An existential interpretation of science: excerpts from the poem ‘A creation story’ that frames Willem B. Drees, Creation: From Nothing until Now (Routledge, 2002)
There was a time
when there was no time,
when time was not yet.
The time
when there was no time
is a horizon of not knowing
a mist where our questions fade
and no echo returns.
Then,
in the beginning,
perhaps not the beginning,
in the first fraction of a second,
perhaps not the first fraction of the first second,
our universe began without us.
(…)
In billions of galaxies
the universe made itself
from dust stars
from stars dust.
Much later,
from dust from stars
from dust from stars from dust
swirled our Sun
and from leftovers
the Earth, our home.
Thus,
after ten billion years,
there was evening
and there was morning:
the first day.
Life
a modest beginning,
undirected,
a history of failing
and occasionally
a small success.
A molecule
carried information
from generation to generation,
history bred purpose,
by chance.
(…)
Yesterday
a few million years ago
the East Side Story:
groups of apes groom, hunt and call.
Sticks, stones, fire
eating from the tree of knowledge
the tree of good and evil,
power, freedom,
responsibility:
Beasts became us
more was delivered than ordered,
more than we can bear?
Religion
cement of the tribe
response to power
of mountains, the storm, the sea,
birth and death,
power as large as gods.
Yesterday
ten thousand years ago
Abel was killed by his brother,
we farmers eat ashamed our bread,
the earth cries, forever red?
A new age,
a prophet warns king and people,
a carpenter tells
‘a man who fell among robbers,
was cared for by an enemy’.
Look,
measure and count,
challenge knowledge
and authority!
Enlightenment
way out of immaturity.
In us
our heritage,
matter, information,
and a box full of stories.
Between
hope and fear
our neighbors
life
here on Earth,
between
hope and fear
the great project
of thought
and compassion
on a road
of freedom.
