Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Lalitamba
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
Some people live as if
there are no mysteries in life, notwithstanding the grand mystery of why we’re
here. Our television spews out numbers and facts with habitual enthusiasm to
explain everything about everything, so much so that we seldom stop to think at
all, much less to consider what the television doesn’t tell us. It’s like
medicine. We fall into the trap of thinking the doctor knows all there is to
know about our infection, diabetes, cancer, psychosis, or whatever. Only when
the doctor is unable to relieve our discomfort does it occur to us that he
doesn’t know everything.
How big is the world of the
unknown? Or what percent, do you think, of the knowable (for lack of a better
word) do we have access to? It frightens me to try to supply a number. In the
5,000 years, give or take, of human discoveries and inventions, have we etched
out 1% of what is knowable?
We've made progress. Science now includes areas
so special I don’t even understand the labels, things like quantum mechanics,
astrophysics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetic optics. We’ve discovered the
universe is bigger than we thought, that particles are smaller than the atom.
Where will it end?
Lalitamba
It’s refreshing to see a
journal take on mysteries as a subject. It’s gratifying that two of my poems
have been accepted by the journal for publication. Lalitamba is an annual publication of Chintamani Books, which publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Lalitamba
means Divine Mother and reflects the journal’s
interest in mystics of our time.
The two poems, “Journaling Faith” and “Natural Piety,” question our tradition of
religious faith. I often think that lack of faith is a failure of imagination.
Failed imaginations will not only cripple faith, it will bring research, art,
and education to a standstill.
Lalitamba’s
website is http://www.lalitamba.com.
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