posthumously published. I’ll pick that up one of these days, too. Vonnegut got very experimental with some of his later works and the quality of his writing (or story-telling) fell off. Nevertheless, I just kept right on reading.

I have a first edition copy of each of Vonnegut’s books and that is a very important corner of my library.

Another of my daughters is teaching English at the junior high school level. I have a feeling that she’s never read Vonnegut. Too bad! I think any high school kid would love to meet Elliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout. My goodness, they are two of the great characters of fiction. I actually get the shivers whenever I think about those two guys.

I think I would assign my junior high schoolers the pleasurable assignment of reading Breakfast of Champions and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. My they were fun stories.

I remember how Gilgore Trout, an outstanding science fiction writer, thought mirrors allowed us to look into another universe that was an exact duplicate of our own. He thought mirrors leaked out information about that simultaneous universe and so he called mirrors that – “leaks.” If he was having a beer with some guy and that fellow said he was going to take a leak, Trout thought he was going to steal a mirror.

Oh well, you had to be there!