Did you know 32 solar panels were installed on the White House in 1979? On June 20, 1979, President Jimmy Carter dedicated the newly installed solar system designed to heat water with these words, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” His words would prove quite prophetic. A few years later the panels were removed by the new administration. Rather than heating water and serving as the beginning of a great American adventure, several of the panels are sadly, if not ironically, actual museum pieces on display at the Smithsonian Institute.
It takes courage to strike out on an exciting new adventure—to step out into the darkness of the unknown whether that means embracing a new technology or belief structure.
Since the beginning of time, our ancestors have been trying to stave off the known and unknown dangers of the darkness. First with fire, then with lamps, and now with electricity, humans have been in the business of creating light to illuminate the darkness. The picture on the cover of last week’s worship bulletin (see below) was a map of the extent to which humans have lit up the night sky. In many urban areas it’s difficult if not impossible to see stars at night.
It’s funny how hesitant we are to harness the power of light already given to us while being quick to create more light which inadvertently blots out the points of light that used to help our forebears navigate and orient themselves.
Science has a lot to say about the nature of light. You might remember from science class how light behaves as both a wave and a particle. I was reading a description of this seemingly dual nature of light and was struck by the last statement. It read, “Modern physics sees light as something that can be described sometimes with mathematics appropriate to one type of macroscopic metaphor (particles), and sometimes another macroscopic metaphor (water waves), but is actually something that cannot be fully imagined” [emphasis mine]. Despite all the formulas of quantum mechanics, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the nature of light. Just two years ago, scientists discovered a new form of light which may involve something called “polaritons” that could be useful in the development of quantum computers.
Much like science has a lot to say about light yet hasn’t come close to knowing everything there is to know, religion has a lot to say about God, yet God remains bigger than our formulations about God. There’s always more to discover and grace to revise to what we might have gotten wrong in the past.
Almost 40 years after installing those first, ill-fated 32 panels on the White House, President Carter leased ten acres of land near his hometown to be used as a solar farm. The farm’s 3,852 solar panels now provide 50% of the town’s electricity—an amount of power equivalent to burning about 3,600 tons of coal.
It takes courage to embark on new adventures, but it’s never too late to orient ourselves to new constellations and pursue the unknown depths of Love’s pure Light.
In Love,
Pastor Annette