Reflection 4: Conversion
This was the hardest point for me to come to. I had difficulty enough coming to the point where I acknowledged God. The cynical, skeptical “scientist” in me refused for so long to accept the concept of divinity, but what was I really refusing to accept? I think that I was refusing to accept two things:
When I had finally reached the end of what I have, in retrospect, determined to be a highly arrogant and self-centered period of my youth, I finally realized that my arrogance and stubbornness was rally holding me back, indeed it was keeping me from being happy and fulfilled in my life. What I had heard in my youth was becoming self-apparent – that I was miserable not because God had forsaken me, but because I had forsaken God. I had rejected the notion that mankind had been specially ordained by God to be separate from nature and viciously promoted the position that mankind is a part of nature. Anyone who understands biology and anthropology would agree with this position. What I did not accept at first is that God and nature are not mutually exclusive.
My studies in the sciences were, interestingly enough, becoming more advanced as my apostasy was slowly crumbling. When I knew only the basic fundamental principles of biology, it was easy to refute the weak arguments of those who only knew the basic fundamental myths in the Bible. As I came to understand the complexities of the living world, I didn’t care so much about what small-minded people thought and cared only for my quest for knowledge. Ironically enough, my thirst for earthly wisdom brought me to a gradual revelation and conversion.
God did not speak to me through a burning bush or a thunderous voice from the sky. God did not appear to me in a mirage in the desert or in a grilled cheese sandwich. God revealed His majesty and might in mitochondrial DNA, that tiny bit of self-replicating protein that separates animals from anaerobic protists. It’s a pretty inconsequential bit of nucleotides on a grand scale, but it’s what makes us able to metabolize oxygen and produce large quantities of ATP to fuel complex metabolic processes. If not for mitochondria, life on this planet would never have gone past the phase of single-celled organism. The neat thing about mitochondria is that they’re endosymbiotic. That is, they’re separate and distinct organisms living within each and every animal cell alive today. They live their own lives; they do their own thing, replicating when they want to (instead of replicating along with the rest of the cell’s organelles during mitosis), taking a little from the cell in exchange for giving so much back. Nobody knows why or how mitochondria came to enter the primordial animal cells. They are at the top of the list of biological mysteries. One cannot argue that they’re not natural, and it’s also pretty hard to argue that they’re not, in some way, miraculous. Thus, God’s majesty was finally revealed to me. My previous studies in biology had revealed a lot of really impressive stuff to me, but the revelation and understanding of mitochondria was the point of epiphany. It was the point at which I had finally realized that the natural world was more mysterious and miraculous than I had ever before imagined it to be.
And what greatness has come from that tiny, miraculous symbiote. From the first single-celled animals come every animal on earth that ever was and ever will be, including ourselves. Our rising up from the primordial Petri dish wasn’t random, nor (as many bioethicists argue) is our predilection toward social order. Thus, morality is innate, which brings this discussion to the notion of a universal morality and greater purpose.
I have come to open my mind to the notion that the natural world brings forth monumental changes in increments, and I am just now exploring the relevance of saints and prophets. I am also considering just what “salvation” means to me. I cannot believe that there is a life after this one in Heaven or anywhere else, and I accept the myth of Heaven and even the Resurrection as highly metaphorical: when one transcends one’s fear of death, one transcends one’s fear of life. Finding reason and order in this world is gradually resting my fear of life. Now I only have to become a student of the saints and prophets to learn the lessons they have for me. As such, I may well be an “incomplete convert” since I’m still only a student. My epiphany was an event, but my conversion is still an ongoing process.
I suppose I’d fit in with Unitarians best since my beliefs are still in a formative and somewhat nebulous phase, but I’ve chosen to align myself with Orthodox Christianity for social and political reasons. That in itself is the topic of another reflection.