Blessed to be "left overs!"

According to cosmologists, slightly less than fourteen billion years ago, the universe began to cool following the Big Bang. At that point the universe consisted of baryons (things such as protons and neutrons) and antibaryons. These particles and antiparticles destroyed each other in a series of "collisions." Cosmologists hypothesize that only one particle or baryon survived every billion such "collisions." In other words, everything extant that we can verify is a vestige of those "collisions." In the words of biblical scholar and scientist William P. Brown (author of a fascinating exegesis of the biblical creation narratives entitled The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder), "Our cosmos evolved from left overs." That comment fills me with spiritual and theological wonder.

Many Hebrew prophets proclaimed that God created a covenantal community from the remnants of defeated nations. The disciples whom Jesus called came from outside the prevailing principalities and powers. Most of the people to whom Jesus offered healing words and touches belonged to the margins. In the same way, the existence of all that we have the capacity to comprehend begins with remnant particles, minority components, "left overs." Even before we ponder the wonder of human life, the existence of anything at all is incomprehensibly precious. Regardless how we define "God," the basic mystery of why there is something rather than nothing deepens to the point of reverence.

We readily easily ignore, neglect, or discount anything outside the mainstream. The witness of scripture and cosmology challenges us to take a closer look. "Left overs" often are priceless. We may find traces of the presence of God in places others expect to see nothing of value.

Many lament the numerical decline in the church in the United States and Western Europe. No Christian should celebrate this, but perhaps we should focus on what God continues to do in, with, and for us and how God calls us to participate in that. Creation and scripture assure us that God can do quite a bit with "left overs."

Pardon the foolishness, but I cannot escape the memory of "must go" night when my daughters were younger. Every now and then our dinner consisted of everything left in the refrigerator that "must go." Those meals included a variety of items rarely chosen for presentation together and the diminished preparation time gave us greater opportunity for conversation and catching up with each other. "Must go" night taught me to embrace those occasions that call for cleaning up and catching up. That rarely ranks high on the list of priorities, but it paves the way to reaching any of them. Is that also woven into the fabric of all that is?

Theology and cosmology affirm that our existence was not a given. Regardless what stands behind the Big Bang, there was no guarantee that we or anything would come to be. If the cosmos had expanded only a little more slowly, the universe probably would have collapsed back into itself. If the cosmos had expanded only a little more rapidly, our carbon-based life probably would not have formed. We may be "left overs," but we exist only because of life/love/God and in our existence we utterly depend on life/love/God. "Thank you" should be a way of life because our existence is sheer gift. We had nothing to do with it. Faithful stewardship of our lives should come naturally. The way we live and use our time, money, abilities, and all other resources most fully express our gratitude and wonder. What a blessing it is to be "left overs!"

            Grace and Peace,

            LP