OK GOD, IF YOU'RE THERE, SHOW YOURSELF!

Did you know that originally Margaret Mitchell was going to call her "Gone With The Wind" heroine Pansy instead of Scarlett? Did you know Lincoln loved radishes and hated turnips? Did you know Beethoven deleted entire passages from his Fifth Symphony?

One way you and I know such trivial-to-triumphant facts is by coming across private papers years later. It's like peeking behind the curtain of history. Very much like coming across old newspapers in which the reporters are agonizing over the outcome of some distant battle whose every detail you and I now know.

There's a god-like feeling here, because unlike anyone back then, you know exactly what's about to happen.

Talking about God -- something hard for me not to do -- there is a growing legion of scientists who have decided it's time to end this modern stalemate between science and religion. Scientists like Tielhard Chardin hypothesized evolution is a cosmic process that is leading to the ultimate stage of development: God Himself. Then there is Francis Collins whose work directing the Genome Project has similarly concluded that evolution can be best understood as "theistic evolution."

Now entering the arena is Professor John Polkinghorne, elementary particle physicist and President of Queen's College, Cambridge. With the theory of quantum mechanics, he finds in its lack-of-predictability room for how God can "intervene in the world while still operating inside the universal rules of nature He initially set in motion."

Becoming an Anglican priest, Polkinghorne is one of those thinkers who is perfectly comfortable conflating science and religion in one profession. He sees the design of nature, universal morality, the everyday sense of hope, the perfection of mathematics and the very notion of God, not as "proofs of God's existence" like he medieval scholastics attempted, but rather as "signals of some transcendence."

Looking for an antidote to the transient trivia of the day's news about which you have virtually no control...? Try curling up with some of Polkinhorne's articles in scientific journals where he puts to rest the high-paid cynicism of fellow academics like Richard Dawkins. Polkinghorne quotes the celebrated Princeton quantum-mechanics physicist Freeman Dyson who said: "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

Of course, there's another way of approaching humanity's recurring question/taunt: If-you're-there-god-why-don't-you-show-yourself? This is the Lenten/Easter season for Christians. Find a local Christian who passionately embraces and lives their faith, then watch them engage in this solemn season. Oh? You say you don't know any Christians like that? Well, they ARE hard to find. But keep looking, because if you do, it may be like coming across one of those long-misplaced private papers serious seekers are always seeking....