The Other Side

The people who guide mountain climbers up the Himalayas are called sherpas. They know

the face of Mount Everest like the back of their hands—the ways to go to get to the top and the ways to avoid. The sherpas    live in the valley below; they see the mountain every day. But according to Jacob Bronowski in Science and Human Values, when they are shown images of Everest from the valley on the other side of the mountain, they can hardly believe what they see. They know one side of the mountain, but the other side is not familiar to them.*

There are many brilliant scientists who do not believe in God. Men and women with Ph.D.s in their discipline. They know their field. But science knows only one side of the mountain. There is another side, and you have to put yourself in another place in order to see it. There are, in fact, many scientists who are able and willing to ‘relocate’ their thinking in order to see the spiritual side of life. Reality is bigger than what scientific evidence can show us. Science is limited to one side of the mountain. Moses went up the mountain to receive God’s Instructions. Jesus went up the mountain to be transfigured. If we stay in the valley on one side of the mountain, we limit our view of life and its meaning.

The Holy Mystery is known only by looking from the other side.

*(Reported in the Christian Century, May 17, 2011)

[The photo was taken by me--no, not the Himalayas, but the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina]

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