Our New Pentecost

It's about time...our time.

Last night I heard the "Doctor Atomic Symphony" of composer-conductor James Adams. It's about the time just before the Trinity test of the first atom bomb, and about the deep fears of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist-poet-philosopher who guided the Los Alamos work. Adams spoke a bit before the music, speaking of how time altered beyond our imagining when we suddenly acquired "the power to destroy the earth." Or, to destroy human life and civilization.

In his "Doctor Atomic Opera," Oppenheimer sings an anguished aria with the repeating phrase:

"Batter my heart, o three-part god." He asks to be cast down so that he can experience the depth of this literally dread-full moment.

Listening to the aria, I remembered the work of historian Jonathan Schell, who wrote of atomic weapons that they had "made war futile," because we all knew they would destroy human life on earth, and so there has been no great-power war that could have unleashed that devastation.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed us what horror could result.

And our nation carries the burden of having caused that suffering AND of seeking to put an end to nuclear weapons. Obama, may he be blessed, may lead us to that goal.

But what will we make of this earth, if we are spared nuclear war?

Can we ground ourselves deeply in its beauty, and the power of all its diverse peoples?

What would that feel like in our bodies? How would we be changed?

I look forward to exploring this with others over the coming years.