There’s a very interesting website called ‘bodyworlds.com’. It’s a place where you can view a travelling road show that is science in the form of art. Human bodies have been plastinated and displayed in minute and grotesque detail for a voyeuristic audience.
The philosopher Rene Descartes was probably the instigator of this kind of thinking when he said, ‘If anyone could know perfectly what are the small parts composing all bodies, he would know perfectly the whole of nature.’ But was he right?
I’m fascinated by science and it’s ongoing discoveries, observations, hypotheses, mistakes, recalculations and provisional conclusions. Yet constantly looking at minutiae often means we miss grand picture. Even scientists, especially astrophysicists, remind us that it is the grand beauty that drives us to small detail. But every now and then we have to return from the details to marvel at the hemisphere we call space.
My eldest son is nearly 15 years old and I experience him daily. He’s my height, nearly my weight and occasionally drives me to distraction. Nonetheless, from time to time I just observe him for who he is. I am astounded that not so long ago I could hold him in my hand and forearm. In those moments I forget his education, messy room, scraggly hair, musical taste, pubescent behaviour and just remember that he’s mine and I love him no matter what.
It’s the same with other people too; often I reduce them to events or circumstances that give them definition in my mind, but such images never reveal who they truly are. I am a reductionist.
This last week I have been trying to see people I don’t like so much in a different light. And it hasn’t been that easy. It’s a disconcerting just how powerful a one-off action or short conversations can freeze in time an image of someone else that bares little resemblance to who they really are.
We do it with religion too. We reduce Muslims to terrorists and Christians to religious fundamentalists. Yet we know, in the grand scheme of things, that such images are little more than brush strokes on a giant canvas.
The contradiction I have to face, as a western reductionist Christian, is that the God I believe in is quite the opposite. This God does not reduce but rather creates. This God does not deconstruct but is rather in the business of reconstructing. Our flaws, weaknesses, failings and sins are building blocks and not rubble. Somehow God sees us as were intended to be, and that divine hope rests over us like a security blanket. For God, nothing is ever wasted.
I have only worked this out by looking at Jesus Christ. His story is Gods story. It’s only about redemption – not destruction. If you’re bogged down in the details of your own life, then you need to see how God sees you - not as many parts, but as a loved creation. The whole is way better than mere components and it’s always worth rebuilding. And it’s the same for everyone else too.
© Digby Wilkinson 2007