Darwin V. Tennyson

Tears In Heaven - Eric Clapton

I am not a Christian though I was raised one. I am not an atheist because I believe in God. But I am hardly at odds with my faith and my spirituality. I think that because I am so engaged in the stuff of youth that I mostly neglect the topics of religion, of science versus religion, and of spirituality. Deliberation of the struggle has not been absent in the pathos of my mind, but I name the emotion pathos for a very specific reason. I fear the futility of life because of my belief in science, but I refuse to submit to a void of purpose.

[1] A bleak ending, and not one I want to see.

Tennyson’s lyrics pluck a chord on the strings of my heart, and its sound is of dissonance: “Be near me when I fade away,/ To point the term of human strife,/And on the low dark verge of life/The twilight of eternal day.” [2] From his other words, it is clear that Tennyson is a proponent of evolution, but at the same time is a man of faith: “I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,/And gather dust and chaff, and call/ To what I feel is Lord of all,/ And faintly trust the larger hope.” [3] He acknowledges the fragility of faith in the face of the beast of science but questions the validity of his letting go. Why should we let go of what we believe in, even if science tells us otherwise? It is not always about a belief in the bible or strict adherence to the rigidity of the form of faith, but there exists some ambience of hazard in a birth devoid of spirituality. Tennyson’s plight (and mine) becomes relevant in Kansas’s lyrics, “All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see. Dust in the Wind. All we are is dust in the wind.” [4] In the absence of some greater faith we are dust, ultimately.

This doesn’t look to appealing for my soul to inhabit for eternity. [5]

But I find solace in this mess. Lionel Stevenson, in his explanation of the struggle of poets like Tennyson, writes, “The intelligent controlling deity succumbed to blind forces functioning mechanically.” [6] I ask, can’t a controlling deity be responsible for and not “succumb to” these forces? Today, a poet faces even graver revelations of science, but I like to think a poet still goes to church. Stevenson further points out the struggle, “And if no god existed, nature was but a vast machine indifferent to the sufferings of living beings.” [7] But still, compassion exists. Everywhere. While science becomes an even more fluent tongue in the modern vernacular, faith is not lacking worldwide.

Compassion is driven by something more than science.
[8]

My solution is such: remain unconscious to the orthogonal. I will always believe in a greater purpose, but not necessarily a particular faith. I do believe in a supreme being, and I always will. At best, you could call me a deist. Or, at least a spiritualized atheist who, though nominally ironic, believes in some sort of god. Something greater does control the waves and particles of this all, but I am not sure what it is. When I listen to Eric Clapton, I refuse to believe that wavelengths, frequencies, and vibrations are responsible for the evocation of emotion, for the spirit that irrevocably exists in the sound. There is something more, and I not only sympathize with but agree with Tennyson’s stance on this sort of spiritual evolutionism. Darwin’s theories are irrefutable, but they do not call for a destruction of the spirit.

[1] http://www.artistic-license-inc.com/b2b/pics/Black_Galaxy_Granite_Tile.jpg
[2] 9
[3] 9
[4]14
[5]http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/docs/nt_dust_aerial2c.jpg
[6]Lionel Stevenson, “Darwin among the Poets,” Darwin 653
[7] Lionel Stevenson, “Darwin among the Poets,” Darwin 654
[8]http://www.smhcsf.org/images/img_compassion365b.jpg