Some scientists admit that when all the Quantum and Newtonian causes are done in our minds, we have free will.  Isn’t that the end purpose of our evolution?  That we give, freely, our love, praise and abilities to others and our Creator?  Otherwise, what’s the sense of creating us, if not to bring joy to our peers and Creator?  I mean, it doesn’t take an eight cylinder brain to figure that one out.

Western Civilization has had some great thinkers, some of then the modern secular commentators don’t dare mention.  I mean thinkers like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John the Apostle, and others.  (I will say the physicist Brian Greene shows a surprising familiarity with them.)  They believed in a God who John said is Love.  I love simple statements, such as Einstein coined, and that statement got to me.

I watch as an adult robin picks a spot in the turf to begin its search for worms.  As soon as he digs for a worm, gray-colored offspring with spotted breasts join the robin from the trees, hoping for it to share the worm with one of them.  They are old enough to dig for themselves, but have not yet been weaned.  The adult robin makes his attempt at weaning them by hopping away.

Who instilled these instincts, or developed them over the eons? As we know from physics, there is no movement without a push, or impulse.  Where do these robins come from?  Sure, I can see them court and sometimes nest, but are you satisfied with that answer?  Can you think beyond?

A researcher has a theory as to why Western Civilization advanced so quickly since the time of Christ.  He claims the Church Fathers came out with a rule forbidding marriage between first cousins.  Now up to that time this had been common in families, but that rule changed the course of Western evolution.  There was now more random blood in family bloodlines.

He says Western people became what is described by the acronym WEIRD:

                                                W estern

                                                E ducated

                                                I ndustrial

                                                R ich

                                                D emocratic

Well, that supports my contention that Christianity made the difference.  Or better said, the Holy Spirit.  By the way, the proponent of this new theory is Joseph Henrich, and his book, the Weirdest People in the World.

There is an ice cream house in the center of Mattituck (I love going out to the North Fork of Long Island) called the Magic House, and I always order two scoops of Black Cherry Chocolate Bourbon.  Can you beat that for a title?  It’s the little things in life that make it so worthwhile.  I don’t know how they get that bourbon flavor into an ice cream, but it would be too expensive if it were real bourbon.

Yes, the little things, like the smile on a four-year-old or a seventy-year old.  The young one never tasted strawberry ice cream before, and the older one recalls her first taste of whiskey.  That was terrible stuff, right?  I made sure when my sons asked for a taste of hard liquor at about nine years of age I gave it to them, (much to the upset of their mother) because they never asked for it again.  It’s not made for young taste buds.

Of course, we skirt damnation often in life, as we pray to avoid, and surviving to adulthood is an accomplishment.  We never think of it that way, but we miss so much of what we’ve really done.  Done with the help of God, of course

By Francis O’Brien

At the banks along the Jordan

Crying out: “Prepare the way”;

Washing sinners in the waters,

Calling all to God’s new day;

Who is this in beggar’s clothing,

Feasting on the desert’s fare?

Is creation’s plan unfolding

In the prophet’s haunting stare?

Could this be the bless’d Messiah?

Could this be the chosen One?

No, this is the final herald

Preparing all to meet God’s Son.

“I baptize you here with water,

But there’s one whom you must seek;

He baptizes in the Spirit,

Raising up the poor, the weak.