Particle or Wave

The Feast of St. Joseph

Luke 2:41-51a

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke plucks us out of Lent, and asks us to consider parenting.  And in particular, the parenting entrusted to Joseph…which presumes that Jesus needed parenting…which focuses on the human side of the Incarnation.

The slippery side of the Incarnation is not Jesus’ Divinity.  After all, on any given day, we might find ourselves believing in the power of crystals, dream-catchers, shooting stars…and a host of other much crazier things.  No, it is the fully human part that is slippery.  Real faith means that we can hold both to be wholly true…at the same time.

A theologian-particle physicist equated it to the nature of light…is light a particle or a wave?  Well, says John Polkinghorne (the Quark guy) ‘if you ask it a wave-like question you will get a wave-like answer, and if you ask it a particle-like question you will get a particle-like answer, and the ground rules are that you can’t ask it both questions at the same time’!  I love that!  Super helpful!

Because I am good at keeping God at a distance (keeps the meddling at bay;) I need to be asking the human-like questions.  So a good one for today:  What does parenting have to do with being a disciple?  And Cindy, get concrete!