Science and the Sacred

the fusion of intelligent exploration and wonder

This picture was taken on Monhegan Island in Maine during a fall birding trip led by my friend and fellow Substack writer, Bryan Pfeiffer.

In her book Sacred Nature—Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World, Karen Armstrong offers an overview of numerous religious and spiritual traditions, explaining how most of them teach that this world we live in is the home and expression of the sacred.

How is it then, that we find ourselves in a culture that operates as though our spiritual well-being stands somehow apart from our relationship to the “physical” world around us? This strange mental separation takes many forms and has many consequences. Understanding them is, I think, necessary to help us really heal our planet, our selves, and our communities.

Many of us don’t accept the split at a personal level. But we are surrounded by powerful belief systems and institutions that are based on it. Most current economic theory, for instance, assumes aggressive human conversion of Earth’s “resources” is the path to our prosperity, and that version of prosperity is what nature is ordained to provide. Life of the spirit—that’s a different discussion.

The thought-habit that reflects this division is the notion that scientific and spiritual investigation are competitors for truth rather than complementary ways of learning and understanding.

Never made sense to me!

So, I guess we need to go on a long walk with Bryan Pfeiffer.

What?! you ask, How can Bryan help?

He helps a lot—he offers a glimpse of how integration, rather than separation, works.

Bryan started his naturalist career as a birder—brilliant at instructing and inspiring eager watchers. Next, he fell in love with butterflies, then dragonflies, then moths. Now he’s into lichens, mysterious creatures most of us have never even noticed (like jumping spiders) and the endless interconnectedness of plants, soil, air, and water. Who knows what’s next?

Bryan is a meticulous observer of nature who uses the tools of science to gain insight, astonishment and delight in this world we often take so ruthlessly for granted. He carefully uses new information to refine or shift understanding of the world around us (see snowy owls).

He’s also a passionate believer in justice, who cares and aches deeply for our human community, our individual stories, sufferings and joys (even though evidence for the triumph of compassion and caring so far seems spotty). While Bryan may not be a certified believer—his work is guided by love and reverence and his learning as a naturalist expands his—and our—wonder and affection. If he was forced to choose a label it would probably be eco-theist.

There it is—he’s simultaneously a scientist and a spiritual explorer. In fact (as with Robin Wall Kimmerer) those two ways of knowing—pursued with an open heart—support and invigorate each other. It’s what happens when we know the spirit is present everywhere around us. Science becomes a partner to mystery and understanding—and ultimately a guide for action (or sometimes, less action).

On occasion Bryan’s practice could even be described as ascetic. He voluntarily lies down in remote wet places for hours, suffers mosquitos, ticks and horseflies hoping to find the elusive Bog Elfin (which feeds only on Black Spruce needles.) Though he has not yet announced creation of a new monastic order, it’s clear he finds joy and wonder in his discipline that could make the most devout religious practitioner envious.

Of course, using the term scientific to describe his work does not include many things we carelessly toss into that word—the arrogance that brought packets of DDT to our cow stable’s windowsill to kill flies (and so much more) in the early fifties. Nor does it include the relentless analysis and near-sighted choices that convert so much of our glorious world into products for short-term use and long-term waste.

And using the word religious (or spiritual) to characterize what motivates him, could never include the brutality and hypocrisy of religious belief systems justifying slavery, racism, and male dominance, or creating schools to crush the spirits and culture of native peoples.

Have we ever found either science or religion useful to us when they are exercises in arrogance and self-righteousness?

Bryan listens for, and recognizes the myriad ways Earth keeps offering and returning affection to us. Isn’t it spiritual practice to find so much delight in a jumping spider on his houseplants? Windows he opens invite us to use our brains and hearts to face both the joy and peril facing us.

(And by the way, wouldn’t the writers of Genesis have given their eyeteeth to be the ones who came up with The Big Bang Theory? So much more detail, and somehow even more mysterious!)

So, I encourage you (if you are not already) to become a subscriber to his Substack Chasing Nature. Join me in sharing his insight, humor, and passion. And to all of you. thanks for your companionship, courage, and commitment to all forms of learning as we explore and honor our home. It is a time when we urgently need to be part of such a community.

Bryan guiding