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Volker Brendel: Hello everyone. As always, it is a pleasure and privilege to hear all of you signing in. My sense is that we have exactly everyone on line that needs to be on line this morning. This is a very unscientific statement. I have no way of justifying the statement other than by what I said. It is my sensing that everyone participating has a role to play in this hour and beyond. We will likely elaborate on that theme as the hour unfolds.

To begin with I'll read some familiar words attributed to the Prophet Isaiah.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Isaiah 55:8-11).

    According to these statements, the Lord communicates with us, saying that His or Her thoughts are not our thoughts. His or Her ways are not our ways, but on some scale the Lordly thoughts are higher and the ways of the Lord are higher than our ways. I think we could say that the intellectual history of humankind has been the attempt to dispute this statement. Intellectuals all over the globe and all down through the ages have elevated the human intellect, indicating that the ways of the human intellect are the crown jewel of evolutionary development of life in the universe. The attempts of the human intellect to elevate itself are utterly futile.

    There are many areas of human intellectual endeavor, but possibly none more than the field of science claims a paramount role in guiding human activity. In the news this last week was a report on a particular science experiment conducted at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland. This work has been discussed widely both in the professional arena and in the popular press and is related to what has been called synthetic life. In this particular study, Dr. Venter and his team report on the creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome. Without going into the technical details of the experiment, it has been known for a long time that the molecule known as DNA functions as a code in all life forms on Earth. Many of these codes have been deciphered over the last few decades, and the field of bioengineering has, for some period now, been engaged in changing naturally occurring DNA molecules slightly to create modified variants of different bacteria, plants, and animals. Thus, the report that came out this week was not as revolutionary as it first seems, although it can be opinioned that the engineering team took this approach to a new level. In essence, they removed the existing DNA from a particular species of bacteria and replaced it with a completely synthetically generated chromosome, and then proved that this molecule could control the resulting bacteria cell and self-replicate. The press release going along with this reported stated the following: "The ability to routinely write the software of life will usher in a new area of science and with it new products and applications such as advanced biofuels, clear water technology, and new vaccines and medicines."

    Also in the news of course has been the effect of the worst oil spill in U.S. history. In this case, the technology that allows offshore drilling of oil reserves under the surface of the ocean went awry about a month ago, resulting in the demise of the oil platform, loss of life directly on the platform, and what appears at this point to be an unstoppable leak of this oil into the ocean and onto the shore. I did not bother reading any press releases that would have accompanied the first offshore drilling platform, but I am completely certain that this event was similarly heralded as a great achievement of the human intellect, promising safe, clean, cheap energy to give all of us a better life. Thus goes the cycle.

    Interesting questions to raise are, "How much progress is actually being made and how much independent thinking is going on? What validity is there to the claims of the human intellect propping up an exalted position?" I came across an interesting book by a physicist named Jeff Schmidt. The book is entitled Disciplined Minds. Jeff Schmidt was for many years an editor of Physics Today, a renowned scientific magazine, but he found his job quite restricting and proceeded to divert his personal and professional time to documenting his observations and thoughts about professionalism in this book. For those of you interested in these sorts of matters, it makes a very good read. For now it suffices to relate the bottom line of his research. Looking at science, medicine and law he claims, quite convincingly, that in these professional fields people tend to be extraordinarily conservative. He analyzes how educational systems, our professional societies, and our funding streams (for science, for example), shape our activities and values along the way. In graduate school you are forced through a curriculum, you are rewarded on terms of what the instructors want you to do, and you achieve your degree by satisfying your major professor and the committee. Where does the major professor's line of thinking come from? Quite contrary to the fable of science for Truth's sake, for research independent of constraints and only for curiosity's sake and the accumulation of basic knowledge-in fact, research is driven by research funding. Thus, what gets explored is to a large extent determined by the funding agencies.

    We can follow this line of thought. Who controls the funding agencies? Well, they get their money from the politicians. Who controls the politicians? Another fable has it that it is the voting population. But without being too cynical we all know that substantial contributions to campaigns often play a deciding role. The author of Disciplined Minds credits the industrial military complex with putting a lot of the strings onto what is going on in the so-called intellectual world, in science. My interest here is not in sociological or political systems analysis, but it is of interest to us where our thoughts come from. I think we can always go one level further and acknowledge that the CEO's of big companies and the shakers and movers of Wall Street, for example-all of them also grew up from babyhood to adulthood, starting with a fairly clean slate of mind-but being indoctrinated by common human thoughts as they grew up.

    The statement of Isaiah indicating a difference of the ways and thoughts between God and humankind can be seen in different ways. It can be seen as a separation of God and man-God simply is higher and therefore intrinsically different. But we know well from experiences of spiritual leaders since, and our own experience, that in fact there is no separation of God and His and Her creation. How then can we, within the capacities of our facilities, comprehend these higher ways? I think the first acknowledgement that is required here is that spiritual teachings down through the ages, and now, are necessarily "dumbed down" if you will, to a level of comprehension acceptable to human beings. For example, we well know that in ancient times emphasis was on the commandments-the do's and don'ts. Thou shalt do this, and not the other thing. Clearly such simple commandments are just a tiny bit of the totality of the higher ways of the Lord's thinking. You might say, they are concentrated in a very much dumbed down version appropriate at some level. We know that Jesus brought a much more comprehensive approach, emphasizing if you will, principles much more than rote commandments. Think for yourself following some basic guidelines. And lo and behold you have all the equipment necessary to make wise choices in your life. And we've been interested also in the spiritual expression level, the level that influences even the content of thinking, from a sense of the fitness of things.

    None of these approaches are full representations of the higher ways of Being characteristic of the Creator. How then can we get an understanding of these ways? It seems to me that our starting point has to be humility. To start with we may do well recognizing different types and levels of intelligence rather than exalting one particular component as the one and all approach. To be specific, when we talk about science we largely talk about mental intelligence. Now this is the level of intelligence that I personally am pretty good at. I would say on any scale I am somewhere in the top one percent of people in terms of thinking ability. So what? It simply means that I personally can think a little faster, a little bit more technically, maybe a bit deeper at times than some other people. And there are quite a few individuals who can do all of this better than I can. There is nothing wrong with the particular aptitude and talent in one area, but there is absolutely no need for a puffed up, essentially insecure ego thinking that this particular ability is the ultimate achievement.

    What are some other components of intelligence? There is, for example, emotional intelligence. In the beginning of the hour I mentioned my sense that everyone on the phone line is necessary for us to accomplish what the Lord might wish to create in this moment. To make things explicit-not to pick on anyone in particular!-but just reflecting my own thinking, within the range of my voice, within the group of participants that we have on line, there are certainly some individuals who I would consider in the top one percent (whatever scale we want to use here) of emotional intelligence, well beyond my personal forte. I would mention Judith, or Tessa, or David Barnes. Even if there are some on the phone lines who don't know these friends personally, we do know from the comments they occasionally make that there is a particular angle they bring to our common creation that I would label emotional intelligence-the perception on a different level from what is acceptable to mental intelligence. There is also spiritual intelligence. For example, Jean and Larry come to my mind as people with an exceptional ability to sense atmosphere and exude tranquility, which comes from a level of recognition of a reality deeper than the mental and emotional levels. These are friends that complement our community with exceptional spiritual intelligence.

    We need not stop here. As Alan mentioned recently, and many times before (and others as well), all of creation has a role to play at a level of intelligence appropriate to their forms. Animals often have a particular sense of smell and access a range of creation that we, as humans, certainly do not perceive directly with our senses. Plants of course enable life by producing oxygen for us, but also, to give just one example, have a very fine ability to sense larger cycles-the seasons. We know that it is spring and summer and fall by the reaction of the plants, don't we?-the sprouting forth, the full bloom, and the turning of the color.

    So we acknowledge that the Lord's ways are the ways of His and Her creation, which is a comprehensive creation on many levels, with all parts of the creation and all of us having a role to play. Today, we again celebrate the willingness of all of us on the phone lines, and all of us participating in other ways, to come together and marvel at and participate in the ways of the Creator. We do this with humility. We have no undo respect for intellectual powers. We certainly do not think that the latest scientific breakthroughs will usher in paradise. Nor, incidentally, do we worship emotional or spiritual intelligence on its own. No, it takes all the components working in concert. To me, that is the greatest undertaking available to us.