"Journey of the Universe" and Trinity Sunday

A Rose Made of Galaxies
NASA Hubble Telescope
Wikimedia Commons

I have started to read "Journey of the Universe" by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.  I've been waiting to see the film they made of this, but haven't been near a showing.  The prose is striking and poetic and for a "geek" like me, the story of the universe is compelling reading.

In the first chapter while describing the forces of expansion (from the big bang) and attraction (gravity), they remind us that the universe is "shaped by these two opposing and creative dynamics" and that we who are alive are also shaped by processes of expansion and contraction such as breathing and the beating of our hearts. "At the very least we can say that because of the great exhalation of the universe, life and humanity have emerged and are breathing within it now."

After the initial "bang" particles began to collide and interact; sometimes bonding, sometimes separating.  The formation of increasingly complex communities, started with elementary particles and seems to be the way of the universe. In order for bonding to occur, the particles have to give up part of their mass and release it as energy.  "Even from the first moments, our universe moved toward creating relationships.....This bonding is at the heart of matter."

The words above had me pondering once again The Trinity.  Thinking about God breathing out the universe makes me contemplate 1John "In the beginning was the Word."  I wonder what the "great exhalation" sounded like.  Big Bang doesn't really have the elegance or the awe or the wonder that the term "great exhalation" does.  A great shout of joy and love and unimaginable power that started all that we know and began time and space. And if the Holy Spirit is inspiration, then we have the breathing in and out of the universe in both exhalation and inspiration.

But there is the relationship bit too. Did God create the whole universe in God's image?  If bonding is at the heart of matter, then bonding or relationship has a lot to do with God.  I wouldn't dare try to explain The Trinity, but I would like to think that relationships or bonding are as critical to the nature of God as to the nature of the universe God created.

I know I'm only on the first chapter of this book, but I needed to stop and think a little about the relationship between the faith I profess and the science I love.